Addressable TV Addresses the Needs of a Targeted Media Mix

The continued evolution of the media ecosystem has afforded advertisers more and more platform and content choices to reach their target consumers and drive sales. And with the increasing sophistication of technology, the expansion of usable datasets and the implementation of machine learning, both buyers and sellers are able to craft compelling, engaging and relevant campaigns designed to reach highly specific audiences.   

But even as these advertisers expand their portfolio of media marketing efforts by incorporating digital, print, radio and TV into their mixes, consumer attention continues to fragment with shifting consumption behaviors throughout their day according by device. Successful marketers are those who not only refine their messages according to platforms (taking into account engagement across the day and viewing platforms) but who also understand the value of hyper-messaging to the household in a way that maximizes their reach to an advertiser’s desired target audiences.

That is where addressable advertising can offer a way to reach target consumers with measureable ROI capabilities. What exactly is addressable advertising? According to the CIMM Lexicon, addressable advertising is advertising that is directed to specific geographies or audiences to increase its relevance. This means that it enables the delivery of the right ad to the right target at the right time in the right market, with measureable and impactful results.

Once a custom proprietary advertising opportunity, addressable advertising is swiftly moving to more standard-izable campaigns through the expanded use of sophisticated technology and usable relevant datasets. It is a targeting opportunity that more marketers are considering. While still only a small percentage of overall ad spending at this time, overall addressable advertising spending is projected to grow year to year +50% 2017 vs 2016 and +80% 2018 vs 2017 according to MyersBizNet Annual Advertising and Spending Report. As the universe of reachable homes increases from the current 49.8 million TV homes to total U.S. homes of approximately 115 million homes, this growth should accelerate.

“Addressable advertising is based on data driven solutions that enable scale, maximize reach and offer a transparent ROI linked to first party data sets,” explained Brian Norris, Director, Short Form Media Sales at DISH Media Sales. “It offers advertisers the reach of television with the attribution and back-end reporting of digital. Addressable TV is all about accountability. It makes the results of every campaign perfectly clear, arming marketers with the knowledge of exactly what’s working and what’s not,” he added.

Addressable can offer additional insights to cross-platform buys. Many major marketers are using addressable in conjunction with other platforms as Ed Beadle, Senior Manager at Acura Integrated Marketing, states, “We will simultaneously target a specific audience across digital, social and addressable TV” which improves the effectiveness of the messaging.  

Addressable also enables better targeting with more relevant ad messages. Brands believe that consumers will respond better to ads that directly speak to their needs. As reported in Adweek, Allstate, which purchased addressable inventory from both Dish and DirectTV, focused their message strictly on viewers who rent, as opposed to a general age gender target.  In this way only the most relevant target consumers would see the ads.

There are many MVPDs committed to addressable advertising.  DISH Media Sales, for example, worked with a national advertiser to utilize addressable advertising to target households with motorcycle owners, which are typically hard-to-reach homes. This additional spend through addressable was intended to supplement their already robust national buy. The national buy, which ran in tandem across a 13-week flight window, was compared with the additional addressable buy. The result was that the addressable campaign reached 90% of the target, while the national campaign reached 70%. Net/net, the addressable campaign successfully served ads to an incremental 20% of the brand’s desired households, ultimately driving additional sales.

In sum, addressable advertising has the potential to increase the delivery and reach of potential targeted households by leveraging demographically targeted, household-level messages on a national scale with transparency and accountability.  Traditional TV can offer reach and frequency but addressable delves deeper (while still complying with privacy considerations) by linking specific households to specific sales.

To learn more about addressable advertising and the value it provides to marketers, download the Addressable Viewpoint Report.

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com