The New Rules Ahead for Streaming TV Advertising: A Premion & BIA Special Report

Author: John Vilade, Head of Sales, Premion.

The pandemic has accelerated consumer behaviors and trends that are redefining a new era of TV consumption — OTT viewing is now the ubiquitous form of TV viewing. While the cord-cutting and streaming shift was well underway, consumer adoption of OTT services increased dramatically last year with the surge in home-bound audiences turning to streaming platforms as their primary source of video entertainment and information.

Last year was a defining year for ad-supported OTT growth. Advertising Video on Demand (AVOD) and Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV (FAST) services have proliferated. These free and lower priced ad-supported subscription tiers are an attractive value proposition for cost-conscious consumers and offer brands a way to activate OTT audiences with highly popular content. In 2021, we continue to see strong growth in virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs) or skinny bundles of OTT services as replacements for traditional cable services. 

We’ve developed a new white paper with BIA Advisory Services to help advertisers navigate the increasingly fragmented and complex OTT marketplace and provide insights for effective planning, buying and measurement of streaming TV advertising. With the rapid growth in streaming audiences, advertisers are re-adjusting their media mix to shift bigger budgets to CTV advertising, and thus will begin to close the gap between CTV viewership and ad spending.

Key Advertiser Takeaways from the Report:

• The pandemic accelerated growth of viewing and ad spending in CTV in 2020 and through Q1 2021, several years ahead of prior forecasts. 
• Local relevance has become a top priority for advertisers in reaching the right audiences for the post-pandemic era. 
• CTV as an advertising platform combines the best of digital with its measurement, audience targeting and attribution capabilities — and the best of the big screen TV experience in long-form, lean-back premium and brand-safe content.
• Adding CTV to linear TV campaigns provides advertisers with reach extension to capture shifting audiences by engaging with viewers that they wouldn’t reach through linear TV alone.
• For digital-first performance marketers that prioritize search, display and social channels, CTV offers a highly affordable and effective way to target high value audiences with precision and outcomes-based measurement.
• With increased fragmentation, advertisers need to understand what they are buying and where their ads are running to ensure that their campaigns are brand-safe and fraud-free.

Download “A Marketers Guide: The New Rules Ahead for Streaming TV Advertising” for insights on driving CTV and OTT advertising success.

Read more on MediaPost here.