COLOGNE — It has been a slow burn for years, but now it seems to be catching fire.
With 15% of of marketers now using addressable or advanced TV targeting, and another 20% to 30% more planning to do so, according to the ANA and Forrester, the opportunity finally looks like it has become real.
Jon Block agrees. In this video interview with Beet.TV, the former Videology VP product and platform, now in the same role at Amobee following its acquisition of the video and TV ad-tech firm, says the industry has reached a key moment.
“We are at a turning point,” he says. “Addressability has been a buzz word for years, but I think finally in the last year, maybe 18 months, we’ve started to see broadcasters really adopting addressability as part of their core strategies for the future.
“This is coming about because there’s pressure from competition, pressure of course from the duopoly of Facebook and Google, but it’s also a realization that the industry is ready for it.”
eMarketer still forecasts that only 6% of TV ad spending will be done so programmatically in 2018.
But that doesn’t mean a growing portion of the delivered ads won’t be custom-targeted at individual households – the key step-change addressability affords over conventional linear.
With so many over-the-top TV devices now wired up and millions more TV sets natively internet-connected, many device manufacturers are now offering targeted ad segments, whilst the plumbing in the ad supply chain has fallen in to place – and buyers are jumping in.
“Agencies are ready to buy addressable advertising,” Block says. “Slowly the technical framework and the measurement framework is starting to come into place where it is actually possible to measure segment audiences and target on linear television.
“TV advertising is the most powerful and effective form of advertising in the world already, and bring addressability to that as well, and it only makes it better.”
This interview is part of a series titled Advertising Reimagined: The View from DMEXCO 2018, presented by Criteo. Please find more videos from the series here.
