Addressable and Connected TV: The Best of Both Worlds

Even in the increasingly multi-channel modern industry, TV remains the king of credibility.

It’s not hard to see why. TV offers advertisers unparalleled reach and captive eyeballs, whilst often communicating to entire households at one time. The diverse and cross-generational nature of TV viewers also gives marketers access to an audience like no other - one which is capable of driving the cultural mood of an entire country. 

But despite this, the story of the past decade has been one of marketers slowly moving their budgets away from TV, and towards a diverse array of digital platforms. Of course, that’s partly been an attempt to follow their audiences as they fragment across social and digital entertainment platforms. However, it’s also been driven by the potential to seek out and target the people you want to speak to on a brilliantly sophisticated level. That capability has been gold dust for modern marketers, and explains in large part how these younger, less traditional platforms have grown so rapidly. 

But today, there are two growing trends which may redress the balance. I’m talking about addressable TV, and Connected TV.

 

The Missing Piece 

For many marketers, addressable TV is the missing piece of the puzzle. It brings programmatic into the world of TV, meaning that the kind of targeting we might expect on digital platforms is now possible in the world of television. If you’re an advertiser using addressable TV, you can target households based on their geographic location and their composition. On top of this, you can also adapt and swap ads which are being seen by audiences on the fly - we call this dynamic content creation. 

When you combine addressable TV with connected TV, the potential for marketers becomes staggering. Connected TV is how we describe streaming TV from the internet - be that via smart TVs, an Apple TV box, smartphones, games consoles, or whatever other device. 

As addressable diversifies the ways in which marketers can reach audiences via TV, connected TV is diversifying the audiences themselves. This is because, for example, there are many people who exclusively use a games console as their sole entertainment hub, and would rarely watch terrestrial TV in the traditional way. Given that more and more TVs are being sold and bought with the ability to connect with other devices built-in, it’s a trend that is certain to continue growing. 

There’s an exciting amount of potential here - and, crucially, it’s not just big brands who stand to benefit. 

The New Kings of Credibility

One of the great advantages of digital marketing has traditionally been that brands with smaller budgets were given the opportunity to put themselves in front of audiences on the same playing field as bigger companies. At the same time, the main blocker for small and medium size businesses to advertise on TV has been the price point, even for a limited amount of advertising space. 

However, the advent of addressable means that similar opportunities are available on a household’s TV screen, with all of the credibility that comes along with that. The ability to purchase a smaller amount of tightly targeted ad space means that TV advertising has suddenly become an opportunity for brands which might previously have been priced out of the platform. 

So addressable TV allows marketers with more modest budgets to create affordable TV campaigns which are targeted at the people they most want to reach. For these companies, it’s truly the best of both worlds. 

Border Patrol 

One important thing to keep in mind about TV in general is that, as a format, it is very localised. This means that there are different rules in different countries, and bigger brands operating at an international scale might find it challenging to manage the myriad technical aspects in an efficient way. 

In fact, in my role as Vice President for EMEA at Peach, I’ve been able to see different markets moving at different speeds. Most countries in the region do now offer some kind of addressable TV to marketers (the UK, for example, is fairly advanced), but for some marketers this diversity in what’s available could prove something of a headache. 

Another thing to be aware of whilst advertising on TV is clearance. Again, this varies by country - and we’re living through a period in time where the law is trying to quickly catch up with technology. Brands accustomed to marketing on digital platforms will not be used to working with a clearance body such as Clearcast in the UK and the ARPP in France, which ensures all advertising content is accurate and safe. 

Marketers looking to advertise on TV must therefore ensure that their work is in line with the standards set out by these clearance bodies, or else it simply won’t air. Of course, these regulations are a large part of the reason why TV is such a valuable platform in the first place. Viewers expect some kind of quality control in terms of what they see on their TV screens, meaning that the brands they see there are associated with having passed that quality test.

The best solution for these issues is to work with a partner who manages the complexity, ensuring marketers and content creators can focus on creativity and deciding who they want to target. There can be no doubt that both addressable TV and connected TV represent fantastic opportunities for advertisers, and so making the most out of the tech is a must for ambitious marketers.

For more information on how you can make the most out of addressable and connected TV, you can contact Peach here. 

Glossary

Connected TV: Often abbreviated to CTV, this refers to a device which is connected (or built-in) to a TV. So that could be a games console, Google Chromecast, Apple TV, or a number of other devices and services.

Addressable TV: this is the ability to target different ads to specific TVs while they are watching the same programme. It allows marketers to move beyond the traditional big-budget, flagship TV ad, and focus more on relevance and impact.

Clearance: In order for an ad to be shown on TV, it has to go through clearance. The exact process is different across the world, but generally clearance will ensure that an ad meets legal requirements and is ‘safe’ for TV viewing. 

OTT: ‘Over The Top’ is the delivery of video directly from the internet - including video on demand (VOD) content. Examples of OTT would include Netflix and Amazon Prime. 

Linear TV: Linear TV is the term given to traditional TV content, delivered via satellite, cable, or otherwise broadcast through the air. In order to watch a show on Linear TV, you need to tune in to the right channel at the right time.