CTV's next shift - what it means for agencies and brands

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CTV’s star has been rising steadily for the last few years, but with a number of new entrants and business models continuing to fragment the market, brands are facing an evolution of their media plan staple diet. We’re going well in Australia – we pave the way globally within programmatic CTV thanks to innovative and focused broadcasters and ad-tech providers. But the space is about to undergo another shake up.

Ahead of a revolutionary few years in the space, Captify’s GM Krish Raja sits down for a chat with Head of Biddable at Spark Foundry Greg Cattelain to look at what’s to come for this industry and how brands might pivot their thinking.

Morning Greg! You’re a programmatic veteran in relative terms, and so you’ve probably seen every acronym and buzzword under the sun. In the context of the big screen and all that comes with that, what does addressability mean to you?

Lots of people think that addressability is one-to-one, but as CTV is often a shared experience it is more a one-to-many definition.

Therefore, addressability on CTV needs to be redefined as ‘better knowing who you’re addressing with your ad’. That’s literally what it should mean, but we still think it exclusively means one-to-one targeting. When it comes to understanding who is watching, log-in, particularly for BVOD is particularly valuable, but there are several other ways you can address ads. Those ways need to coexist alongside log-ins and publishers should embrace technologies that support them on that journey.

Why’s that? Surely person-based advertising is better than not person-based?

The way we target CTV today is good. Logged-in data is here to stay and is likely to expand in pretty much all mediums in the future – CTV is one of the main content mediums that’s really worth logging in for so there’s a strong user value exchange. But unfortunately, these audiences are pretty scarce, which can rapidly increase the price of inventory and can be a deterrent for advertisers. It’s not because it’s “person-based” that we should lose sight of the efficiency/effectiveness ratio.

But video is booming right? Surely more video viewers mean more inventory, which will help?

Yes, it will. But even if new players in the market arrive, the price of inventory might not go down as most publishers will position their offering as premium. We also have to be aware that as the market expands a higher proportion of it will probably not be targetable using logged-in data.

At Spark, what we’ve recently confirmed is that “content in context” can deliver greater attention and better campaign metrics than demo or audience targeting (up to 20% in attention and up to 25% in conversions). So, I think that sophisticated contextual targeting is going to be one of the main areas of evolution in CTV so we can make the entire open marketplace smarter.

What does richer contextual targeting actually mean to you, in non-industry jargon?

In Linear TV, you would typically target a food brand to a cooking show. In a digital world, you can actually look way deeper than that. For example, Captify’s work in segmenting CTV inventory using the semantics of search data is an innovation that can unlock new opportunities in CTV. We’re really interested in pushing the boundaries in this way as it doesn’t fall prey to the scarcity challenge that I mentioned earlier and go beyond gender and demo.

Where are the brands you work with on this journey?

Brands are realising that TV is back and better than ever after time hearing that their audience reach is eroding through linear. Brands that want equity and longevity have always used TV to stand out from the pack – and this is now more important than ever given how cluttered every category is with brands. They just need a middle ground that is not hyper-targeted and expensive, OR untargeted and cost efficient.

So, what will it take to convince a brand that’s interested in contextual CTV to go all in?

Most advertisers show interest in it and have a “feeling” that it is the right thing to do. But to make it real in digital, measurement must improve to justify the leap.

What does that mean?

Brands are now looking past the cookie (finally) at creative and brand metrics rather than just completion rate and cost per completed view. I think if we’re to really get over the cookie, CTV measurement will be important - and given that TV is famous for building brands, we’ll need more brand and search uplift measurement to accompany what’s next in this space.

OK, so wrap it up for me – where do you think the CTV marketplace will be in two years time?

For brands, the fundamentals won’t change - they will be doing what they’ve always done on TV but on a different level and in a more refined way. They’ll have figured out how to really capitalise on behavioural shifts to make up for lost audiences in linear TV, and they will be able to own specific content or themes at larger scale and more accurately using new technologies and partners.

That will require the broadcasters to make their inventory more targetable in programmatic marketplaces - which is the other thing I think will happen. To sum up, TV technology is only going to get stronger from here, and because of that, I’m very optimistic about the future of CTV advertising as a channel!

 

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