LOS ANGELES – The growth in streaming services that carry advertising is giving marketers another way to reach consumers through connected devices like smart TVs. Those ad-based video-on-demand (AVOD) services are seeing greater interest from advertisers as part of their overall media strategies.
“We look at AVOD as part of the whole from a video perspective — a holistic video approach,” Lisa Herdman, senior vice president and executive director of strategic investment at ad agency RPA, said in this interview with Beet.TV. “We all know that linear impressions are decreasing, but it really is a migration from one way of watching video to another way.”
Her agency looks at AVOD services as a way to add incremental reach to linear media channels that currently have greater scale.
“We definitely go through a massive education process on a daily basis, because as everybody knows, there’s a new streaming service popping up every other week, which is the good news,” she said. “The expectation for AVOD is to be the extension of linear.”
‘Good Buy-In’
Advertisers and their agencies want to learn more about the programming on AVOD services, along with information about their reach, subscribers, ad load and measurement.
“We have a really good buy-in that …consumers are watching premium video, they’re just watching it differently,” she said. “We’ve used premium video and that viewership for big brand pushes, awareness, launches. The expectation is for AVOD to continue to carry that torch.”
Source: eMarketer, Insider Intelligence
Audience data play a crucial role in helping to determine whether advertisers are achieving incremental reach.
“Putting couple of layers on top of an age and demo is a really great way to be additive to what we’re currently doing with linear video,” Herdman said. “Data is more important than ever in the video world, and it’s more available for video, especially in linear, but of course for the AVOD perspective, too.”
Engaging Advertising
Many consumers have demonstrated their preference for less commercial interruptions by subscribing to ad-free services like Netflix, Disney+ and HBO Max that don’t carry advertising. However, many viewers also are watching AVOD services that are free and have a smaller ad load than linear TV, giving advertisers a way to stand out.
“There’s a positive and negative there that needs to be weighed. We’re still learning to work with…more engagement-type advertising on these streaming services,” Herdman said. “There’s a ton of opportunity. We just need to see what works best for each client individually.”
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