In Broadcast - August 2019 - 53

53

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 9 - Issue 7 | August 2019

InForm

Three Steps to Effectively Harnessing
the Connected TV Opportunity
Rashmi Paul, Commercial Director, APAC, FreeWheel, says
marketers must partner with broadcasters, vendors and analytics
experts to empower omnichannel campaign success...

A

s connected TV reach and revenue
continue to rise, it's clear the
TV landscape is undergoing a rapid
evolution; and Asia Pacific is embracing
the shift. After achieving the fastest
global subscriber rate increase in 2018,
this year will see regional connected TV
growth of US$5 billion.
To take advantage of the opportunities
expanding TV horizons afford,
marketers must adapt their strategies
to the changing ecosystem. While the
wide array of channels offer potential
for increased exposure, informed
delivery is essential to achieve
maximum value and impact.
So what will be required to harness
connected TV effectively?
The answer lies in a combination of
accurate measurement and careful
media selection. But if marketers want
measurement to provide a meaningful,
practical basis for driving business
goals, a holistic, granular, silo-free
approach will be key.
Leveraging the fragmented
TV market
The diversification of TV creates both
new possibilities and priorities for
marketers. Although linear retains
a powerful draw for audiences accounting for 37% of media time
- and most digital video is consumed
on the living room TV set, increasingly
fragmented viewing means traditional
TV can no longer fuel the sales funnel

alone. Buying across multiple channels
is vital to optimise engagement
with relevant audiences, whether
unexposed or underexposed.
As a result, refined measurement and
quality safeguards are vital. Marketers
need assurance of safety, alongside
a precise view of where budgets
are allocated and which channels
drive greatest value to fuel the best
return on spend. The fast-changing
TV environment, however, also poses
challenges marketers must overcome
to obtain in-depth, omnichannel
insight.
Achieving frictionless buying
While the increasing availability of
connected TV extends advertising
scope, it also brings its own set of
buying considerations. There is
currently no single, unified means
of accessing the full spectrum of
omnichannel TV content, which can
make collective scale challenging.
Additionally,
maintaining
quality
requires careful scrutiny. With the
market still at a relatively nascent
stage, it's crucial to establish best
practices now to ensure the quality
concerns impacting digital display
aren't replicated on TV. Yet the
cookie-less nature of connected
TV can present an obstacle to
media
assessment;
limiting
the ability of existing desktop
certification mechanisms to identify

misrepresentation prior to purchase.
Both issues call for a more discerning
approach to media buying. To boost
scale, marketers need an aggregated
platform that provides multi-faceted
reach: covering varied sources,
including video-on-demand (VOD),
digital video, and over-the-top
(OTT) services. To protect quality,
marketers should also take care to
choose platforms that offer premium
inventory, supplied directly by
publishers. With a strong focus on
setting and upholding high media
standards, and guidance from TV
specialists,
marketers
prevent
unnecessary friction from limiting
campaign exposure and make sure ads
only appear beside reputable content.
Navigating complex supply chains
Once quality protection measures are
in place at the buying end, marketers
need a complete understanding of
how investment is distributed. Yet
achieving this in the increasingly
digitised TV market can be difficult.
Marketers are often faced with the
task of tracing non-transparent supply
chains; where multiple intermediaries
take a portion of ad spend, and the
value they provide isn't always clear.
This problem can be addressed with a
straightforward solution: streamlining
the programmatic supply chain. By
reducing the number of technology
providers to those that effectively
meet buy and sell-side needs, supply
chain simplification reduces distance
between advertisers and publishers,
and also makes it easier to consistently
track the destination of advertising
investment.
Bridging the linear to digital gap
The final hurdle marketers must tackle
in the new TV era is measuring ad
spend effectiveness. A cohesive view
of performance - both online and
offline - is paramount to assess the
contribution TV advertising makes to
the business bottom line, and guide
future investment. In a heavily siloed
ecosystem, however, this isn't easy.

Frequently, campaigns reach mobile
audiences watching VOD content,
linear viewers on the living room set,
and OTTs users via laptop; and are
measured using differing, incompatible
metrics and systems. This leaves
marketers unable to gain the insight
needed to evaluate the impact of
spend or determine how linear and
digital efforts can be coordinated to
complement their unique strengths.
Channelling Success
Progress is being made to bridge these
divides. In the US, third-party experts
and vendors are making strides
towards on-target connected TV
measurement. Closer to home, OzTAM
and Nielsen's Virtual Australia (VOZ)
initiative has produced a shared data
repository that houses information
about all linear and streamed
content consumption. For regional
marketers, this unified insight store
creates unprecedented coordination
possibilities; allowing them to connect
media planning across channels,
as well as syncing their reach and
frequency goals.
In the longer term, there is a
growing requirement for wider use
of integrated procedures. Marketers
should leverage authenticated, thirdparty measurement that breaks down
silos to generate a comprehensive
picture of omnichannel performance;
paving the way for advanced audience
segmentation,
better
investment
decisions, and continually rising return
on spend.
Evolution isn't new to TV, but the
steep growth of connected viewing
is driving significant and fast change
across the ecosystem - and marketers
need to keep up. Recognising and
moving to address the challenges TV
development brings will be crucial
to seize opportunities and maximise
audience engagement at a time
when competition for attention
is increasingly fierce. In addition
to raising the media quality bar,
simplifying supply chains and adopting
holistic measurement, marketers
must forge strong partnerships
with broadcasters, vendors and
measurement experts to power
optimal
omnichannel
campaign
success.
http://www.inbroadcast.com http://freewheel.tv/
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