Data can now make TV more effective. Even Byron Sharp should welcome more accurate targeting.

Brands and their agencies face a dilemma.

On the one hand, evidence from Byron Sharp shows that brands should drive reach of all purchasers in the category as often as possible. What’s more, according to effectiveness gurus Peter Field and Les Binet, TV remains a critical part of the mix for delivering this reach and cost-effective growth.

But, at the same time, the ability of TV to deliver the requisite levels of reach has deteriorated rapidly. Over the past five years, the number of gross rating points required to reach 50% of an all-adult target audience has risen by 50% in the US, 40% in France and 22% in the UK. Other markets show similar trends, making Sharp’s vision harder to deliver. There’s a reach gap and it’s getting bigger – especially among younger audiences. It’s also becoming significantly more expensive to generate that reach.

To fill the gap, some brands have boarded the personalisation-at-scale bandwagon, targeting high-value individuals with personalised messages. But this is an extreme reaction. Huge amounts of money have been invested in the technology and data to deliver such personalisation – but it’s questionable whether the investment can be recouped.

Moreover, not all reach is equal. So, while it is possible to fill the reach shortfall with digital activity, it may not be possible to match the impact that TV-driven reach generates – especially at scale.

The dilemma is that TV remains critical, but there’s a reach gap and efficiency is diminishing. So, to compensate, we are facing a huge investment in a data-driven solution. Ultimately, this compromises the Sharp/Field and Binet dream and makes it harder to deliver effective reach of category users.

But there is a solution. One that retains the ambition of delivering Sharp’s reach strategy, addresses the shortfall in TV delivery against the real category users and frees up budget to fill any reach gap.

That solution is the intelligent application of data.

By applying the same data we use to activate personalised digital activity at scale to TV, we can plan airtime to actual category users instead of demographic proxies for category users. That may sound like a semantic change, but it’s actually hugely significant.

Fusing our behavioural data with TV viewing data enables us to plan a campaign against specific interests – dog owners, say – instead of 25- to 45-year-old BC1s. Planning in this way frequently generates in excess of 10% improvements in the cost of reaching the people that Sharp demands we contact: category users.

Data allows us to deliver actual category users, rather than people who look like category users.

Delivering reach more efficiently in this way releases investment for more targeted video activity – filling the reach gap against a consistently defined target audience. And, more than this, by using a single data source to plan activity across digital and TV, we can measure cross-media reach and identify those that have not been exposed to the TV activity.

Incremental video support can then be directed at these individuals, maximising reach against category users. Thus, Sharp is satisfied, personalisation at scale is delivered, relevance is maximised and ROI is stabilised.

The same data sets can also be applied to other channels, such as radio and outdoor. This lets us quantify and identify an audience in more detail than traditional media metrics allow and invest more accurately.

These principles can be applied to every sector, ultimately making TV more powerful and more effective, while, for the first time, reassuring marketers that they are actually reaching all (or many more) of their category buyers.

If it’s true that TV will become more programmatic in the future, then some of the more technical lessons learned online will be applicable to our most important medium, but that will take time.

For now, it’s important to remember that data isn’t simply the preserve of digital – it can be applied to every channel and every strategy. The impact is massive, and with smarter targeting strategies it can help any brand.

David Beale is global chief data officer at MediaCom

Source: https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/targeted-byron-sharp-anyone/1580598

 

Lindsey Clay, CEO of Thinkbox, has been appointed as the first President of the Global TV Group, the informal grouping of TV broadcasters, sales houses, and trade bodies in Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia and Latin America.

The Global TV Group was set up in 2013. egta is a founding member of the Group and acts as its coordinator.  It is a forum for sharing knowledge, exchanging best practice and collating global TV intelligence. To date it consists of 14 TV industry associations from across the globe.

Each year the Group produces The Global TV Deck, a valuable databank designed to meet the needs of advertisers eager for transparent, robust data and fresh insights about TV advertising’s business performance.

Lindsey Clay, Thinkbox CEO:

“I’m honoured to be The Global TV Group’s first President. The TV industry, so used to being nationally-focussed, needs to work together more internationally to tell the incredible story of its cultural and business-transforming power, and its rapidly accelerating technological capabilities. Viewers and advertisers have never had it so good. A great story is there to be told.”

Clay has been CEO at Thinkbox since 2014.

For more information on the Global TV Group, please visit www.theglobaltvgroup.com.

ABOUT egta

egta is the association representing television and radio sales houses, either independent from the channel or in-house, that markets the advertising space of both private and public television and radio stations throughout Europe and beyond. egta fulfils different functions for its members in fields of activities as diversified as regulatory issues, audience measurement, sales methods, interactivity, cross-media, technical standards, new media, etc. During its more than 40 years’ existence, egta has become the reference centre for television and radio advertising in Europe. egta counts more than 140 members operating across 40 countries. http://www.egta.com/

About Thinkbox

Thinkbox is the marketing body for commercial TV in the UK, in all its forms. It works with the marketing community with a single ambition: to help advertisers get the best out of today’s TV.

