Experience Is Critical: Highlights From ‘Transforming CTV’

Although “connected TV” (CTV) has been rising fast, most viewers tend to just consider it all “TV”.

That places an onus on parts of the CTV ad supply chain to match the TV ad viewing experience, eliminating duplicate or poorly targeted ads.

Ten executives interviewed for the just-wrapped Transforming CTV: Delivering a Better Ad Experience for Viewers, a Beet.TV Leadership Series presented by Beachfront, discussed how to achieve that.

Check out the series highlights here, and click through for more detail.

1. Converge TV, don’t crash it

Akhil Parekh, senior vice president of product management for converged TV at software firm Mediaocean, said the TV/CTV boundaries are blurring.

“Don’t rule out linear TV – linear TV is not going away anytime soon. Too many providers are focused on solutions that are only focused on a single channel or a single medium like connected TV. Taking a converged approach is the right one.”

Converged TV Offers More Flexibility for Advertisers: Mediaocean’s Akhil Parekh

2. Harmonize buying channels

Amit Nigam, vice president of product at sell-side ad server company Beachfront, said traditional challenges are not going away. He knows buyers want to consolidate how they tackle different video types.

“A single point of execution where you can go and buy across these things is still something that we haven’t quite achieved, that panacea. How we resolve across those things has been a challenge that we faced as an industry for a long time.”

CTV Advertising Is Improving with Latest Automation Standards: Beachfront’s Amit Nigam

3. Toward smarter buys

Brad Stockton, senior vice president of U.S. national video innovation at Dentsu International, said CTV offers unique advantages to advertisers.

“We want to know where we had the opportunity to air. A lot of that is to ensure that our ‘do not air’ lists are being appropriately implemented for our buys. It’s going to allow us to be smarter with our buys moving forward, knowing what programmes are our audiences really tuning into to allow us to make better smarter buying decisions for future campaigns.”

CTV Can Provide Greater Media Transparency for Advertisers: Dentsu’s Brad Stockton

4. Pod context needed

Brian Lin, senior vice president of product management for advertising at Univision, said buyers need more signals about what is on offer.

“From the buyer perspective, they really want to know what they’re getting in the programmatic ecosystem. If the buyer only knows that it’s an opportunity with one of television Univision’s apps, with no context of what genre or what programme or what pod positioning there is, the buyer is none the wiser on the value in which the content is driving for, for the buyer.”

TV’s Future Depends on Good Streaming Ad Experiences: Univision’s Brian Lin

5. Customizing for enjoyment

Chris Flatley, vice president of ad sales at streaming platform FuboTV, said creating an enjoyable ad experience is crucial.

“The advertising experience on connected TV is of critical importance to us. We customise each experience almost down to the impression level to make sure that consumers are engaged and have an enjoyable ad experience while they’re watching content on Fubo.”

CTV’s Positive Viewer Experience Improves Engagement for Advertisers: FuboTV’s Chris Flatley

6. Reporting to solve proliferation

Dave Simon, vice president of sales at ad-tech firm Viant Technology, said advertisers have had ‘too much of a good thing’ – the wealth of options available.

“This is both a challenge as well as a huge opportunity due to the number of platforms and devices that run ads at any given time. It can be a challenge for marketers to accurately measure the success of a CTV ad campaign. For that reason, we see measurement and reporting becoming a key driver of purchasing decisions in the future.”

CTV Will Anchor Campaigns As Programmatic Advertising Expands: Viant’s Dave Simon

7. Retailers close the loop

Halli Goddard, Advanced TV Lead, Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM), said consumers’ buying behavior can help cost-pressured advertisers.

“Every brand’s advertising budget is under pressure right now. … Retail media networks offer that solution – we’re able to share not just the traditional media metrics that they’re used to seeing, but also business outcomes and business impact to the bottom line … using the loyalty programmes that retailers have to deterministically target consumers and then, on the back end, match those media exposures to an offline activity like a sale. ”

Retail Media Networks Drive Ad Outcomes for Brands: Kroger’s Halli Goddard

8. CTV must measure-up to linear

Katie Long, head of U.S. demand sales at sell-side ad-server company Beachfront, said CTV buyers don’t have the same control over the shows and networks they buy, compared to linear TV.

“Conversely, when we’re looking at the connected TV space, there’s still a bit of a need for increased availability of control over targeting and reporting. There’s a tremendous value that advertisers will get, when having access to this in terms of having pod position data, because it does allow for better business outcomes. ”

Media Transparency Underpins CTV Ad Outcomes: Beachfront’s Katie Long

9. Helping all boats rise

Matt Jamison, Group Vice President, Digital and Demand Partnerships, DIRECTV, said he wants to solve a fragmented future with partnerships.

“We want to make sure that, when we are working with partners, that we are cross pollinating, both digital and linear sort of knowledge, of our business models. Where we want to focus on is, ‘how do we all come together in various different business models and enrich each other’s business, versus try and put each other out of business?'”

Connect The Dots From The Center: DIRECTV’s Jamison On TV Efficiency

10. Double-down on duplication

Tom Sly, vice president of revenue, national media, at E.W. Scripps Co., said viewers need to have a linear-style viewing experience.

“The expectation from the viewer when they’re watching their TV is that connected TV is going to look the same as traditional broadcast TV. Seeing the same ad twice in the same pod is not a great experience and that’s certainly something we don’t want to see often.”

CTV Ad Growth Suggests Big Demand for Addressable Linear TV: Scripps’s Tom Sly