By Daniel Elad, Chief Strategy Officer of tech company TheViewPoint.
As things stand today, Connected TV (CTV) provides people with a wide assortment of content options available for streaming any time and place on demand. Even though many parts of the entertainment industry suffered huge losses during the coronavirus quarantine, CTV had a solid uptick in both viewership and engagement.
COVID-19 has affected (if not disrupted) a good part of the business environment and the Connected TV industry is no exception. In March alone, the video streaming industry has grown by 20% across the globe, according to Conviva. At the same time, the average number of SVOD transactions spiked to over 53% over the identical period in 2019. On top of that, it was during the daytime when the largest surge in viewing took place, which had never happened before. Another interesting observation suggests an increase in living room co-viewing, meaning that families were watching content in groups rather than alone in their rooms.
Post-COVID CTV Trends
A gradual return to normal routines and businesses reopening made little to no difference to CTV benchmarks. According to Nielsen’s report, connected TV usage remains well above the pre-COVID-19 levels. The world is already getting back to its usual way of life but the habits and beliefs people acquired during the pandemic might continue into the future. There are a lot of changes in user behavior too, especially in their willingness to purchase and increased ad tolerance.
With this in mind, advertisers need to reconsider their old approaches and strategies to remain competitive and useful for their customers. It’s a huge undertaking with lots of opportunities and detail to consider. Let’s recap the most crucial recommendations each digital advertiser should keep in mind whilst planning their campaigns.
7 tips for CTV venturers:
- Stay in the loop and follow ad trends.It’s essential to monitor news and updates from publishers and analyze the stats that emerge on media to keep track of consumer preferences, habits, and interests. Forewarned is forearmed. Once there’s a new growing trend, you are most likely to be among the first to leverage it;
- Reconsider your strategy. Brands need to redefine their message, redetermine their target audience, and reassess timing. Luckily, CTV advertising offers data-based insights and the ability to optimize campaigns, change messaging, targeting, and timing in real-time;
- Come up with deals and promotions. Freebies drive attention. In a post-COVID-19 period, when consumers are tightening their belts, deals and promotions can also be a lifesaver for your potential buyers;
- Think programmatic. Do you know that more and more advertisers are willing to buy OTT inventory programmatically? This tendency is likely to remain in the nearest future since programmatic comes with amazing benefits – data-driven targeting, advanced measurement capabilities, and high-quality interactions are among the numerous delights;
- Think long-term and invest in brand awareness. Start planning and thinking long-term. Community-based messaging combined with new consumption habits, showcasing the human aspect of brands and products are some of the key aspects to focus on in your CTV ad strategy.
- Innovate, engage, and get creative with your ads. Innovating and switching from the traditional tools that do not serve you well might seem like a good strategy. Rethink your approach by bringing the best offline ad practices into the digital arena. Your creatives should be engaging enough to make your audience want to pause programs to learn more about the products or services you promote. Luckily, there are innovative CTV ad formats to help you with that.
- Move forward in a more like-minded way. To be ahead of the game, brands will need to commit more in advance, unlike the way they did before.. Regardless of the ads they produce, they should cater to performance, transparency, data-driven approaches combined with always-on, audience-powered attribution.
In addition to the steps outlined above and adapting to the new normal, it’s important for brands to envision future digital marketing strategies on a regular basis. Switching to new ways of advertising is vital and is already a common reality, not just a matter of the post-COVID-19 world.
