The BEE solution (which stands for Brand Exposure & Engagement) harnesses data from 2+ million Bouygues Telecom set-top boxes plus existing Realytics technology to provide deterministic single-source measurement of national linear TV, BVOD and addressable TV. The exposure data can then be linked to downstream online consumer activity, such as website visits, app downloads, SMS responses and calls to a call centre (including incremental activity).

Realytics provides a platform that helps buyers optimise their media plans by harnessing a previous understanding of how TV advertising impacted business outcomes, and this is also wrapped into the BEE solution. Thus, advertisers are given a better understanding of the frequency needed to generate web activity, the number of impressions needed to deliver X% of incremental reach, and also the consequences of over-exposure of a household to the same campaign.

Guillaume Belmas, CEO of Realytics, believes the French market provides an outstanding model for how to deploy addressable TV successfully, due to the exceptional pan-industry collaboration that enabled rapid take-off. As we reported previously, his company has just authored the second edition of its ‘Addressable TV in France’ white paper series, outlining progress and next steps.

One of those next steps is improved measurement and attribution, and with a large part of French TV consumption still found on the set-top boxes of service providers like Orange, SFR, Free and Bouygues Telecom, operator partnerships carry significant weight. Discussing the market needs generally, Belmas says: “There are still improvements to be made on reporting addressable TV advertising.

“Everyone has been focused on making targeted TV a reality and signing deals, but in the last few months both the buyside and sell-side agreed that we now need more proof of the efficacy of campaigns.”

He observes that usage of smart TV sets and connected TV apps is low in France compared to the rest of Europe.  Catch-up TV and BVOD are overwhelmingly consumed via set-top boxes, and this means measurement efforts must include a core focus on the service provider set-top box.

“The first goal of BEE is to measure exposure and reach, because one of the buyside priorities is to understand how they avoid audience duplication as they spread their money across advertising on linear TV, catch-up and addressable. Then there are questions about the performance of the different ‘channels’: does my linear TV perform better than my addressable TV campaign, and what about the BVOD campaign?

“Our history is as a TV attribution company, so we can show if campaigns are driving web traffic or other outcomes. One of the big questions for brands has always been, ‘How many impressions do I need to trigger an activity like a website visit or app download?’ That is a crucial insight if you want to fix the ideal frequency for a campaign. Before, we could not answer these questions, but now we can.”

Within its wider product portfolio, Realytics has its own TV detection technology that will flag in real-time when an ad has aired, using fingerprinting, but the focus with BEE is using set-top box data to determine exposure, and this is the basis for showing de-duplicated reach across the different ‘channels’ being measured and therefore the incremental reach that addressable TV can deliver.

“Some of the top questions that buyers want answered are: what is the duplication per channel, how do I optimise to avoid duplication, which is the second or third ‘channel’ I should buy [for example, adding BVOD onto a linear campaign first, or using addressable first and then BVOD], and what is the ideal combination of those channels?”

With BEE, buyers can focus on exposure to gain these reach and incremental reach optimisation insights, but there is also the option to investigate performance as a second stage, and this is when Realytics’ TV attribution solution is fired up. “Not everyone is concerned with ‘drive-to-web’ but everyone is concerned with reach and frequency,” Belmas explains.

Realytics expects to expand the footprint where its exposure and attribution technology can be used.

Realytics has a central role in the French addressable TV advertising market, especially through its work with Bouygues Telecom. In addition to providing enhanced capabilities for measuring exposure and effectiveness of addressable TV advertising with the telco, its Adkymia DSP is part of the TVMOTIK alliance and tech stack designed to rationalise buying of linear TV and catch-up addressable TV inventory from multiple broadcasters in Bouygues Telecom homes. This alliance also involves Equative, which contributes campaign development, ad decisioning and scheduling capabilities.

TVMOTIK is based upon the principles of technical harmonisation (including use of AF2M/SNPTV requirements for linear TV) and therefore interoperability, and is designed to rationalise buying across multiple channels for advertisers, providing a one-stop-shop. It includes technology services and sales support. It is viewed as a way to lower the barriers to entry for TV channels of any size if they want to make their inventory available for addressable advertising (on Bouygues Telecom STBs).

