NEW YORK – The sudden jump in viewership for streaming video sped up a longer-term shift away from linear television. Amid these changes, both channels have a role in helping advertisers to reach consumers most effectively.
“There’s a bit of a false narrative in the market at the moment that’s getting pushed in terms of there being an either/or trade-off between: spend money on traditional linear or spend it on streaming TV,” James Rooke, who in July was named president of Comcast Advertising, said. “That’s fundamentally wrong.”
Advertisers are looking to reach audiences where they spend their time, whether that’s with linear television or a connected device such as a smart TV or mobile phone.
“Linear TV is still the most scaled way to reach consumers on video and it’s the foundation of many media campaigns for those looking to reach video,” Rooke said in this interview with Jon Watts, editorial director of Beet.TV Events at the Advanced Advertising Summit. “However, our view is ultimately streaming is a critical component of those media campaigns.”
Comcast Advertising’s research indicates that advertisers should set aside a portion of their television ad budgets for streaming, which is effective at reaching households that don’t watch a lot of television.
“This narrative, I think, between it’s an either/or is the wrong one,” Rooke said. “The answer is it needs to be both — and ultimately how do buy side and sellers work together to better plan and better optimize campaigns and manage incremental reach and frequency across all those distribution endpoints.”
