Struggling to tell your VOD from your CTV? Read on for AJ’s essential guide to the latest TV advertising opportunities.
On demand, linear, streaming, connected…all words we hear time and again in relation to TV advertising opportunities, but what does it all mean?
The days of just choosing which channel best reaches your audience are long gone. As audiences fragment across different viewing platforms, media planning has become more nuanced than ever before. To get the best out of your TV advertising campaign, you need to consider not just who your audience are, but their viewing habits, how they consume media and how TV viewing fits into their lives.
As TV battles with online for attention the pace of change in the industry is rapid. New TV advertising opportunities and constantly evolving terminology mean advertisers sometimes find it difficult to keep up with the latest developments and assess what’s right for their brand.
As always, we’re here to help our clients make sense of all the options and help them figure our what’s best for them. Read on to find out more about current TV advertising opportunities.
What’s the best TV advertising platform for your brand?
Linear.
Quite simply this is your standard traditional TV. When you tune in to ITV to watch Coronation Street at 7:30, or Criminal Minds on 5USA at 9pm, you’re watching linear TV. Ads on linear TV appear as you’d expect, in commercial breaks, during and at the end of shows. The 30 or 60 second format is most commonly used.
Pros of linear TV advertising
- Established and reliable channels
- Mass reach available
- Cost effective
- Reliable viewing measurement
- Smaller channels offer a lower cost entry point for lower budgets
- Niche channels allow advertisers to pinpoint a particular audience
Cons of linear TV advertising
- More difficult to reach some (younger) demographics
Video on demand (VOD) advertising
VOD is pre-recorded programming that you can watch at a time that suits you. If you download an episode of Love Island on ITV X, you’re watching VOD.
Pros of VOD advertising
- Can be very targeted
- Un-skippable ads
- Detailed analytics available
Cons of VOD advertising
- Likely to have smaller audiences than linear
- Binge watching is more likely to lead to ad fatigue
- High CPTs
Streaming service advertising
Streaming or OTT (over-the-top) is the digital distribution of video content. Netflix, Amazon and Disney + are some of the main streaming services. Similar to VOD, streaming allows you to watch content whenever you want but unlike VOD, streamed programming comes to you directly via the internet, so an active internet connection is required to watch your favourite show.
Pros of streaming service advertising
- Can be extremely targeted
- Audiences choose content so potentially more engaged
- Interactive formats available
Cons of streaming service advertising
- High CPT
- Advert free pricing options restrict audience numbers
- Hard to reach some demographics
- Fragmented options makes campaign management difficult
- Stricter data privacy laws in the future may make targeting difficult.
Connected TV advertising (CTV)
A form of digital advertising that appears within streamed content, either via a smart TV or a device like an Amazon Firestick or Google Chromecast. The key difference between CTV viewing and streaming is that CTV content is always viewed on a full sized TV screen (streaming is sometimes watched on a mobile phone or other device).
Pros of CTV advertising
- Big screen viewing for better impact
- More household/multi person views than streaming or VOD
- Generally lower CPTs than VOD
- Adds incremental reach to a plan
Cons of CTV advertising
- Audience measurement metrics still evolving
- Whilst lower than VOD, CPTs are still relatively high
- Can be expensive
What does all this mean for advertisers?
Like many new media offerings, streaming, VOD and CTV advertising can seem like a huge and innovative step forward for the industry. The benefits to the viewer are clear but from an advertisers’ perspective these new opportunities are still very much in development, with small numbers, high prices and unrefined viewing measurement processes.
However, these developments are exciting and do offer a good yardstick of what we can expect from TV advertising in the not too distant future but it’s essential to plan with a healthy degree of caution, for now at least.
With a planning environment that is more complicated than ever before it’s imperative you use a TV advertising agency that really know their onions.
At AJ we NEVER just stick with the status quo but we won’t recommend something just to “stay ahead of the curve” either. We’re constantly in contact with media owners, searching for new opportunities for our clients but we’ll only put them forward if the numbers stack up.
If you think you may be missing a TV trick, get in touch with our experts for balanced, impartial advice. As an independent agency that has no tie-in deals with any media owner all our recommendations are purely based on our decades of experience and are 100% in the best interests of our clients.