There has been a real buzz about online video advertising as TV moves into a digitally connected world. I caught up with some of the leading experts on the convergence between TV and online video and discussed the changing landscape of AV advertising and asked how programmatic trading is revolutionising how media is bought and sold.
Daniel Knapp, Director of Advertising Research at IHS, points out that while there has been two crises in the advertising industry in the last three years, the TV industry has had no such crisis and has remained stable. This has been coupled with the seismic shift in audience consumption away from linear content to DVR and across multiple devise - 15% across tablets and mobiles. Online video for broadcasters has been a good way for broadcasters to diversify, and the majority of online video has been ad funded. There has also been a shift from the way advertising has been traded towards programmatic trading, and he predicted that by 2016 all online display advertising including online would be traded programmatically across the board.
Anthony Rhind, former co-CEO of Havas Digital, makes the point that technology's role is getting beyond the constraints of human capacity. He implored the industry to let technology manage volume and speed, but also take into account human instinct. He points out that brands are built through awareness, reputation and consideration and notes that there has been a lot of chat about whether RTB delivers higher CPMs. In TV we have a huge opportunity, but the question is just how quickly will the take up be?
Chris Locke, UK Trading Director of Starcom Mediavest Group, says that we will get to a model that combines targeted online advertising at scale with fame spots on TV. Other media can do scalability in RTB better. Ad sales is all about long term relationships and RTB is traded on short term relationships. We also need to take into account the social aspects of TV. RTB could be used on second devices rather than second screen, where there is no real data. Advertisers are not moving fast into the video space as they want to sell it at a premium. Chris points out that as a medium, advertisers would want to monetise their off peak.
David Fisher, Head of Futures at Sky feels that targeted audiences will mirror planned audiences in programmatic TV advertising. Adsmart, launching in August, will be bringing targeted advertising to linear TV. It is supply side and has technical capabilities and encompasses the long journey to programmatically trade linear TV. David feels that in the VOD world it will happen sooner.
Richard Wheaton, Managing Director of Neo@Ogilvy, says that it is agencies that are bringing in innovation and capabilities to the debate - brands are not asking for this. "Programmatic" should be called "insight" as it delivers layers of information. Richard feels that the term undervalues the value of agencies. He also points out that all media is digital these days and all the lessons we learned from digital are now applicable to TV.
What we need to ask ourselves is the time right for TV and online to converge?
By Andrew Moore, EMEA managing director, SpotXchange