OTT

Breaking through the Clutter with Innovative Advertising Strategies and Promotions

• Posted: June 6, 2023

The panelists talked about the ad experience from the technology, creative agency and the major streamer perspectives. Rob Askman of Brightline started by saying that people aren’t ad averse, but they dislike bad ad experiences. Advertising on streaming is replete with personalization, shopability and interactivity to increase engagement and allow for unique measurement opportunities, allowing for future optimization. William Roberts-Foster of NBCUniversal showed different streaming ad formats such as layering a beloved IP into an ad, solo ads, binge ads, pod ads and pause ads. Karen Costello of Deutsch LA returned to more foundational elements. Advertising is still about content that people care about, no matter the platform. She encouraged engagement of fired up fans with a great story, as they’ll be sure to pass it around.

Streaming and Traditional TV Working Together to be Successful

• Posted: June 6, 2023

In this fireside chat, L.A. Times’ Meg James interviewed CBS’s Radha Subramanyam about the journey of a TV show. The role of a researcher used to be about reporting; however, today, it’s looking at many different signals and making recommendations based on them. This has made researchers integral to the process, a leg of the table rather than a seat at the table. Now, the strongest shows originate with linear but make their way onto different OTT platforms, making audience measurement difficult. There’s also a pattern to OTT. When a popular show comes out, a certain platform will have a strong four weeks and die down, while shows like Criminal Minds, Friends and NCIS have a perennial presence. Rather than focus on different platforms, Radha believes that we gain a better understanding from studying popular content, their lifecycle, journey and sustaining power. In addition, she noted that death of linear is overblown as viewership for popular shows has changed little in the last few years.

Video Now: The Evolution of the Viewing Landscape

• Posted: June 6, 2023

Tracey Chen of Warner Bros. Discovery walked the audience through the details of their 10-year Video Now study. On demand usage has become universal from baby boomers to Gen Z, while linear TV continues to decline year-over-year with each age group. This is especially true among younger and multicultural audiences. Time spent on SVOD doubled in 2021 while linear TV declined from 20% to 12% in the same period. Now, consumers’ willingness to pay for subscriptions is cooling, allowing AVOD and FAST services to flourish. Fifty percent of consumers have used a FAST service. Roku is the most popular while Tubi saw the biggest year-on-year growth.

OTT 2022: Welcome

• Posted: June 6, 2023

Tania Missad of Warner Bros. Discovery introduced the audience to their Video Now study, a 10-year project investigating the evolution of the viewing landscape, which includes the growth of streaming and further erosion of linear TV. The study found that people are now less willing to spend on streaming apps and other options due to frustration with rising costs. They also feel overwhelmed by the number of services. This is causing low and no cost options such as AVOD and FAST to flourish. Besides cost savings, viewers like that AVOD and FAST have large libraries of content to explore. What consumers want now is bundling discounts, improved content discovery including aggregating desirable content across different apps and more personalized recommendations. There’s also a growing interest in more diverse stories and international content.

OTT 2022: Conference Highlights

• Posted: June 6, 2023

On October 25, 2022, media and measurement experts shared the latest research-based insights about today’s media landscape at OTT 2022 held on the Warner Bros. Discovery Studio Lot in Burbank, CA. Attendees learned more about what viewers really want when it comes to FAST, AVOD and SVOD, and whether there are viable solutions for cross-platform measurement.

Tackling the Challenges of Local OTT Attribution

• Posted: June 5, 2023

Stu Schwartzapfel of iSpot.tv and Traci Will of Gamut talked about dealing with the challenges of local OTT attribution. While national brands have been a fixture on streaming platforms for a while now, smaller and local brands are just beginning to dip their toes into this space. Industry challenges include a lack of standardization of measurement, a national versus a local focus and careless measurement which can have confusing results.

Streaming Index 2.0: Retention Rules

• Posted: June 1, 2023

Justin Evans of Samsung Ads uncovered findings from The Streaming Index, a bi-annual white paper Samsung Ads puts out for the marketers of TV apps. The report got its data from its universe of 45 million opted-in U.S. smart TVs, supplemented with an attitudinal survey of 1,000 Samsung smart TV owners from Q4 of 2022. While most studies focus on subscription data, this focused on usage. The number of people streaming TV apps and the time spent watching them has significantly increased year-over-year (Q3 2021-Q3 2022), and yet competition among platforms has grown fiercer. The reason, the churn rate has increased over the past two years. Such a landscape perpetuates a winner-take-most paradigm. TV app marketers should be thinking about ways to acquire a greater share of time and TV app platform providers should focus on loyalty and offering less expensive tiered options, as retained users over-index on time on such apps.

Ten Things to Know about Viewing

• Posted: June 1, 2023

Yes, there is upheaval in the media industry. The press paints a dire picture of viewing, yet Radha Subramanyam (CBS), focuses on growth. Total viewing is up 2% year over year, broadcast share of total viewing up 2%. CBS viewing also is up 2% year over year—across entertainment, news and sports, 8-10 shows averaging over 10 million viewers nightly. When it comes to reach and “unique,” it’s an even bigger number in streaming, particularly entertainment. There’s great momentum in sports and women in sports.

Crisis and Opportunity – The Future of Media for Research and Measurement

• Posted: June 1, 2023

Brian Wieser’s keynote address covered four trends that are affecting the media and advertising industries: industry consolidation, the rise of ad-free TV, the emergence of new e-commerce marketers and procurement. After his presentation, Scott McDonald probed him further about his observations about the state of the media and advertising marketplace in 2023. His key points on these four trends and highlights of Brian’s conversation with Scott appear below.

If an Ad Plays When the TV is Off, Did Anyone See It?

• Posted: May 31, 2023

Mike Fisher of GroupM shared findings from an eye-opening study conducted with iSpot.tv, investigating continuous play scenarios. It revealed a viewability issue with external, third-party, streaming devices such as Roku, Amazon Fire TV and gaming consoles Xbox and PlayStation. Such devices make the verification of ad delivery via TV apps more difficult. While such a device may signal that an ad was delivered, the TV screen itself may be off. Since external devices and the TVs they are attached to do not talk to each other, and so the message is lost. Fisher urged this as an industry-wide issue that multiple parties: manufacturers, publishers, agencies and advertisers, need to come together to fix.