Addressable Advertising Moves To Prime Time

APAC brands now have a powerful way to reach more customers directly with personalised content.

Subscription-based models like Netflix and iFlix get plenty of attention, but linear and broadcast TV—scheduled programming viewed at a set time—remain a popular and growing source of video consumption across the APAC region.

And where eyeballs go, advertisers are sure to follow. With the rise of data analytics to predict purchase behaviour and intent, plus demographic data and Internet connectivity, APAC brands now have a powerful way to reach more customers directly with personalised content: addressable TV ads.

Addressable TV advertising targets different ads to different households in the same viewing region across different platforms and devices. It’s an exploding area of the market thanks to the advent of connected television (CTV).

According to Gareth Tomlin, general manager, insights, data and analytics at Australia’s Network 10, addressable advertising offers marketers an unrivalled combination of mass reach coupled with smarter targeting and segmentation, helping ensure that as many of the right people as possible receive specific brand messages.

“As ad-free entertainment options continue to increase in popularity, the opportunities to advertise and integrate into premium, brand-safe Australian broadcast content, become more valuable,” Tomlin told CMO by Adobe. “The combination of free-to-air television and broadcast video-on-demand is the most powerful to deliver sales outcomes.”

Addressable Uptake

Globally, demand for addressable advertising is on the rise. In the U.S., for example, addressable TV ad spend is projected to grow to $3.3 billion by the end of this year, up 343% from 2016, according to the Video Advertising Bureau. To date, 15% of U.S. advertisers use addressable advertising regularly and 35% have tried it.

Addressable TV is also making inroads across Southeast Asia, thanks to major investments in digital infrastructure, such as CTV and broadcast video-on-demand (BVOD), by the region’s largest broadcasters and often in partnership with leading ISPs. The region has seen a 466% increase in CTV content streams between January 2016 and October 2018, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Addressable Advantages

Addressable advertising presents an obvious upside for advertisers because they can formulate unique user profiles while simultaneously tracking people’s TV-viewing habits. This allows companies to tailor their messages to specific demographics and target consumers with increasingly greater precision.

“Televisions can now provide networks with precise data regarding the owner’s viewing habits, and the vast majority have CTV capabilities, so advertisers no longer have to feel constrained about where and how they advertise,” said Allen Klosowski, SVP of advanced solutions at SpotX.

Traditional advertising will always have its place, he told CMO by Adobe, “but the beauty of addressable TV is that it allows ad campaigns to be as granular as the advertiser wants. As user mapping becomes increasingly sophisticated using first- and third-party data, you can run a targeted campaign across multiple regions and multiple devices.”

This increased functionality also offers more opportunity for smaller brands that had previously been shut out of the market due to the high costs of mass-market advertising and limited space. With addressable TV, these smaller companies can also get the benefits of honing in on particular customer segments and targeting their campaigns more affordably.

Addressable Down Under

Visit Canberra is one brand that has put addressable advertising to work, launching its “Masterbrand” ad campaign in October across network television and a range of digital/social media channels. The company relied on Network 10 owner Ten Network’s addressable TV offering to target its campaign to the specifics of Ten’s app audiences.

Ten’s solution enables brands to target consumers via the Web, their mobile devices, and their connected TVs using specifications like industry, interests, behaviours, and demographics. Ten also partnered with software provider You.i to gain a deeper understanding of its audience, from where and how they watch, to how they interact with natural and sponsored content.

“This partnership gives us control of every pixel on-screen within our 10 Play connected TV apps, allowing us to create non-invasive ad solutions, while our digital partnerships mean we can work more closely with advertisers and agencies to deliver better campaigns,” Tomlin said.

GroupM is another player in the space. In partnership with Australian broadcast networks (including Ten Network), GroupM launched Finecast, the media investment group’s addressable TV business. Finecast provides a single point of access for advertisers to target TV audiences across on-demand, set-top box, and live-streaming platforms.

“What we’re offering is the power of television with the precision of digital,” said Brett Poole, Finecast’s managing director.

Addressable Potential

The addressable market may still be in its relative infancy, but more and more brands are realising its potential.

“The ability to disseminate complex data to provide valuable insights should make brands more excited about reaching more engaged viewers,” SpotX’s Klosowski said.

Network 10’s Tomlin also believes the future of addressable advertising is powered by a shared understanding of consumers throughout every interaction they have with a brand.

“With the worldwide shift towards more regulation in privacy and data sharing, it’s more important than ever for brands to build an understanding of their own audience so they can engage with them on a deeper level and with more relevance,” he added.