Its shareholders are Channel 4, ITV, Sky Media, Turner Broadcasting and UKTV, who together represent over 99% of commercial TV advertising revenue through their owned and partner TV channels. Associate Members are Discovery Networks Norway, Disney, TAM Ireland, Think TV (Australia), thinktv (Canada), TVN Media (Poland), TV Globo (Brazil), TV 2 (Norway), TV 2 (Denmark), DSTv (South Africa), and Virgin Media. Discovery Networks UK & Ireland and STV also give direct financial support.

TV has more to offer advertisers than ever before. In a cluttered media world, with new voices clamouring for advertisers’ attention, TV continues to stand out as proven, trusted and – most importantly – pre-eminently effective.

TV shapes popular culture. The investment our broadcasters make in premium quality TV shows catering to every taste – and available on any screen you wish – creates an advertising environment that is second to none.

From ensuring that the facts about TV are known (and myths challenged) to understanding how and why TV advertising works, explaining how TV is changing, showcasing innovative and affordable solutions and constantly providing the rigorous proof of effectiveness that advertisers need, Thinkbox is here to help businesses meet their marketing objectives.

Source: http://www.theglobaltvgroup.com/thinkboxs-lindsey-clay-becomes-president-of-the-global-tv-group/

TV/media-based business trade groups need to keep growing in a disruptive world. And that can mean spillover, as they extend into sometimes competing professional disciplines.

Promax, the TV marketing group that has been around since the 1950s, is now expanding global membership efforts to include a digital marketing and theatrical marketing emphasis.

Steve Kazanjian, president/chief executive officer of Promax, says there is certain level of “melding” between many marketing areas — for example, among small-screen TV and big-screen theatrical practices.

The 10,000-member group of TV marketing executives is getting a bit of rebranding; PromaxBDA is now Promax. The group is also launching a marketing campaign, “We Love What You Do,” starting around Valentine’s Day.

Three years ago the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau became the Video Advertising Bureau, adding national broadcast members, like CBS and Fox, as well big theatrical screen sellers of advertising such as  National CineMedia (NCM) and Screenvision.

Long before this — almost a decade before — you had the likes of the National Association of Television Program Executives thinking outside its box. For most of its history, NATPE centered around the selling of TV programs, off-TV networks and first-run content to local TV stations — part of the big U.S. TV syndication business.

NATPE now focuses its events around all video content for many platforms — international, cable, OTT, digital and otherwise — all to support development, production, financing, and distribution.

One can understand these moves with this ongoing question: Where is the growth in the media/entertainment world — and how can we gain members and interest?

We have known for a long time that there is much spillover. The Interactive Advertising Bureau began primarily in catering to the independent non-traditional TV/media businesses, as a competitor to the likes of local TV networks, broadcast and cable, and TV stations.

Now you can see the likes of digital-oriented businesses — Warner Bros, Viacom, Turner, Hulu (owned by the four major TV companies, Walt Disney, Fox, NBCUniversal, and WarnerMedia), Meredith and others — offering events/presentations at the spring IAB Newfronts event in the hope of gaining attention and dollars from the big upfront TV advertising market in the summer.

At times you can call all these companies partners, frenemies, or even full-time competitors, when the situation fits.

Future business considerations will obviously mean many more new cross-platform, cross-media industry acquisitions, and then the game will change again. Specific media discipline trade groups will do the same.

Source: https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/331934/for-tv-media-trade-groups-growth-means-expanding.html

The hottest new trend in TV tech is “addressable” ads, or TV ads that can be targeted to specific households via user data. By the end of this year, almost every major TV network and provider will have rolled out their version of an addressable ad product.

Why it matters: It’s a huge departure from the way TV ads have been bought and sold for decades. Struggling networks hope personalized ads will make the TV experience better for users who are ditching TV for ad-free streaming services like Netflix — and they’re also drawn by the opportunity of a digital advertising market that isn’t already controlled by Google and Facebook.Show less

What’s new: Traditionally, TV ads could only be bought and sold by gender and age — not demographics. This means that a cat lover could be served an ad for dog food, or a healthy person could get an ad for medicine. Addressable ads aim to make the messages more relevant.

Driving the news: Several big TV companies announced acquisitions or products this week that they think will make it easier for them to sell more addressable ads.

• NBC says its new streaming service will create a lot of new addressable TV ad inventory. Hulu lowered the price of its ad-supported tier to be able to serve more addressable TV ads. Viacom acquired a digital ad-supported TV streaming company.

