3 ways TV will become more advanced in 2021
At the start of a new year full of promise and possibility, the future of advanced TV advertising has never looked brighter
Advanced TV encompasses a variety of interconnected solutions and platforms within the TV and digital video ecosystem, including video-on-demand (VOD), connected TV (CTV), over-the-top (OTT), audience-based linear, programmatic and addressable TV. Here are some of the ways advanced TV advertising will move forward in 2021.
Unification of linear and digital
The pandemic that started last year had an enormous impact on TV consumption, with UK viewers spending almost six-and-a-half hours watching audio-visual content per day during the first lockdown, according to an Ofcom Media Nations report. Linear TV accounted for much of this rise, with broadcast viewing still 11% higher than average in June. But viewers also increased consumption of other channels such as VOD, largely through CTV platforms.
CTV is defined as a television set that is connected to the internet either via an external device such as a streaming box or a games console, or – in the case of smart TVs – by its own built-in capabilities. CTV is driving the convergence of linear TV and digital video, with consumers now switching effortlessly between channels and platforms on their favourite viewing device to satisfy their immediate content needs. As CTV consumption continues to surge in 2021, it provides advertisers with the opportunity to reach new or harder to reach audiences, highly-engaged in premium, brand-safe environments, and to achieve incremental reach on top of linear campaigns.
Advertisers are welcoming this growing appetite for CTV but key to their success will be the ability to deliver seamless experiences across all premium video environments. Publishers will need to respond by ensuring linear and digital inventory can be viewed holistically and can be effectively sold and executed in a unified way. While some progress has already been made in areas such as linear schedule optimisation through digital ad decisioning tools – which enables dynamic linear-digital cross-platform optimisation – there is still more work to be done over the coming months, in particular for addressable advertising on traditional TV channels.
Growing desire for data-driven advertising
Addressability will be a major trend for 2021 as marketers begin to appreciate the value of using high-quality data insights to target TV advertising at household level. In fact, three-quarters of the UK’s most prominent brands have already experienced the benefits of addressable TV advertising thanks to Sky AdSmart, which provides access to 30 million targetable TV viewers in the UK and Ireland. Through addressable advertising, marketers can precisely target TV advertising based on location or on household attributes. For example, they can choose to serve ads to pet owners, early tech adopters or expectant families.
According to CoLab’s recent research for FreeWheel, UK marketers surveyed see addressable TV advertising as effective for driving objectives at all levels of the funnel, including acquiring new customers (upper funnel) and increasing customer loyalty (lower funnel). In 2021 this type of targeting will become increasingly prominent, with 74% of marketers questioned expecting to increase addressable spend by an average of 9%. Addressable TV will allow advertisers to gain incremental reach by targeting niche audiences or light TV viewers, and will enable smaller regional brands to explore TV advertising.
To make the most of increased interest in targeted TV advertising, media owners will make more of their inventory addressable. This process will involve breaking down barriers between digital and TV teams and leveraging privacy compliant first-party data to enable richer targeting.
New opportunities through industry collaboration
To drive addressable advertising forward this year and beyond, media company will need close collaboration with other broadcasters, distributors and industry partners. There are some great examples in the US, where initiatives such as On Addressability, and project OAR (Open Addressable Ready) are driving progress towards scalable capabilities across formats and a common technology for dynamic, addressable ad management.
Likewise, we’ve seen successful collaborations around addressable advertising in the UK, including the AdSmart partnership between Sky, Virgin Media and Channel 4. And it’s not just addressable advertising that will benefit from increased collaboration in the year ahead, but the entire advanced TV space. Advertisers need streamlined solutions that enable them to buy across channels, platforms and devices, so media companies must work together, through either new partnerships or existing collaborations, to deliver access to premium, brand-safe advanced TV environments at scale.
The year ahead is an open book, ready and waiting to be filled with industry developments and progression. Through unification of linear and digital in connected TV, increased emphasis on addressable advertising, and a collaborative approach across the ecosystem, advanced TV is geared up and ready to expand in 2021.