LONDON – Ad agencies are rearchitecting themselves to meet the opportunities of advanced TV technology that promises them the ability to reach individual households or precision-targeted groups of individuals.
That is the observation from one group providing a helping hand to agencies under the banner of the world’s largest agency holding group.
Finecast claims to offer addressable ads in programming from ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky, distributed over platforms from YouVie, Sky and Virgin Media, using data partners like Acxiom, CACI, Experian and Mastercard.
“What’s been really interesting is looking at how our agency partners have tried to restructure themselves around it,” says Kristian Claxton, head of engagement at Finecast, the advanced TV unit in WPP’s Group M.
“This is the first business I’ve worked in where the ingredients to a really successful adjustable TV campaign require all four corners of an organisation to lean in. In one (campaign) instance, we’ll have:
- “someone who’s an expert in TV buying”
- “someone who’s an expert in comms planning”
- “someone who really understands the audience and the effectiveness of their channel”
- “someone from data who understands the data that they have that they can leverage and deliver within this new channel”
- “someone from effectiveness who can tie it all together and understand (whether) this is actually driving something positive for the client”
In 2017, WPP’s GroupM launched Finecast, aiming to “help advertisers address hard-to-reach TV viewers through a single access point with standardised measurement”, beginning in the UK and since launching in Australia.
Finecast aggregated video ad inventory in programming from some of the UK’s main commercial broadcasters, plus over most main set-top and over-the-top devices, from Sky’s satellite box to games consoles.
Finecast claims to offer addressable ads in programming from ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky, distributed over platforms from YouVie, Sky and Virgin Media, using data partners like Acxiom, CACI, Experian and Mastercard.
Claxton, speaking with Furious Corp CEO Ashley J. Swartz, says, at this stage, his main job is educating brands that often are still fixed on buying mass reach using television.
By contrast, advanced TV targeting can help them reach much smaller, but perhaps more relevant, cohorts.
They have a goal to capture declining reach that exists within linear TV through new platforms and devices, Claxton says.
This video was produced in London at the Future of TV Ads Global forum in December 2019. This series is sponsored by Finecast, the global addressable TV company that is part of WPP. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