Here’s how hot “addressable” is: AT&T says the ability to build an addressable ad product for its DirecTV and DirectTV Now customers was one of the driving factors in its decision to buy Time Warner last year for $85 billion.

“The advertisers that I talk to, they’re interested in taking a big leap into data, which means, we’re not buying 18-49, we’re not selling 25-54, we’re buying consumers who have shown the proclivity to be heavy purchasers of frozen entrees to a company like Conagra.”

— Jon Steinlauf, chief U.S. advertising sales officer at Discovery, talking with Axios at the National Association of Television Program Executives event in Miami Wednesday

How it works: TV networks and providers (cable and satellite companies or digital TV companies like Hulu) are using data from set-top boxes (the boxes you get from your cable company with the blinking lights), combined with data from digital networks (produced as you browse the web), to target ads to you that you might like.

• The beauty of these ads is that they tend to cost less because they reach a smaller, more targeted group of people.
• Because of this, smaller businesses can afford to buy national TV ads for the first time, lowering the barrier of entry to TV marketing.
• As a result, users may start seeing TV ads from brands that they would normally only see on social media, like Dollar Shave Club, as well as ads from legacy brands, like Target.

Be smart: The TV industry knows it needs to make ads more innovative so it doesn’t continue to lose viewers to ad-free services, but the short-term business calculus isn’t always attractive.

• Addressable ads can be harder to sell at scale, because they have to be offered in smaller, more targeted increments.
• This means that in the short term, it could be hard for networks to match their profits from selling more expensive ads that aren’t customized, but reach a lot more people.
• And for companies that have very general products, like toilet paper or toothpaste, broader ads may be more efficient to buy, anyway.

The bottom line: Personalized TV ads are the next big thing, but it will take some time before most TV ads are sold this way.

Source: https://www.axios.com/coming-to-a-tv-near-you-customized-ads-1548378037-e5553f3a-1ded-4cfd-9f5e-be89cd59cf69.html

There’s no denying 2018 was a challenging year all round, with broadcasters, publishers and advertisers putting their energies into General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) preparations. At the same time on-going fragmentation of TV and video viewing across screens and platforms caused disruption in the market, with major media providers, digital giants and new market entrants all competing for audience time and attention.

But as a new year approaches the mood is more optimistic, with the industry looking to move forward and turn these challenges to its advantage, driving innovation and positive change. Here are three ways the TV and video ecosystem will advance throughout 2019, ultimately moving towards a more collaborative and holistic environment:

Premium video’s position will grow stronger

Premium video actors are seeing the GDPR as an opportunity not only to make smarter use of data, but also to educate advertisers about the real value of their inventory. Premium video meets the five non-negotiables of advertising; a brand safe environment, complete transparency, an engaging experience, trustworthiness through third-party verification, and high-quality reach, meaning that although it may appear more expensive than other formats it is well worth the investment.

Advertisers are beginning to understand they can achieve more with premium video than with other forms of digital advertising and while they may buy less overall inventory in 2019 – particularly less specific content – there will be growing demand for premium video. At the same time, alliances such as EBX for broadcasters will help the sell side reduce complexity, allowing advertisers to buy targeted audiences across multiple media providers rather than doing individual deals.

Addressable TV will make strides across Europe

Addressable TV has already seen success in the US and the UK, and this trend is likely to be replicated across Europe. As it expands, addressable will cause a fundamental shift in the way media is sold – the biggest change since the arrival of programmatic. While there has been a slight decline in the amount of time spent watching TV in the UK, the rest of Europe has enjoyed relatively stable TV consumption, with countries such as France and Germany showing the medium is as powerful as ever for advertisers and will become even more so when audiences can be targeted at household level.

There are practical barriers to implementing addressable TV across Europe – including different technological standards for linear diffusion streams, content consumption favouring certain devices, and different actor types and leaders. But the growing interest in addressable makes it an appealing prospect for every market even with these hurdles to overcome, and ad budgets will start to shift to this new buying opportunity as it brings the efficiency of long-term brand building.

Addressable opens the door for those who would not traditionally use TV or premium video advertising and, over the coming year, small and medium businesses will become the next advertiser segments for addressable TV. The localised linear advertising this enables will radically alter TV buyers’ approach and the industry should be looking towards defining a common language, accepted and used by all as we move into 2019.

Inventory monetisation models will blur

With video consumption continuing to fragment across screens and platforms, broadcasters and publishers need to refocus their approach around return on investment, allowing them to effectively monetise premium content no matter where it appears. Where there used to be two distinct models, ad supported and subscription based, a new hybrid monetisation model is emerging to combine both revenue streams. Data combined with advanced monitoring tools provides the key to this holistic approach, allowing broadcasters and publishers to accurately forecast and measure the lifetime value of content and achieve the perfect mix of revenue.

