The TV ecosystem is more fragmented than ever and shows no sign of slowing, writes Tom Hatton, Managing Director at MiQ Manchester.
With over 67% of UK households owning a smart (Connected) TV already and an ever-increasing number of TV content choices available to both consumers and advertisers, the message couldn’t be clearer: TV is not dying, it’s changing and changing fast into Advanced TV (ATV).
ATV is a deceptively simple term that encapsulates all non-traditional TV delivery. It’s one where consumers will slide seamlessly between OTT, CTV, SVOD, ATVOD, PVOD BVOD and so-on calling it all simply ‘telly’. Yet the industry is a long way from speaking the same language.
You want to target the same audience with the same creative across different channels that are planned and activated differently. But because of the technical, structural and measurement silos that exist, simply understanding your audience holistically presents a huge challenge – even before activating anything.
Unifying the fragmented online market space
We do know that the valuable younger audience are deserting traditional TV. Data shows that 18-34 year-olds watched 77 minutes of linear TV per day in 2018 – a number predicted to drop precipitously to 53 minutes/day this year. Are they watching less TV content? Of course not, they’re just shifting their viewing habits to CTV, YouTube and social media. The message for advertisers: If you’re planning TV campaigns, don’t forget about digital.
Audiences are also learning that when they run out of stuff to watch on more traditional mediums there’s a whole wealth of content free to access at the push of a button. Yet there seems to be a view in the market that AVOD means poor-quality, less mainstream content than that on the more well-known BVOD and SVOD providers.
We need to debunk this myth. Partly, this is about educating brands about AVOD platforms. Most of them are actually owned by very well-recognised brands (for example, Paramount owns Pluto TV). On top of this, we are now seeing impression availability grow month-on-month as reach extends past the 10 million mark across AVOD and SVOD. AVOD is becoming a go-to channel for broadcasters looking for maximum reach at an efficient price and can be a vital link between linear and digital campaigns.
We also know, from a Thinkbox study, that there is an average uplift of 20% on the advert effect when running online video/VOD alongside TV. This means that not only can you ensure you’re making the advert more effective through frequency but you are also increasing reach against the audiences that are beginning to move away from linear TV viewing habits.
When 80% of CTV ads will be served programmatically by the end of 2023, UK brands need the ability to coordinate the planning and execution of programmatic TV campaigns seamlessly and simultaneously across all linear and digital channels, regardless of platform, through a single point of access.
Complementing TV through authenticated BARB measurement
We understand the challenge facing advertisers to find this hard-to-reach audience with existing tools and methodologies. At the same time, we understand the importance of finding and reaching this segment by leveraging our BARB partnership to combine it with extensive data capabilities in order to target and reach TV users that are no longer on (traditional) TV.
That’s why the magnitude of offline and cookieless data that enable you to understand your audience in extremely granular detail is tantamount to map the UK geographically. In other words, you can truly activate against this audience with an omnichannel approach, stretching outside of just digital channels.
We believe it’s important that CTV should be considered an extension of your overall TV campaign. Therefore, looking at incremental reach ensures brands understand the role it plays in terms of reaching the right audience, as well as pinning that back to how effective it is in terms of cost.
TV is not dying, it’s changing. Are you changing with it?
MiQ has put together a special ebook to help brands and advertisers understand the power of Advanced TV in 2023 and beyond. It discusses the importance of partnering with the best supply partners in the space, how to use TV data-driven planning to take your programmatic campaigns to the next level and more.
