According to digital media trade publication eMarketer, there is excitement among those who control television advertising budgets about how the medium can catch up to digital and social on hypertargeted delivery of their messages.
But, it notes, “while marketers are making headway with advanced TV, it’s early days with TV ad innovations.”
A February 27 report from Ross Benes reveals that, according to eMarketer, some $2.54 billion will be spent on targeted, addressable TV ads in the U.S. in 2019.
However, addressable accounts for just 3.7% of total TV ad spending.
Benes recalled his experience at LiveRamp’s recent RampUp conference in San Francisco, where talk of the latest marketing technology developments was ahead among 3,000 marketing industry professionals — far greater than any Radio Show in recent memory.
“On stage, marketers pointed to new types of TV ads as signs that the industry is moving forward,” Benes writes. “For instance, Fandango movie trailer ads allow users to purchase movie tickets through the ad. [Coca-Cola] ads have been targeted to include the name of the person viewing the ad on screen. Pringles overlaid QR codes onto ads to drive users to their online store.
Yet, these targeted and interactive television ads remain experimental, Benes notes.
“The vast majority of the $70.83 billion that U.S. advertisers will spend on TV this year still gets bought and sold through traditional methods,” he says.
A RampUp attendee asked at one panel why linear TV advertising “hasn’t cratered,” as digital video advertising offers more refined measurement and targeting. DISH Media Sales SVP/Sales Kevin Arrix replied, “Linear TV hasn’t gone away because it works.”
So, where does TV go?
In the words of Simulmedia founder and Chairman/CEO Dave Morgan, in order for addressable TV to account for a double-digit share of the overall TV ad spend, “TV’s ad delivery infrastructure needs to be upgraded, centralized and aggregated at a national scale and packaged with other data-enhanced products that combine linear TV inventory with over-the-top (OTT) video inventory,” Benes reports.
Yet, enthusiasm hasn’t waned for addressable TV, even as issues tied to scaling have arisen of late.
“Agencies desperately need some advanced TV ad products today since their clients are demanding them and they want them to be more scaled than they are today,” Morgan said, as noted by Benes. “Very few folks really want to do the hard work of digging into the black boxes in the business and truly understand how they work.”