The year ahead will be an extremely positive one for premium video and the broadcasters and publishers that supply it. Whether it be the formation of media alliances, the growth of addressable or the realisation of hybrid monetisation models, 2019 will bring a more holistic approach to TV and video characterised by collaboration and integration.

Source: https://www.v-net.tv/2019/01/17/why-2019-will-bring-a-more-holistic-approach-to-tv-and-video/

TO:

Dear President Tusk,
Dear President Juncker,
Dear President Tajani,
Dear Prime Minister Dăncilă,
Dear Minister Ciamba,

CC:

Permanent and Deputy Permanent Representatives of the Member States to the European Union
Chair of the Committee on Legal Affairs in the European Parliament
Shadow Rapporteurs and members of the European Parliament negotiating team
European Commission, Roberto Viola, Mariya Gabriel

Creative Sectors Call for a suspension of negotiations on Article 13^[1]

As representatives of the audiovisual and publishing sectors active across the European markets, we are extremely and increasingly concerned about the direction of the ongoing trilogue discussions on Article 13 (the Value Gap provision) of the proposed Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, as the solutions that are under discussion are worse than the current legal framework.

One of the main justifications^[2] for Article 13 articulated in the Commission’s original impact assessment back in 2016 was the absence of a CJEU referral that could bring clarity to the question of whether an uploaded content service is responsible for acts of communication to the public and/or can benefit from the hosting provider status under the E-Commerce Directive. Since that assessment the situation has now fundamentally changed. In the meantime, such a referral has been launched by a recent decision of 13 September 2018. The German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) referred a case to the CJEU involving YouTube/Google and certain rightholders, for clarification of this very issue (case C-682/18 Google e.a.).

We understand the eagerness to bring the negotiations to a close within the current mandate. However, rather than rushing the highly controversial Art. 13 and seeking conclusion of this provision, no matter the jeopardy to the European copyright framework and no matter the prejudice and damage to the creative sectors before the end of this legislative period, we urge EU co-legislators to suspend negotiations with respect to this article. The Commission should continue to monitor the developments on CJEU level, in particular in case C-682/18, and decide, following this judgement, whether legislative intervention might be necessary in the future. In this regard, we’d also like to recall the principles of proportionality and subsidiarity^[3] as well as the commitments made under the Inter-Institutional Agreement on better law making^[4]. 

Signatories

ACT – Association of Commercial Television in Europe – Grégoire Polad, Director General – gp@acte.be

ANICA – Associazione Nazionale Industrie Cinematografiche Audiovisive Multimediali – Francesco Rutelli, President – presidenza@anica.it

AKTV – Asociace komerčních televizí – Marie Fianová, Secretary General – marie.fianova@aktv.cz

ARCA -Asociatia Română de Comunicaţii Audiovizuale, Grorge Chirita, Executive Director – george@audiovizual.ro

CRTV – Confindustria Radio Televisioni- Rosario Alfredo Donato, Director General –rosario.donato@confindustriaradiotv.it

FAMA – Film and Music Austria – Dr. Werner Mueller – mueller@fama.or.at

FIAPF – International Federation of Film Producers Associations – YBP, Benoît Ginisty, Managing Director to FIAPF Headquarters – B.Ginisty@fiapf.org

IFTA – Independent Film & Television Alliance – Jean Prewitt, CEO – jprewitt@ifta-online.org

IVF – International Video Federation – Publishers of Audiovisual Content on Digital Media and Online, Charlotte Lund Thomsen, Legal Counsel – clthomsen@ivf-video.org

MPA – Motion Picture Association – Stan McCoy, President and Managing Director MPA EMEA – Stan_McCoy@mpaa.org

PREMIER LEAGUE – Mathieu Moreuil, Director of EU Affairs – mmoreuil@premierleague.com

STM – International Association of STM Publishers, Matt McKay, Director of Communications, mckay@stm-assoc.org

VAP – Verein für Anti-Piraterie der Film und Videobranche – Monique A. Goeschl, General Manager – goeschl@vap.cc

VAUNET – German Media Association, Verband Privater Medien e. V – Julia Maier-Hauff, Ressortleiterin Europarecht  – MaierHauff@vau.net

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[1] This letter does not pre-empt the position of the signatories on the rest of the Directive 

[2] Page 143 Impact Assessment: “The CJEU has not addressed the specific case of online services giving access to content uploaded by their users” and “whether they can benefit from the hosting service provider status in the E-Commerce Directive” andpage 144: “Whereas it is possible that the CJEU will bring clarity to the question of whether an uploaded content service is responsible for acts of communication to the public and/or can benefit from the hosting provider status under the E-Commerce Directive, this cannot be predicted as it is entirely dependent on referrals by national courts.”

[3] Article 5(3) Lisbon Treaty, available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:12012M/TXT&from=EN

[4] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L:2016:123:FULL&from=EN