As audiences become increasingly connected across multiple devices, long-established planning, buying and panel-based targeting are no longer enough. The TV industry is at a tipping point, which not only means better viewing experiences for consumers, but also more robust data for broadcasters, brands and advertisers.

It’s all just TV

A large portion of today’s audiences is screen agnostic according to Andrew Dixon, VP of Sales ANZ at Amobee.

“They don’t differentiate between ‘big TV’ (or linear as we know it) and TV consumed on a device like connected TV or set-top boxes,” says Dixon. “And while devices like mobile and desktop have increased in usage within the last few years, a large proportion of the total TV population – more than 8.6 million Australians a day – still prefer to consume content on the biggest screen at home as it provides an unmatched immersive viewing experience.”

SVOD and AVOD usage up in Australia

Laura Wall, Head of Agency Development at Samsung Ads, says they are in a unique position to really understand what’s happening behind the glass screen.

“What we’re seeing globally is that streaming is becoming the norm, further accelerated by the pandemic. What that means in terms of actual numbers in Australia is an increase of 38% in streaming time in the last year alone,” says Wall. “Furthermore, recent research has found that consumers are reaching a tipping point in the number of subscriptions they have and are beginning to dip in and out of different platforms including ad-funded video services that provide a compelling alternative to subscription services.”

Content is (still) king

According to Sam Hall, Chief Content and Commercial Officer at Fetch TV, getting the consumer to what they want to watch in the least time possible is critical to the customer experience.

“The viewer gets recommendations from many sources – friends, social media, ads – and often seek out specific titles. Our role as a master aggregation platform is to aggregate all content sources, blending free-to-air, BVOD, SVOD, AVOD and subscription TV.  We then use a great UI to support the various use cases – be it general browsing, focused discovery, or targeted search,” says Hall.

Wall agrees, “Channels and apps not only have to make great content, but it must be discoverable on the TV as well, which is exactly what Samsung aims to do – to make content and brands easy to find on the most powerful screen at home.”

Leveraging insights to understand and execute a total TV strategy

Dixon shares that while the market currently has great validation data for CTV and linear measurement, most of the time this population is siloed, which causes fragmentation further downstream and impacts accurate user planning, targeting and post-measurement with cross exposure and de-deduplication not being accounted for.

“As a technology vendor, we provide advertisers with the ability to plan, activate and measure across TV, digital and social,” says Dixon. “Advertisers and brands need to leverage tools like ACR and STB to better understand content and ad exposure, and that’s one of the reasons why we’ve invested heavily in our partners, including Samsung Ads and Fetch TV, so we can provide advertisers with robust datasets so they can gain deeper insights into their audiences and optimise campaigns for the best possible results. ”

What’s next?

Dixon, Wall and Hall all agree that 2022 will be an exciting year for brands, advertisers and broadcasters.

“We expect more disruption, as well as innovation and opportunities,” says Hall.

“I’m excited to see what else brands will be doing on TV,” adds Wall. “With the growth of CTV apps, it is exciting to see how users start using their TVs for a lot more than just traditional viewing, opening up even more opportunities for brands.  Apps like TikTok are already available on Samsung TVs for instance, but it would be interesting to see what other apps will be available and how they’ll provide an immersive experience to consumers.”

“We have built a solid foundation to bring offline and online channels closer than ever before – from our measurement solutions being able to assist with front-end planning to our Amobee TV technology which is tailored to build on the current digital efficiencies within linear formats for activation,” adds Dixon. “There’s definitely a strong investment in innovation across all the key players in the industry and I think we’ll see these investments pan out within the next couple of months.”

In case you missed the 2022 Future of TV Advertising Sydney, watch the event highlights at: https://bit.ly/FTVSYDNEYONDEMAND