TV wanted to be just like digital. Unfortunately, the ad business got its wish
Welcome to ad tech everyone
For years, the TV business had Digital Advertising Envy.
Ad executives heard all about digital’s powerful targeting capabilities. Its endless piles of data. The speed and ease of programmatic tech. The ability to reach audiences, not shows or sites. The scale and market power of those damn walled gardens.
The rise of CTV promised to deliver on all of the above. And in many ways, it has, for better or worse.
You’d think the TV buying and sale community would be empowered, and consumers thrilled.
But if you talk to people working through the streaming revolution, there is a wide range of frustration:
Buyers grumble about CTV “murkiness” - not knowing where their ads are running or even how they got there. This is particularly true with FAST services
Buyers moan about their inability to co-mingle data sets, particularly as they lean on ACR data from the likes of Samba, iSpot, LG, Samsung, etc. They can’t plan or optimize using so many different base numbers (SOUND FAMILIAR DIGITAL PEOPLE??)
As more players enter the buying process, such as clean room providers, there are arguments and tensions brewing over who pays for this tech (you know, sort of like a tax of sorts?)
Buyers are divorcing audiences form content, regardless of how ‘premium’ it is, and guess what, sellers don’t like that?
Pricing is all over the map. As Tracy Stallard, longtime Global Marketing VP AB InBev told me on a recent podcast, “we’re in a currency scary world
“We’ve gone through really weird pricing fluctuations in the marketplace… streaming has not figured out how to be cost competitive yet.” (LOL AD TECH VETS)
There are seemingly endless ways to measure basics like campaign reach and frequency. BUT, at the same time, big media companies like Disney and Paramount+ have their own identifiers, their own ways of measuring and optimizing in their worlds, and buyers kinda just have to go with it (IRONY MUCH?)
Well, at least we’re delivering the right ad at the right time, right? Ah, well, have you watched any ad-supported CTV lately? The consumer experiences is - not good. Between ads that are far from relevant, to jarring interruptions, to the same ads again and again and again, AND AGAIN, CTV is failing to live up to its promise
Welcome to ad tech ladies and gentleman. Are you having fun yet?
As one buyer explained to me, while the situation is far from dire (after all CTV is projected to grow 14% this year), it sure is anxiety-ridden.
Some of the frustration is warranted, he said, while some is driven by discomfort with change - or as he put it, “legacy emotion.”
After all, we all wanted to be able to buy specific target audiences on TV, he argues, and now that we can, we’re complaining that we don’t know what shows our ads are running in.
Of course, nobody was asking for “seven Verizon ads from six DSPs” during one viewing session, he said.
“This definitely slows everything down,” added a seller.
Tyler Fitch, Tubi’s Senior Vice President, Advanced TV & Partnerships Transparency, acknowledged that the industry is going through some growing pains, but he’s confident that technology, some basic education, and smarter strategies - can solve a lot of TV’s tech headaches.
For instance, according to Fitch, there are good reasons that brands don’t always know exactly where their ads are running. In some cases, rules are in place to protect sellers from being undercut in the market. In Tubi’s case, because the company employs IP addresses, it can’t legally pass along specific viewership data to clients.
Overall, many of these issues stem from the simple fact that TV is seeing “two different words coming together,” he said.
Tubi has built its own proprietary ad tech, which Fitch says can solve for many of these issues. Part of the challenge in the current market is that much of the ad tech in use was built for display ads, he contends. “I never want somebody to come have bad experience when they come to our site,” he said. If needed, “We can turn away ads, we we can spread out buys further.”
Naturally, managing this sort of thing across partners is the tough part, Fitch said. Long term, “buying direct is always better,” he said. “When you have multiple touchpoints into someones inventory,” that’s where you get problems.
Of course, the reason publishers allow for multiple touchpoints is that leads to multiple revenue sources. Which is understandable.
So is looking to protect your data advantage. Yet the more that companies decide not to allow for interoperability, the more fragmentation they bring about, and they harder they make it for buyers. “This all comes down to business decisions and incentives,” said a seller. “Right now, TV is a bunch of closed ecosystems.”
Do clients understand all this? The growth in spending would seem to indicate most are just going with it. But as one buyer put it, even as the industry works to improve upon these issues, “all of this makes clients nervous,” he said. “It creates hesitancy.”
Nervous clients? Like I said, welcome to ad tech!
This is yet another reason for media owners who still have a linear/traditional TV offering, to modernize the advertising capabilities of that real estate. Why not improve the value for advertisers, which in turn, could produce a better viewing experience. For example, it is beyond frustrating that the capabilities exist for network/programmer-based HH-level addressability in national commercial inventory, but few, if any are leaning into this!
Now layer in privacy and informed consent and this gets 10,000 times worse. Folks keep thinking these privacy laws are not meant at them. Big problem. Bigger issue. Data sharing = sale (keeping it simplistic) Informed, clear, transparent consent is required. Counter party agreements under new CPRA says you need to id your vendors as Contractor, Third Party, Service Provider and you need addendums with all of them.
Making your head spin yet?
More walled ad tech gardens anyone?
Good article, keep digging on the real issues Mr. Shields.