Changing Channels: Converging on TV
Comcast Advertising and Freewheel created the Agency Leadership Council (‘ALC’) as a forum to exchange ideas and thought leadership amongst a broad set of buy-side television and digital experts, including senior executives across the major and independent agencies
Changing Channels is a series of articles that together look at the changing and evolving TV ecosystem - built from the direct insights and perspectives of the ALC membership - and will span some of the most salient issues impacting TV right now, including: fragmentation and convergence, ways to harness the power of TV in all its forms, and the challenges and opportunities facing the subject of effectiveness.
PART 1: CONVERGING ON TV
TV has changed. Linear TV remains the backbone of the television experience for the vast majority of audiences, but ‘new’ TV is here. It is connected, addressable and on demand. New TV is a blend of linear and digital, and it is critical that advertisers and agencies embrace the different ways that audiences can consume and enjoy the high-quality content that television is known for.
Better definition will help effective management
But to do that, we need to be able to define and set boundaries around television. This might feel counterintuitive to the industry, which is generally geared towards "breaking things" and replacing them later. However, constraints drive creativity, and we felt that at this point of change in the industry, we should look to understand the forces of both fragmentation and convergence.
As we discovered in our conversations with ALC members, TV is a fundamentally different thing right now and we can look at it through many different lenses. Vicky Fox, Chief Planning Officer at OMD UK, summed the challenge up nicely, in saying that "…we're at a difficult point of definition for TV - is this about a user experience, premium content, the way it's consumed or how it's delivered?…"
To illustrate the spectrum of change and definition, it’s worth reflecting that ITV as a linear TV broadcaster is 60 years old this year, but has itself been on a journey of digital transformation, leading to the launch of it's own programmatic platform - Project V. This is a journey of both transformation, but also fragmentation. The process of fragmentation in TV is not new, as Simon Thomas, Global Director Audiences Research at GroupM, reminds us, "…it's been happening ever since the launch of Channel 4 in 1982..."
Fragmentation at the "front"
The power of live, scheduled, broadcast TV remains constant for audiences, but this choice has been multiplied over time by a myriad of opportunities to access and watch TV on demand. According to recent research from video AdTech company Unruly, over 80% of UK and US consumers now have access to Connected TV (CTV) content through one or more connected devices, including Smart TV's, streaming devices, gaming consoles, and Set Top Boxes. The IAB definition of TV builds on this insight to identify "…content consumed on a TV screen, delivered via an internet connection. This includes TVs directly connected to the internet (Smart TV), as well as hardware that enables a TV to become connected, e.g. TV sticks, games consoles and set-top boxes that are connected to the internet…"
What is key here is that the TV screen remains central to a definition based on consumption - a position that Mihir Haria-Shah, Head of Broadcast at Total Media aligns with, saying "…Anything on the big screen can be considered TV content…." The "anything" he refers to allows us to also appreciate the many different platforms available to access viewing content, whether classified AVOD (Advertising-supported Video on Demand) or SVOD (Subscription funded Video on Demand), including Netflix, Amazon, Roku, Pluto, broadcasters such as ITV, 4, 5, NBCU and so on.
Dan Larden, Managing Partner at Infectious Media, built on this, saying "…there is a clear laid-back AVOD streaming opportunity for brands in a living room, but equally, there is a strong short form content opportunity that works hard to grab attention too, and no advertiser is yet doing both of these things well…". Tim Willcox, Managing Director of Amnet at Dentsu, suggested that "…even YouTube could be classified as TV, where delivered on a TV screen and if delivering "premium" content…"
With device and content access proliferation it is fair to say that audiences are absolutely fragmenting as a consequence - and in line with - this front-end fragmentation.
Fragmentation at the back
However, the changing consumer perspective on TV is also being driven by a change in the underlying systems and infrastructure that underpins it. Technology, and the data that fuels this, enables a greater number of advertising opportunities than ever before - there are now over 100m ad spots in the UK and growing exponentially, with regional, addressable, and programmatic buying points. Once an advertising medium only accessible to brands with big budgets, TV is now more flexible and available to businesses of all sizes.
This has flowed through to create a division in responsibility and expertise within media agencies. Where once there was only the "traditional" TV buyer, the new TV is also accessible to programmatic traders. Within the same contrast of agency roles and expertise, we can reflect on the more "relationship" driven way of planning and buying vs the automated and often auction-based way that audiences might be accessed. This ultimately creates a very technical and expertise-defined division within the agency, that may prevent integration on plans for advertisers and in the advertising experience for consumers - something that should concern us greatly.
Driving an agenda of convergence
It is with those concerns that fragmentation - although a natural process that supports innovation - should be addressed through active convergence. Convergence around a common, inclusive and holistic way of thinking about these many different aspects that we understand TV to represent.
Harriet Perry, Chief Digital Operations Officer at Omnicom UK frames this challenge well: "…We should be talking about one AV plan, focusing on different audiences and different conversations….". This suggests a sense of pragmatism and simplicity that the industry is not well known for. Confusion ultimately drives fragmentation, whereas convergence requires simplicity, transparency, and de-duplication. GroupM's Thomas reminds us that, as an industry "…We tend to over-complicate and over-intellectualise subjects. Focusing on audiences and outcomes will drive convergence…"
To dramatise how simplicity in thinking about TV can be embodied, we can consider greater advertiser budget flexibility (not creating artificial barriers to spend upfront between linear and on demand), ensuring that the objectives for the different parts of TV don’t get drawn into siloed "brand vs performance" tasks, and finally, ensuring that a single point of holistic TV ownership within the media agency is made, that can drive the convergence agenda.
Thomas translates simplicity into ease-of-use, saying "…there is no line - there is simply a transition. What's more important is that we focus on a collaborative industry and one that focuses on making accessing TV "easy" - easy access, planning, and measurement. Some of the major media platforms have shown us that this works in their space. SKY's AdSmart has done similarly for TV - the opportunity is for TV to be more flexible and smarter overall…"
Ultimately, as industry practitioners, we should be getting behind TV in all its forms, rather than championing the further fragmentation of it. Thinkbox - the industry body for TV - reminds us where our focus should be - reflecting that "…TV has more to offer advertisers than ever before. In a cluttered media world, TV continues to stand out as proven, trusted and – most importantly – pre-eminently effective… (with) an advertising environment that is second to none..." This is an idea we can all converge upon.
To be continued…