The challenges and opportunities of CTV were at the centre of three global industry events the week before last, from New York – AdWeek’s Convergent TV, to London – Connected TV World Summit and New Video Frontiers.
illuma representatives were in attendance alongside A-list line-ups of the biggest names in broadcasting, streaming and TV tech, as well as agencies and media buyers. With an aim to share new thinking and best practices on the business and technological transformation of TV, each event kicked off with facts and figures about the well-documented growth of CTV.
A new statistic presented by Ampere Analysis showed that the industry has finally reached a tipping point: Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD), which includes platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu, has now overtaken linear TV in the UK, with BVOD (Broadcaster Video on Demand) not far behind.
98% of brands believe CTV ads will overtake mobile advertising to engage with new audiences, increase engagement levels, and capitalise on higher lifetime value.
2023 AppsFlyer Report
But the infrastructure and capabilities of CTV still need to be ironed out, and consensus across the events was that industry collaboration is required to do so.
5 CTV topics to keep an eye on:
- Making the most of a broadcaster or publisher’s existing CTV supply: There is a strong temptation for ad tech companies to grow their CTV supply through FAST channels. Players like Finecast, however, are taking a different approach by extracting more value from the partners they already have. This has enabled them to co-create contextual models with the likes of Paramount for a luxury brand.
- Why custom content classification will become a standardised practice to better monetise CTV inventory: The connected nature of CTV can result in doubling ad fatigue and wasted spend. Publishers can avoid this by partnering with a vendor who can classify their content against a custom taxonomy. One who can take web content that is well described and create synergistic, omnichannel connections.
- Sweeping data across multiple services: This is necessary to understand audience overlaps and increase targeting capabilities. Media owners will want to know when their customers are moving in and out of BVOD, AVOD, SVOD etc. Creating a custom taxonomy that can classify content on all services would be a good starting point. Moreover, app providers should be open to sharing their data with broadcasters to be classified against their taxonomy.
- Unified Measurement: The lack of standard metrics is keeping the ecosystem fragmented and holding up the move towards omni-channel targeting. Associations like BARB are helping move the needle by allowing CTV advertisers to plan, buy and measure on a like-for-like basis with their traditional TV activity. With so many shifting their viewing to CTV, budget reallocation to these newer services is probable.
- Trust: Buyers need to be confident that the platforms aggregating supply have strong policies around brand safety, fraud, and user privacy.
Creating industry partnerships can be quite rigorous as parties work to understand the key motivators within each other’s businesses and how they can deliver value to both sides. This is why buyers, sellers, tech teams, editorial teams, and others, should be pursuing these conversations now. These collaborations will only strengthen the value that the independent advertising ecosystem can bring to brands and agencies and offer them both greater options and inventory to reach their fragmented audiences.
illuma is a contextual-AI specialist, working with broadcasters to help them leverage the myriad of signals from the open web for CTV. We are creating custom classification taxonomies based on metadata, content signals and more. This will help drive content discovery and monetisation, which can increase audience engagement with a publisher or broadcaster’s content library, offering them a big competitive advantage.
Get in touch to learn more about our CTV offering.
