The Future of TV Advertising Global: 5 Things We Loved (1 Thing We Didn’t)
This week the Watching That UK team descended on King’s Cross for Mediatel’s Future of TV Advertising Global event. Our CEO Cameron graced the stage at the head of the programmatic section, while the team spread out to absorb as many of the presentations as possible.
Courtesy of Mediatel
What we loved
Welcome to Netflix, Disney, and ITVX
Jeremi Gorman, the new advertising lead at Netflix, boldy committed to continued emphasis on great user experience on the platform – including the advertising offering. There was also commitment to a maximum of four minutes of ads per hour.
Jeremi Gorman of Netflix
From a user perspective that sounds great. With CPMs likely to be north of £40, it also sounds expensive for media buyers.
Disney+ and ITVX were also onstage launching their new advertising-driven offerings. It’s clear there has been a pivot to Ad-supported growth all round.
Let’s see what pans out, but we like what we hear.
Creative Optimization
You know us, we’re big fans of optimization, so we loved Nicola Lewis of Finecast making the case for creative optimization. After a full day of talking tech it was a welcome change to see some creative executions. And we think her formula of Creativity + Technology + Humanity will lead to better engagement, too.
On this topic a special mention also goes out to Charlotte Wilcocks who showed Impero’s work for George by ASDA [below], and how a TV-led campaign spread across media, and drove George by ASDA to the number 1 spot in back-to-school category.
Bothism
Tom Roach presented his argument for a combination of performance and brand building, rather than treating the two as in opposition. Roach built a compelling case with examples from Mark Ritson, Les Binet and Peter Field, and Karen Nelson-Field, as well as his own work.
The beauty of linear
A number of broadcasters made the case for some of the specific nuances that have made TV such a powerful medium. These include prioritising the first slot in an ad pod, and the first break in a show, and seamless ad delivery. Can CTV find ways to keep these special products, while also automating and growing?
Graeme Lynch, VP Demand EMEA at Magnite reminded the audience that in the end, the audience isn’t too concerned with which platform they are watching, they just want great content to be easily accessible.
Watching That Data
During his presentation, Cameron showed a slide revealing the most common errors that lead to unfilled inventory. Only Watching That has access to this granularity of data, across networks, broadcasters and SSPs. Expect more insights like this in 2023.
What we didn’t love
The new acronym ‘SAVOD’ [Subscription and Advertising Video On Demand] seems to be taking the crown as the new acronym for Subscription and Ad Funded platforms. We’re a little bit upset about this, because we had our money on HVOD [Hybrid Video on Demand]. It’s okay, we’ll get over it.
Looking forward to 2023
Cameron Church, CEO of Watching That
One thread running through the event was that of Measurement. At many times it felt like de-ja-vu, as platforms, vendors and buyers all bemoaned the lack of standardisation in this space. They’re all right, of course, but this is nothing new.
Let’s hope by the time next year’s event comes round, there has been more progress towards solving this issue. We’re booking our tickets now.