Last year, in another project, Realytics worked with SNPTV (the advocacy group for TV and audiovisual advertising media in France), to investigate the effect of using linear TV and addressable TV together. One of the main points of the study was to determine if addressable TV delivers incremental reach on top of linear.

As indicated above, the Realytics product portfolio spans ad detection, ad exposure confirmation, programmatic buying enablement and TV attribution. The Adkymia Demand Side Platform can be used to buy both linear and addressable TV campaigns programmatically and Realytics is also using eight years’ worth of data (and 7 million spot impressions in Europe) to feed AI processing that optimises media buying to maximise drive-to-web impact via this DSP.

Realytics helps advertisers to synchronise their TV and digital campaigns, like timing their paid search (and especially their bidding in order to reach top search spot) to coincide with television ads. This is viewed as a key optimisation that can help ‘drive-to-web’. Online impact can be attributed to TV at a granular level, including on a per-channel (TV distribution channel) or per-day basis. The key principle guiding this technology is the idea that the first impact of TV advertising is usually seen in search.

The company also supports retargeting of exposed TV audiences in digital, including on Facebook, and targeting of non-exposed audiences within digital. There is also the ability to find audiences in the digital space who are lookalikes for the TV exposed audience.

As part of smartclip and RTL Group, Realytics is taking a pan-European view of the cross-platform and addressable TV markets and Belmas believes that in markets where HbbTV is being used by broadcasters to enable addressable TV in free-to-air homes, via television sets, it is realistic to believe we can unify addressable TV planning and buying to cover this and the Pay TV operator STB inventory.

In terms of measurement and attribution, the data available from a telco/Pay TV home is much richer than anything Realytics can get from an HbbTV household, but publisher (broadcaster streaming) data would be one foundation stone for exposure, and other data sources including ACR could be harnessed.

Adtech — with its origins lying in two historically male-dominated industries — still has some way to go to reach gender parity, particularly at executive level. Research has shown that although more than half (57%) of those working in adtech are female, women are still under-represented at senior level, with only 33% in leadership positions. This statistic is disappointing, but it does mirror wider research, which shows that the proportion of women in senior management roles globally grew to 31% in 2021. Encouragingly, this was the highest number ever reported, which gives hope that we are making steps, albeit slowly, towards a more equitable future.

When it comes to pursuing our ambitions and being successful leaders, women still face wildly different barriers in the workplace than men face. Whether it’s gender bias (conscious or unconscious), stereotyping, less established female leadership networks, lack of visibility, fewer prospects for career progression, or lack of support around family responsibilities, we need to find appropriate ways to overcome these barriers.

What factors do we need to consider to advance gender parity in the adtech industry?

For any company to achieve gender parity, there are two key challenges relating to gender discrimination — individual discrimination and institutional discrimination — that need to be weighed and considered in terms of what is plausible at a company level. Individual discrimination by those still consciously disadvantaging women can be completely tackled at a company level by developing solutions that prevent discrimination and removing the obstacles for female talent to progress. This creates a better environment for female talent, which then leads to attracting more female talent and building a true competitive advantage.

Institutional discrimination is much more complex to tackle. This type of discrimination is when, in the absence of direct information about an individual’s abilities, employers base decisions on stereotypical notions about an individual’s perceived demographic group. For example, if most of the parental burden is still assumed to lie with women, and if employers still perceive that women will therefore have a greater need for time off, there will still be a perceived economic rationale for employers to hire and promote men over women. A solution for this issue could be to give men more avenues to share parental duties, whether that be through government-led or company-led initiatives.

Of course, the issues surrounding gender inequality in the workplace are exceptionally complex and cannot only be viewed just through these two lenses or solved by a few good measures. These issues are also clearly not specific to adtech; however, they are specifically relevant for adtech — a talent-focused industry where in order for companies to remain successful they need to hire and retain exceptional talent at all levels.

