In BIA/Kelsey’s latest report in our series on advanced TV, Advanced TV: Executive Views on Industry Progress and Directions, we highlight discussions with executives coming from media and data companies. In their views, the current state of Advanced TV comes down to continued efforts in developing and transitioning to new automated workflow, particularly for cross-platform campaigns, industry education and commitment to change and the goals for this change, smarter use of better data for understanding and targeting audiences and building better brand relationships.
The key characteristics of advanced TV platforms are that they (a) offer more automated workflow, (b) support infusion of more rich data sets into the buying/selling process beyond age and gender emphasizing behavioral characteristics, or (c) target audiences with specific content primarily limited to the household level.
Accomplishing success in each area however requires quite a grab bag of technology stacks, workflows, business requirements, and business models. The adoption process for Advanced TV is a bit unwieldy given all the lines it crosses among buyers, sellers, vendors, and platforms. But we’re certainly seeing an uptick in advanced TV spending in the national market and this is moving into the local TV market with increasing acceleration.
BIA/Kelsey defines “advanced TV” as linear TV platforms including automated TV, programmatic TV, addressable TV, OTT, Smart TV, Connected TV, and with the recent FCC approval of Next-Gen local TV standards, ATSC 3.0.
Here are some of the insights shared by industry executives on industry on new directions for Advanced TV:
- Matt Mitchell, 4C TV, observes the industry using programmatic TV sales as a complementary approach/tactic to traditional TV sales. The lack of available inventory at the local and national level has not allowed agencies and brands to replace the current buying process with a programmatic approach. The majority of scatter inventory will be programmatic within five years, but tent-pole and sponsorships may continue to be sold differently.
- Chris Pizzurro, Canoe Ventures, argues that TV does TV well, and digital does digital well. But what the industry needs is the ability to plan, execute, deliver same campaign cross-platform.
- Brian Norris, DISH, sees that on the buy-side there is some reorganizing. He’s seeing many of their agency partners creating specific buying groups dedicated to advanced TV media. [Norris recently joined Audience Studio Sales, NBCU.]
- Brad Danaher, Experian, believes that clients need to identify customers across channels, in real-time with a holistic, 360-degree view of customers – identifying them in every channel to drive better insights, targeting and engagement. Once the new data becomes part of the new workflow, change will be rapid.
- Nicole Ruby, Fox (AIM), sees a need for change. While marketers have been using data to understand their core consumer for years, when it comes to transacting on psychographic data, not all advanced data sets are created equal. This is probably one of the single biggest challenges the industry faces right now: how do you decide which data set to use for your advanced target when you aren’t bound to traditional sources for age/gender?
- Andrew Feigenson, Simmons Research, perceives that for content creators such as broadcasters and TV networks (cable and broadcast), the most crucial need in the advanced TV realm is understanding and acting on consumer discovery and choice. On the other hand, understanding consumer values and tying them to effective brand messaging and storytelling are crucial for brands and their agencies, in the advanced TV realm.
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