How Banks are Capitalizing on the Growing Streaming TV Opportunities to Reach Banking Consumers

Author: Peter Jones, Head of Local Sales, Premion.

The pandemic has accelerated consumer adoption of digital banking, with banks evolving at a dramatic speed to deliver more efficient and personalized ways to meet changing consumer needs. Contactless, digital and touchless behaviors have now become fully ingrained in all facets of our daily activities — and we’ve seen banks lead the charge in catering to this digital-first mindset.

Now more than ever, consumers are looking for timely financial advice and solutions, and banks that are responsive and make it easy for consumers to access and manage their finances all in one place, will build long-term customer loyalty. As guardianships of trust, banks have an opportunity to reinvent themselves to better understand the way consumers expect their financial institution to support their needs through innovation, digital products and services and, more importantly, improved customer experience.

Consumers have clearly embraced digital banking behaviors. According to a J.D. Power study, only 46% of consumers will go back to “banking as usual.” The biggest change will be in the increased use of mobile banking (20%), increased use of online banking (17%), and decreased use of branches (10%).

Beyond online platforms and mobile apps, consumers and small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are seeking financial partners that can deliver tools with greater degrees of efficiency, personalization, and guidance related to specific requests. For instance, some banks are highlighting the benefits of contactless voice banking and, for more complex topics or transactions, they’re utilizing live chat or video to humanize digital engagement. Other recent digital capabilities include remote agent assists, text chats, and interactive teller machines that can be accessed from cars.

With surging streaming TV viewing, financial services advertisers are capitalizing on the significant opportunity to reach a highly engaged audience with connected TV (CTV) and over-the-top (OTT) advertising. This year, eMarketer forecasts that 83 percent of U.S. households are projected to be CTV households — making OTT a vital part of the media mix for brands and advertisers on both a local and national level. And local OTT ad spend will double from $1.18 billion in 2021 to $2.37 billion by 2025, according to BIA Advisory Services.

Much like today’s banking consumer that is increasingly shifting to digital, the CTV/OTT consumer is digitally-savvy. According to a recent MRI-Simmons study, U.S. OTT viewers are 16% more likely than the average person to choose their primary bank because of the bank’s online services. The report found that nearly 50% of OTT viewers (96 million adults) pay their bills online and just over 30% (61 million adults) use their mobile phones to pay their bills.

CTV/OTT advertising provides financial services brands with the precision of digital in targeting, personalization, attribution, and performance capabilities and the big screen quality viewing experience of linear television. Furthermore, the addressability in CTV/OTT allows advertisers to zero in on specific audience segments on a home-by-home basis.

With audience-based targeting capabilities, financial marketers can leverage audience insights across location, behaviors and interests to develop highly targeted OTT campaigns. For example, a bank offering an entry-level, low-interest credit card can focus on adults aged 18-24 years old. A mortgage lender can hone in on people who are in-market to buy a home in the next year or who are ready to refinance. Similarly, for automotive, banks may benefit from reaching specific households that are in-market for a new car or have recently browsed the auto-loan page of the lender’s website.

Financial institutions and banks need a trusted CTV/OTT advertising partner that can execute locally in reaching the right consumers at the household-level, track conversion and reduce wasted impressions.

To dig deeper, click here for The Premion Advantage: Banking & Finance and the OTT Audience.

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