A workforce with diverse backgrounds and perspectives can be an asset to any company, but having a workforce with those attributes doesn’t happen by accident. To build a diverse team and really reap the benefits, companies need those diverse backgrounds and perspectives to be fully represented in their management team. The presence of female leaders, for example, gives other female employees a potential mentor — further enhancing the careers of those employees — and our inherent communication skills can result in better negotiations, more effective relationships, and higher levels of motivation among staff.

Companies and leaders can make a difference

At smartclip, we are making a concerted effort to empower a diverse workforce and leadership team. As of today, women make up 39.8% of the workforce at smartclip, and 38.1% of all leadership positions are held by women. While these leadership figures are higher than the industry average, we still have a long way to go. To that end, we have various initiatives in place to help ensure women are offered the support they need, and we hope these initiatives may serve as inspiration for other companies in our industry — just as much as other companies inspire additional efforts on our side.

One big move we made last year was to establish a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee that seeks to create organisation-wide strategies, systems, and best practices that serve and grow our diverse community. Other entities within the RTL Group are interested in joining, and we are now planning to broaden the scope of the Committee across the Group.

Additionally, we offer a number of development programmes including courses and individual coaching, and within that framework, we provide individual support to strengthen our female leaders. For example, I recently had the opportunity to take part in the Oxford Women’s Leadership Development Programme. Moreover, our development programmes are designed to support not only female leaders — but also women at every level. We strongly believe that a key instrument we can use to help women advance in their careers is to offer development programmes at entry level. Also, as smartclip is a subsidiary of RTL Group, our female leaders have access to mentoring programmes and the regular networking meetings offered within FEMpowermentNET, an exchange network for women founded by the employees of RTL.

Another significant measure that we launched in our Stockholm office, as part of our continued efforts to support employees with children, was the addition of a children’s playroom within the office. Availability of childcare has been one of the biggest struggles for working parents since the pandemic. With daycares closing for extended periods and nannies needing to take time off sick, parents were facing many challenges with coordinating childcare during working hours. Now, if our employees in Stockholm cannot organise childcare, they are able to bring their children to the office.

Advice to aspiring female leaders in adtech

At the same time as we look for opportunities to combat gender inequality and support women at the company level, women can also look for opportunities to connect with other women — whether through mentorship, women’s networks, et cetera. These connections can help women to learn from each other’s experiences, overcome similar challenges, or take advantage of certain opportunities, and ultimately give women an opportunity to support one another. In that regard, International Women’s Day seems like a great occasion for me to share some of my own learnings and advice for aspiring female leaders in the adtech industry:

• Find a company whose mission aligns with yours and a role you are passionate about, and ensure that company is equally passionate about championing female leaders.
• It is crucial to be aware of your context — and how it evolves and changes. Responding to context appropriately and effectively is what makes good, thoughtful, strategic leaders.
• It is important to adapt to change — but don’t just react to those changes when they arrive, actively scan ahead to strategise for what’s coming. For example, the growth of AI, especially tools that address more creative duties, will certainly have an impact on my team, and given the higher proportion of women working in marketing functions, this is a change that many women will need to adapt to. Identify the changes that will impact your function, company, and industry — strategise and evolve.
• Be courageous, trust yourself, speak up, and take calculated risks. In order to be truly innovative in our industry, we need to take risks.
• Don’t assume you need to be more like men in order to succeed; effective female leaders also draw on their genuine and inherent qualities and traits rather than hiding them. This is particularly relevant as we enter the age of AI; technology will be a tool that amplifies human abilities, so companies will need more of the human side — especially in terms of empathy and creativity — to guide those tools.
• Work diligently on areas you need to improve — none of us are perfect. Always remember that it’s okay to be human; my own early leadership experiences were very much trial and error — and often a lot of the latter — but every experience, positive or negative, is an opportunity to strategise for a better tomorrow.

Change has to be supported by everyone not only by those affected

The burden of achieving gender parity should not and cannot only lie on the shoulders of the women in the adtech industry. If you’re a man in a leadership position within our industry, there’s a lot you can do to support the women around you. This could include mentoring women, speaking up on topics pertaining to diversity and inclusion, asking yourself if the women who report to you are paid and treated fairly in relation to the men on your team, and hiring more women. Think about how you can purposefully advocate for the women in your organisation.

