This year’s Future TV Advertising Forum aimed to tackle some of the big questions surrounding TV and video marketing, particularly with respect to evolving technology and data opportunities.
Agency leaders, advertisers, media owners, ad tech companies, and research bodies from different markets shared their perspectives, and the amount of content and ideas discussed was quite staggering (somehow fitting over 40 different speakers and 9-panel discussions into 16 hours).
Here are my two highlights from the MediaTel event.
Measuring effectiveness
As TV becomes more addressable, methodologies for measuring TV effectiveness will become more sophisticated. With CRM data input, advertisers will have a clearer view on the relationship between consumers seeing their TV ad and consequently using their product. The current advantage digital-born channels have over TV is a clearer path to purchase so one can see why Google might consider programmatic TV as a potential challenger to their monopoly on Search.
The issue TV faces is that while it can still deliver effectiveness several years down the line, understanding that causal relationship is extremely difficult, requiring imperfect models and assumptions. On top of this, marketers and agencies face the growing pressure of short-term business targets, and cannot always easily attribute success to TV. With these things in mind, the shift from broadcast to addressable-at-scale may work to the TV markets’ advantage, in theory enabling CMOs and CFOs to enter the boardroom armed with a greater understanding of how changing their TV budget will affect the bottom line.
The relative value of data
The message from the mass market advertisers who spoke was quite clear: linear TV consistently delivers for them and until addressable TV can deliver at similar scale, the opportunity is limited. For a brand like Unilever, the concept of “wasteage” does not apply; there isn’t much value to segmenting customer groups at high efficiency, particularly once the associated data premiums and creative costs are factored in.
Conversely, for advertisers of high ticket items, the ability to identify in-market consumers and deliver personalised messaging can be extremely valuable. Addressable TV also represents a great opportunity for smaller, local brands. Platforms like Sky AdSmart, rather than cannibalising are growing the wider TV market – attracting a longer tail of advertisers who might otherwise not have been able to run on TV.
So while targeted and personalised TV strategies aren’t necessarily the priority for some of the bigger brands right now, increased scale will likely see that change. The key considerations here are around the value and quality of data available, which are inextricably tied to the nature of the product, and how consumers engage with it.
