SVOD

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

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

Mike Fisher – Executive Director, Investment Innovation, GroupM

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. iSpot curated data from three sources from the first half of 2021 (Jan. 1 – June 30). GroupM supplied trade desk impression logs from programmatic buying, including each IP address an impression was delivered to, the device ID and the unique ad identifier, the time stamp and the app that was used. The second source was iSpot pixel impression logs which included the timestamped feed of OTT impressions and the delivery device UA to validate impressions (TV mapping). These were compared and matched against iSpot’s ACR data (licensed from VIZIO/Inscape) which showed whether the TV was on or off at the time an impression was delivered.

Key Takeaways

  • The results showed that 15-20% of the time, when an ad is playing on such an external device, the TV is off. Every publisher and device combination were affected.
  • This doesn’t happen with most Smart TVs, although there is one that goes into a low power mode (Fisher wouldn’t say which).
  • The initial study did not look at input switching, such as when someone switches to a gaming console or cable box. But that is part of phase two, along with how time of day affects this phenomenon (i.e., people falling asleep in front of the TV) and expanded data sets to look at linear TV consumption.
  • GroupM is now testing what combinations of devices and cables make the problem better or worse and why. Older HDMI cables and having a sound bar can interrupt the power on/off signal, they found. Pucks and sticks, and other devices hidden behind TVs, also have a higher occurrence of continuous play.
  • Prompts that ask, “Are you still watching?” help avoid this. Some platforms wait four hours to ask, which is too long, but with short-form episodic viewing, asking too often can annoy viewers.

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AUDIENCExSCIENCE 2023

AUDIENCExSCIENCE 2023

The ARF hosted its annual flagship conference, AUDIENCExSCIENCE 2023, on April 25-26, 2023. The industry’s biggest names and brightest minds came together to share new insights on the impact of changing consumer behavior on brands, insights into TV consumption, campaign measurement and effectiveness, whether all impressions are equal, join-up solutions across multiple media, the validity, reliability and predictive power of Attention measures, targeting diverse audiences, privacy’s effect on advertising and the impact of advertising in new formats. Keynotes were presented by Tim Hwang, author of Subprime Attention Crisis, Robert L. Santos of the U.S. Census Bureau, Brian Wieser of Madison and Wall, LLC and Andrea Zapata of Warner Bros. Discovery.

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The Challenge of Churn

The Challenge of Churn

Mike Bloxham – EVP, Global Media & Entertainment, Magid

Tony Cardinale – SVP, Data Science, Magid

Media use has been changing rapidly and that requires paying constant attention to how viewers use services, for example, which streaming services they subscribe to and which they cancel. Churn among streaming service subscribers is typically seen as a negative: Providers try to minimize churn, maximize retention. Based on analyses of their Subscriber Science Monitor data, Magid researchers Mike Bloxham and Tony Cardinale offered a fresh perspective on the drivers of churn as well as on the implications of churn for content providers. They conclude that churn is inevitable—and that some churn is correlated to growth and cultural relevance. The key to their insights was a segmentation analysis that focused on viewers’ propensity to churn.

Key Takeaways

  • As SVOD has become mainstream, subscriber growth does not come from non-streamers anymore, but largely from churn between services. This makes churn an important issue that requires careful analysis to inform providers’ strategy.
  • Churn is not simply a reflection of the quality of the service. The analyses show that there are viewer segments with different predispositions to churn. As a result, it is important to look at the churn rates among each segment to get a full understanding of consumer sentiment.
  • Not all churn is negative. Some churn, driven by engaged viewers, is indicative of a healthy service. Subscribers with higher churn rates are likely among the most important to the content subscription platforms, as they are deeply involved in the content and are most active on social about that content.
  • To manage churn and resubscription, we need to recognize the different motivations of viewer segments. This is important for the health of a streaming business.

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Key Drivers of Cord-Cutting

  • Posted: February 14, 2023

MRI-Simmons’ “Cord Evolution Study” has been tracking cord-cutting for eight years. This year’s iteration summarized key findings in “5 reasons why many consumers have cut their TV cord.”

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How Viewers Keep Changing

  • Posted: January 18, 2023

A recent LA Media Research Council event featured insights from 2022 research and discussions about 2023 priorities to meet business challenges. This issue of NYCU presents a summary of learnings from the 2022 studies outlined at the event. Highlights of the media experts’ conclusions regarding 2023 priorities will be in the next NYCU. Read more »

2022 Media Insights and 2023 Challenges

2022 Media Insights and 2023 Challenges

  • L.A. Media Research Council | Author, Garrett Woods, VidMob

An ARF event presented by the LA Media Research Council focused on insights from 2022 research and on 2023 priorities to meet business challenges. Issues addressed in research presentations and by an expert panel included the evolution of streaming during an economic downturn, how to manage subscriber churn, understanding Gen Z and the continued need for better measurement across the ecosystem.

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