This creates fierce competition for the multi-billion Euro TV advertising business that was previously dominated by big broadcasting groups. Despite the rise in competition, broadcasters are still in a leading position and remain the driving force shaping the future of TV advertising.

Competition for TV budgets is coming from different angles — and different players

There are three main areas in which new and existing players are refocusing their efforts to provide TV-like offerings — many of which have already become part of the regular mix seen in successful big screen advertising strategies. The combination of scalable reach, data-based targeting opportunities, and digital delivery of big screen video ads are key success factors. In addition to this, social media apps like TikTok, Facebook and Instagram aim to take part in TV advertising budgets with TV-like offerings for the small screen and younger target audiences.

Hardware manufacturers such as Samsung, LG, and Roku are heavily investing in free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) offerings, which they embed into their user interfaces and thus integrate seamlessly into the TV browsing experience. This method allows them to overcome the boundaries between traditional TV viewing and online video streaming.

Most services are focusing on the aggregation of content, but some are beginning to invest in exclusive content as a way to create unique selling propositions. In addition, automatic content recognition (ACR) technologies embedded on the platforms allow the aggregation of data points, which form the basis for exclusive targeting products within these services.

Some manufacturers use white-label offerings of existing globally active video content aggregators such as Pluto TV and RLAXX.tv that offer their content independently and compose bouquets of local and global video streaming content. FAST services offer newly created linear video channels independent of platform and distribution. These services are available on most devices but are mainly consumed on smart TVs. The growth in this segment can be attributed to FAST’s ability to achieve decent traffic volumes and create an attractive environment for advertisers.

Established VOD services are following suit with ad-supported offerings (i.e., AVOD). In the past, most leading global SVOD services focused mainly on subscription-based business models, but have begun to extend their offerings to include ad-supported services. Recent announcements from Netflix, Disney and Amazon are prime examples of a shift towards ad-supported on-demand streaming services.

Although we are seeing this shift, we should acknowledge YouTube, as it has always focused on advertising-funded content distribution. Additionally, all platforms will continue to attract TV budgets by adding exclusive content rights such as live coverage of major events.

There are also several streaming services focused on one genre of content, which they mostly produce or licence for this specific purpose. These services also fall under the FAST or AVOD labels and are primarily available to viewers free of charge. Music streaming services like Vevo, Xite.tv, and Qwest.tv are available on most major mobile and TV devices but continuously face the challenge of generating relevant traffic volumes. This challenge results in services like these partnering with streaming content aggregators.

For broadcasters, full addressability is key

Many European broadcasters have defined “addressability” as one of their top strategic priorities. Transforming the traditional TV advertising business model towards addressability – with its granular targeting capabilities – is a critical factor for a sustainable long-term product and commercial strategy.

There are numerous methods broadcasters are using to achieve the goal of shaping the future of the TV advertising industry. We have seen broadcasters attempt to optimise targeting methods across different devices and audiences by developing products that enable the unique collection of TV viewing data. Another way that has become very popular in recent years is the growth of external initiatives such as mergers, acquisitions, and strategic alliances between broadcasters, media sales houses, and adtech companies. It is through these methods that broadcasters hope to accumulate a large share of TV advertising budgets.

Three core areas of addressability

There are three main areas of what we call “addressability” in the European TV advertising landscape.

1. Addressability in broadcast TV via HbbTV

 Most relevant for linear TV is addressability within the broadcast TV stream via HbbTV and the emerging HbbTV-TA standard. For most major broadcasters, traditional television still holds the largest share of consumption and thus the largest share of advertising revenue. Therefore, broadcasters are heavily investing in solutions that take advantage of the massive reach traditional TV provides.

In Europe, one of the key drivers is the HbbTV standard. This allows for the combination of traditional TV distribution (e.g. cable, satellite, terrestrial) and insertion of digital ads into the broadcast stream. In markets like Germany, Spain and Italy, insertions of display ads have been the key driver behind the success of Addressable TV advertising. As HbbTV has traditionally been somewhat limited in the quest to substitute the ad break, the development from HbbTV to the new HbbTV-TA standard is a groundbreaking advancement. HbbTV-TA now creates the basis for frame-accurate substitution of ads within the ad break in combination with granular device-specific targeting.

