The growth of ad-supported streaming services continues to be one of the most important developments in the media. A new study confirms that acceptance of advertising is a major driver behind that trend, but also shows that consumer satisfaction with streaming advertising is not as high as it could be.
Sponsored by MarketCast. Read more »
Coinciding with upfront week, the Wall Street Journal published an article about companies’ advertising strategies, considering the changes in media and audience behaviors.
David Tice – Consultant, HUB Entertainment Research
Justin Fromm – Head of Insights & Thought Leadership, Samsung Ads
Justin Fromm from Samsung Ads and David Tice of HUB Entertainment Research discussed how consumer behavior is changing due to greater Smart TV penetration and usage. Streaming has become the default method of watching TV for a large swath of viewers. Streaming audiences have also increasingly become more receptive to advertising. Another important trend, Smart TV operating systems (OEMs) are constantly upgraded and made easier to use. As a result, home screen interactions continue to grow. Home screens have played a significant role in content discovery, although TV brand is a moderating factor. Home screens have even helped accelerate the rise of FAST services. In an era of constant churn, coming up in a home screen search and having an advertising model or tier have become critical to retention. Key takeaways:
Rebecca Fine – Associate Director, Marketing Insights, Samba TV
Cole Strain – VP, Head of R&D, Samba TV
An examination of the top H1 2023 streaming shows for household viewership found that original streaming content captures audiences, according to Rebecca Fine and Cole Strain of Samba TV. Bingeing behavior is a significant household viewership change as viewers have shifted from linear to streaming TV consumption. When given the choice, viewers prefer to binge. Seventy-two percent of U.S. adults identify themselves as binge watchers. A consistent trend across viewership for streaming program premieres was that 44% of viewers watched the program in the first four days, and 78% watched the program by day 15. Bingeable shows are more likely to be completed and have higher average retention between season premiere and finale. Forty-five percent of households will finish the whole season when the season drops in bulk, but retention drops to 35% when the show is released weekly. Netflix’s propensity for the bulk release model means that more of its shows get fully consumed. Rebecca and Cole analyzed the top 50 streaming programs and found that most platforms have a high percentage of households who only watch only one show. However, 73% of viewers watch more than one top show on Netflix. Key takeaways:
Nicole Lawless DesJardins, Ph.D. – Sr. Director Data Science, iSpot.tv
Leslie Wood, Ph.D. – CRO, iSpot.tv
Leslie Wood and Nicole Lawless DesJardins, both of iSpot.tv, provided an overview of advertising trends in linear and streaming over the last two years in terms of ad creative, campaign and measurement. They defined linear as any content purchased on a national schedule and noted that variations exist across industries. Among their findings:
James Alexander – Product Director – Measurement, Inscape
Rich Guinness – Associate Director, Data Licensing, Inscape
James Alexander and Rich Guinness at Inscape utilized big data to uncover current trends in TV viewing. Streaming continues to cut into linear. Ad supported platforms are growing more popular. People’s thirst for new subscriptions has plateaued. Streaming viewers churn constantly, following the content they want to watch from one platform to another. Bingeing occurs on both linear and streaming, but those who use both binge the most. In today’s environment, new streaming apps grow quickly in both viewership and minutes viewed. Even though they are still a small slice of the pie, FAST apps continue to grow at a rapid pace. Key takeaways:
Mike Brooks – Global Head of Business Development and Partnerships, LG Ad Solutions
Mike Brooks of LG Ad Solutions described the current rebalancing among CTV users leaving subscription services to embrace ad supported streaming platforms. The trend continues at a brisk pace which spells good news for advertisers. CTV offers many opportunities and as ad supported grows, more viewers suddenly become reachable. People take a significant amount of time to select what they want to watch on CTV, LG’s survey found, and are equally driven to content from their TV’s home screen as from the home screen of their favorite streaming app. This creates an opportunity to help people find content. Most viewers are also doing something on their personal device while watching, which offers shoppable TV opportunities as well as the ability to connect one’s digital and TV brands in dynamic ways. Key takeaways:
Spencer Lambert – VP, Product & Partnership Success, datafuelX
Matthew Weinman – Sr. Director, Advanced Advertising Product Management, TelevisaUnivision
Reach and frequency planning requires access to unique viewership data, which has become increasingly restricted due to identity restrictions. However, challenges exist with panel-only measurement, including the undercounting of Hispanic and Spanish language coverage, stated Matthew Weinman (TelevisaUnivision). Panel data undercounts Hispanics audiences by upwards of 20%, even for broad demographics. The benefits of big data exist across audience planning, viewership measurement and outcomes. Excessive frequency can be limited while maintaining or expanding reach, as well as improving ROAS. However, there are barriers to working with big data, including PII compliance. Additionally, the size and scale of big data leads to lengthy ID forecast times and computing costs. Spencer Lambert (datafuelX) presented details of their approach to ID-level forecasting which included their reach and frequency clustering methodology. Key takeaways:
Rohan Castelino – CMO, IRIS.TV
Mike Treon – Programmatic Lead, PMG
Representing the Alliance for Video Level Contextual Advertising (AVCA), Rohan Castelino (IRIS.TV) and Mike Treon (PMG) examined research conducted with eye tracking and attention computing company, Tobii. The research endeavor focused on the impact of AI-enabled contextual targeting on viewer attention and brand perception in CTV. Beginning the discussion, Rohan examined challenges with CTV advertising. He noted that advances in machine learning (ML) have empowered advertisers to explore AI enabled contextual targeting, which analyzes video frame by frame, uses computer vision, natural language, understanding, sentiment analysis, etc., to create standardized contextual and brand suitability segments. Highlighting a study of participants in U.S. households, the research specifically aimed to understand if AI-enabled contextual targeting outperformed standard demo and pub-declared metadata in CTV. Additionally, they wanted to understand if brand suitability had an impact on CTV viewers’ attention and brand perception. Results from the research found that AI-enabled contextual targeting outperformed standard demo and pub-declared metadata in CTV and increased viewer engagement. In closing, Mike provided the marketers’ perspective on the use of AI-enabled contextual targeted ads and its practical applications. Key takeaways: