ORLANDO—Lack of scale has been a common excuse to avoid trying to reach TV viewers using dynamic devices to view content on the big screen in their living room. But with set-top box VOD and OTT viewing soaring, it’s time for advertisers to “catch up to that viewership,” says FreeWheel’s James Rothwell.
“I think we’re at an inflection point,” Rothwell says in this interview with Beet.TV at the recent Association of National Advertisers’ Masters of Marketing Conference. “Scale has been lacking in certain areas, which made it tough I think as an investment prioritization for some brands and agencies,” Rothwell adds. “But now we see a lot more scale coming through those OTT, set-top box VOD and, increasingly, addressable linear opportunities.”
Calling advanced TV “the umbrella term for all of those opportunities or anything outside of the linear stream,” Rothwell says he’s “getting the sense that people are really leaning into it now. ”
In a Beet.TV interview with Brian Wallach, who is SVP, Chief Revenue Officer, Advanced TV, FreeWheel Markets, Wallach explains how FreeWheel’s new DRIVE platform is designed to unify advanced TV offerings with unified audience measurement.
To align with a more scaled, dynamic TV offering, Rothwell discussed the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video’s latest output: A Buyer’s Guide to the New Living Room.” This reference guide provides media planners and buyers with tactics and workarounds to take advantage of what the new living room can do for advertisers.
Every quarter, increasing volumes of digital and dynamically delivered video advertising are accessed via set-top boxes and (OTT) devices on the big screen. This now accounts for 57 percent of all non-linear impressions, according to the FreeWheel Video Monetization Report (VMR) Q2 2018.
“Combine the reach of broadcast television with the dynamic insertion and dynamic advertising opportunities through these new devices and you can combine that reach now with precision. TV being that full-funnel opportunity for advertisers,” says Rothwell.
This is not to suggest these still-growing channels are not without their challenges. “Currently, there’s a lot of constraints getting in the way, whether that be measurement, technology and partners.”
Hence the following guideposts for buyers from the FreeWheel Council’s “A Buyer’s Guide to the New Living Room”:
• Become a subject matter expert in the new living room to gain advantage for your clients while these channels are still nascent and growing
• Create a plan using complementary channels to balance reach and precision, leveraging the common and unique attributes of each
• Work through measurement hurdles and leverage the tools and KPIs that are available to access these engaged yet underserved audiences
• Personalize messaging and manage frequency through addressable options with creative diversity on all campaigns delivered to the new living room
• Optimize for scale by adjusting your KPIs for platforms as necessary such as viewability targets in channels that aren’t able to be measured
“We are as an industry starting to understand what we need to do to make it a more viable opportunity for brands,” says Rothwell, who is VP, Global Agency, Brand & Industry Relations. “Really get that first and third party data to light up and create additional value, create additional precision for those advertising campaigns.”
He sees a “wide appreciation” for the reach of TV programming, regardless of how it is accessed, to help build the purchase funnel and using addressable advertising options to help push consumers to the transaction phase.
“Consistency and standards obviously come next, and we’re starting to see some of that already as well,” Rothwell says.
This series “Growing Brands and Driving Results,” was produced at the ANA Masters in Marketing ’18 conference in Orlando. The series is sponsored by the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video. Please find additional coverage here.