[The HbbTV-TA specification was introduced by HbbTV.org in 2020 and includes specific capabilities that allow advanced targeting advertising (TA). The major benefit for broadcasters, platforms, and operators lies in the opportunity to create a seamless substitution of video ads within a traditional TV ad break. smartclip has already successfully introduced the substitution of the ad break based on HbbTV-TA in Germany. More details on HbbTV-TA at hbbtv.org] 

2. Addressability in broadcast TV via managed platforms

Another form of addressability within the broadcast TV stream is through collaborations with managed platforms. Broadcast distribution in markets like France, Benelux and Nordic countries is mainly executed through proprietary ecosystems of telcos and operators. Another example is the addressable TV solution enabled via the Sky AdSmart platform in the UK. Broadcasters are closely collaborating with telcos and operators to enable addressable TV solutions. In markets like France and Belgium these collaborations have already led to successful ATV advertising propositions.

3. Addressability in linear live stream and BVOD

Given that the big screen remains the preferred viewing method of video content consumption, the final area of addressability is linear live streaming and BVOD. It is no secret that the demand and usage for content consumption on digital platforms is constantly increasing. As consumer habits continuously change, broadcasters are responding by expanding their services on digital platforms. Services may be offered on all digital devices, but the big screen remains king. This is illustrated by a large share of viewers using BVOD and linear TV streaming apps via smart TVs.

These owned digital offerings put broadcasters in a unique position to combine their linear programme with on-demand functionalities and exclusive access to locally produced content. Advertising within these offerings can be delivered via pre-rolls, mid-rolls, or by substituting ad breaks in linear streams through Server-Side Ad Substitution (SSAS) technologies.

Conclusion

As the TV and digital advertising industry react to the momentous news regarding digital SVOD players moving towards advertising-funded business models, we need to keep in mind who the true advertising powerhouses have been and still are. European TV broadcasters generate billions of euros and remain the clear leaders in advertising revenues — providing the perfect position to drive a shift in TV ad budgets towards digital.

Achieving addressability on all distribution platforms is not an easy task, but broadcasters have already proven that their advancements and investments in addressable TV products are paying off. Our sister company and tech partner, smartclip, is already providing major broadcasters like Atresmedia and RTL Germany with comprehensive addressable TV products throughout all their distribution platforms. smartclip’s recent acquisition of Realytics adds the power of TV data analytics and TV data attribution to the product mix.

In the shadow of the public focus on the advancements of Netflix, Disney, and other streaming services towards ad-funded “TV-like” offerings, European broadcasters have already done their homework and secured a head-start in the race for big screen advertising budgets.

References:

^[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/799762/tv-ad-spend-in-western-europe/

The companies say the ACR-powered viewership data will enable advertisers “to achieve incremental results beyond linear TV buys and measure campaign reach and frequency” in a country where 82% of the adult population watch connected TV content.

The announced launch marks the fifth international expansion for Samba TV in 2022, after having expanded its advanced TV footprint in Britain, Germany, Australia and France. It also represents the second consecutive “top 15 world advertising market” it has entered this year alone.

David Barker, SVP of International Sales at Samba TV, said: “We are thrilled to be announcing our latest partnership with Smartclip in Spain to offer advertisers an advanced new capability to connect with audiences across every screen, delivering seamless viewing experiences in the growing CTV space.

“The combination of our privacy-compliant viewership data and Smartclip’s impressive tech infrastructure will empower advertisers to drive meaningful business impact and future-proof their omni-screen advertising strategies as viewership behavior continues to evolve.”

Ángel Fernández Nebot, Country Manager Spain at Smartclip, commented: “At Smartclip, we continue to move towards integrated solutions, which respond to current multi-screen consumption. Our strategic partnership with Samba TV allows us to achieve a unique position in the market.

“Thanks to this agreement, we can offer the best advertising solutions, taking advantage of the synergy between linear television and the rest of the media. Together we will deliver the Spanish market far greater efficiency in the media plans of our advertisers, helping to maximize the results of their advertising investments.”