How big data gave TV ads a new lease of life
In a world where user-centricity has become king, buying TV ad space for generic audiences is now an outdated approach. Unsurprisingly, there’s been speculation of television’s impending death sentence. However, if TV truly is on the chopping block, why is television advertising revenue still projected to grow by 5.5 percent over the next five years?
The truth: television is not dying so much as it is evolving into a new, all-encompassing category: one that streams Internet video content on computers and mobile devices, as well as broadcasts on-demand entertainment via set-top boxes and connected TVs.
Years ago, the emergence of video as new technology signalled the impending demise of radio as an advertising platform. Ever heard the phrase “Video Killed the Radio Star?” Fittingly, “Video Killed the Radio Star” was the first music video aired on MTV in 1981. There seemed to be a widespread belief that music lovers would stop listening to radio stations and turn to MTV-like channels. The loss of listeners and the expected abandonment of radio advertising were supposed to defeat the radio business.
Fast forward to 2014: Radio and radio advertising are very much alive. Naysayers, however, are still singing a revised rendition of the same tune. This time round, video (and its new-age digital and mobile accomplices) will crush the reign of television. No one seems to believe that different advertising platforms can co-exist.
And yet, shielded by constant evolution to ensure the survival of the fittest, TV is set to survive. Unifying data management platforms, such as Lotame, first enabled data from digital and mobile brand interactions to be analysed as a whole. Television was late to the table, but eventually arrived. Interestingly enough, TV operators have been collecting data for a long time, but the ability to aggregate TV data with granularity and draw deeper consumer behaviour insights was only recently developed.
Therefore, as much as technology may have threatened television’s survival, technology – in the form of Big Data and Analytics – is set to breathe new life into TV advertising in 2015. TV operators can now optimise their own inventory for on-air promotion and improve the specific ‘target-ability’ of their audiences. Following that, they can lend their inventory to advertisers and agencies to improve the overall value of TV advertising.
With the average Asia-Pacific user spending over seven hours daily consuming content across multiple screens – televisions, computers and mobile devices, advertisers also spent 2014 pursuing the holy grail of advertising technology: the ability to store, aggregate and make sense of large data volumes collected from the above multiple sources in multiple formats. The good news: the Holy Grail is set to arrive in 2015.
Now imagine a multi-screen experience. Imagine watching ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ via SingTel mio TV’s video-on-demand movies function. When the curtain falls, you navigate online on your laptop or mobile phone to purchase the novel of the same name or look up air tickets to Amsterdam (where the film was partially filmed). Collected and collated cross-platform data raises a flag that a consumer’s online browsing or purchasing behavior was affected by him or her watching the movie, for the reference of TV operators and advertisers.
The availability of massive amounts of highly granular data, tracking what people do both on and off TV will facilitate the real-time creation of new consumer profiles and segmentations. Off TV data tracking has grown to include mobile ‘data-points’ that provide insight on the number of people visiting a particular location at a certain point in time, and their profile in terms of age and gender. Overall, rather than target generic audiences with spray-and-pray marketing methods, advertisers can now utilise advanced analytics and adjust advertising budgets within TV or across other media to reach the right audience at the right time.
The executioner’s axe is wide off the mark from television’s supposed demise. It’s never been a case of TV dying, but rather its evolution to incorporate new thriving digital and mobile properties. With Big Data and Analytics as an ally, TV audience targeting will truly come of age in 2015.
Moving forward, as brands continue to seize the consumer engagement opportunities presented by today’s multi-screen environment, it is imperative that new and improved TV audience targeting capabilities become a key consideration in every integrated, user-centric advertising strategy.
After all, most audiences are disinterested spectators in the battle between different advertising platforms. What they really root for is the ability to enjoy content that informs and entertains them, wherever and whenever they want it.
