Consumers who connect their TVs directly to the internet are becoming more accessible to marketers through the growing number of ad-based video-on-demand services. AVOD platforms are gaining many viewers that had been lost to the cord-cutting trend, reaching greater scale for major advertisers.
Advertisers are “looking for where we can basically scale outside what’s happening in the overall video space. With the linear ratings eroding, how do we find our consumer and audiences on other platforms?” Cara Lewis, executive vice president and head of U.S. investment, Dentsu at Amplifi USA, said in this interview with Beet.TV. “With an AVOD, you can definitely do that across all of the different vendors that are out there.”
The VOD market is evolving quickly as some subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services also have ad-supported tiers that are less expensive or free to consumers. Either way, consumers have more choices than before.
“It’s the consumers following the content,” Lewis said. “If the content’s there, we can be there.”
Source: eMarketer
Amplifi uses a people-based identity and data platform called M1 that provides consumer insights and addressable targeting opportunities for personalized media and creative strategies at scale. The tool plays a key role in media plans for targeting audiences that are difficult to reach through linear TV.
“We still want to buy incremental reach, which is definitely where our tool comes into play,” Lewis said. “We can plug in the different AVOD partners. As long as we input into it some sort of CPM that we can guarantee against.”
More personalized targeting helps to lessen the ad load on AVOD platforms, with a goal of improving the viewer experience by avoid repetitious commercial breaks.
“It’s definitely nice to see a lower ad load. We just did our ‘Cable Clutter Report’ and to see the amount of ads that are actually still in those reports is pretty astonishing,” Lewis said. “Consumers aren’t necessarily looking to avoid commercials. They don’t mind commercials, but they want them somewhat personalized to them.”
AVOD platforms also provide more opportunities to buy programmatically, though Lewis said she avoid open exchange bidding because of the worries about ad fraud. She prefers private marketplaces (PMPs) that have a select group of video outlets or direct deals.
Advertisers also are looking for improved media measurement to see a more complete view of consumers and their media consumption habits.
“We’re definitely looking to continue the conversations and continue investing against business outcomes where we can for the clients that are ready to do that,” Lewis said. “The big thing is getting that cross-screen measurement set, which I know is a little bit far away, but making sure that we can do that in the ecosystem of holistic video.”
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