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While not all that surprising in hindsight, a recent study uncovered a minor bombshell in CTV advertising: brands are throwing away more than $1 billion a year in advertising spend due to the fact that their commercials are playing on streaming platforms even while TVs are off.
 
How is this possible? Viewers don’t always exit or pause the streaming app they’re using before hitting the power button on their TV; the shows (and the ads) are still running in the background. About 17% of ads on TVs connected through streaming devices are playing while the TV is off, and being delivered to no one at all.
 
What makes this revelation all the more astonishing is the fact that today’s CTVs are digital and connected to the Internet, which is home to the most trackable, measurable media in our world’s history.
 
Yet, while CTV brings a lot of promise to targeting a growing number of consumers, measuring what and when those individuals are watching is still too hard. For CTV to realize its full potential – and justify ad spend from brands – we need to treat it like a true Internet-connected medium. Let’s look at three steps the industry can take to move in the right direction.

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As TV and digital advertising converge, it’s become even more evident how different the ways of buying and selling media are in each ecosystem. This reality has created some key challenges for both brands and media owners who seek to operate across platforms, and these challenges will only inhibit the free flow of money if they persist.

Advertisers generally want to deliver targeted impressions across a mix of programming, irrespective of whether that content is delivered on a set-top box or an IP-connected device. However, each of these environments offer vastly different capabilities and operates on different protocols. The resulting asymmetry, as you might imagine, often leads to frustrations and hurdles.

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In today’s fragmented media landscape, one of the key questions I am regularly asked as the Chief Marketing Officer of the largest provider of independent first-party TV audience data is how advertisers can find their most desirable TV audiences at scale. With viewers cutting the cord at record rates, it’s essential for advertisers to lean into programming that their target audiences have demonstrated interest in, so they can reach them where they are today vs. where they were before.

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The drivers behind the expansion of the connected TV landscape are many. What started with the rising cost of cable and technological advancements in the delivery of content slowly gave way to new players in the space, mergers and acquisitions and content wars. Add on top of that a two-year pandemic and the rising challenges of inflation, and the groundwork has been laid for continued growth (and monetization) within the incredibly dynamic and ever-evolving CTV landscape.

Today, the CTV revolution is upon us. For advertisers and publishers alike, there’s no denying or controlling the significance or pace of consumer viewing shifts into streaming channels. Rather, the real question that companies must consider is this: Do they have the insights needed to stay on trend?

As companies chart their path forward with regard to the CTV opportunity, here are the key market realities that should be guiding them.

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When well-established companies go through a pivot, the process is often described as trying to turn around an aircraft carrier.

In Vevo’s case, the move from being a web-centric brand to CTV juggernaut was more like turning an aircraft carrier into a rocket ship - while it’s still moving.

Back in 2019, Vevo content was regularly ranked among the top ten most watched videos on YouTube across the globe, and revenue was growing consistently YOY.

Knowing our content on YouTube was already enjoying viewership on the big screens in homes, we began establishing an entirely new business model - one where a Vevo CTV app and strategically placed linear TV channels (FAST channels for you TV ad tech nerds) could become the primary way we connect with consumers, and our top source of revenue.

Due to the TV-oriented evolution of our business, we had to evolve our products, our marketing strategy, our programming, our relationship with fans – our entire operation. It turns out many of the seeds were planted years before. Here’s how were able to land the plane - and then launch a rocket:

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While the CTV market will continue to garner billions of dollars in incremental spend each year for the foreseeable future, the tone is beginning to change ever so slightly; from unbridled excitement to a heightened focus on the technology and manner by which CTV ads are bought and sold.

Amid this step change, an old friend has re-emerged at the forefront of industry conversation: Ad Pods.

As a refresher, ad pods are a sequenced group of ads that play one after another within an ad break. Scheduled in pre-, mid-, and post-roll environments, an ad pod equates to a commercial break that runs during an episode of a TV program in linear environments.

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As CPMs continue to fall and cookies sunset, digital publishers are under more pressure to monetize content. This can put sales, product, and editorial teams at odds, especially when it comes to video content, particularly on mobile, where two-thirds of all video is displayed. But are these teams really after different things?

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Why AVOD services need to focus on customer satisfaction as their business model takes charge

In the early stages of the pandemic, it seemed that subscription video services had an iron grip on the cultural zeitgeist. From  The Last Dance to Cheer, our conversations were dominated by the newest releases from Netflix, and the company’s stock soared together with other “stay-at-home” names like Peloton and Zoom.
 
Netflix’s prominence may have led some to believe that subscription video on demand (SVOD) represented the most viable business model for a post-pandemic world. However, the company’s recent subscriber miss and resulting stock decline show that SVOD may not be the right vehicle for long-term success. If Netflix can’t sustain its growth goals, entertainment providers will need to reconsider the debate between subscription and ad-supported models.

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