The Highest Reaching Campaigns All Have Similar Attributes. Revealing Findings From Effectv’s TV Viewership Report

Effectv has just released their latest edition of the bi-annual TV Viewership Report. This wave examines data from the first-half of 2023 data in the multiscreen TV landscape, offering advertisers and marketers revealing takeaways about consumer viewing habits in the Comcast footprint.

Essentially, the report noted that found that successful video ad campaigns, that is, those that provided the greatest reach, shared similar attributes and media mixes. “Brands that optimize reach and results are deploying a common approach with traditional TV as the foundation and streaming as a supplement to reach those hard-to-reach viewers,” the report stated. The importance of traditional TV as a pivotal element for a successful campaign is a fairly stunning revelation considering how linear TV is sometimes dismissed in some campaigns.

The study also revealed that high reach campaigns have a combination of consistent advertising over a broad range of dayparts, endpoints, networks, FAST, VOD and live programming from news and sports. The combination of all of these elements provides a roadmap for advertisers to maximize their reach across platforms.

This current wave analyzed 40,000 multiscreen campaigns. “There are qualifications required for campaigns to be included in a TV Viewership Report analysis,” noted Annie Hagerty, Research and Insights Manager, “We verify that campaigns have enough impressions and investment to be reflective of sufficient delivery, we focus on local advertising campaigns, and all campaigns include traditional TV and Streaming.”

While there are many new ways for consumers to access content and many more varieties of content available, traditional TV leads all other forms in driving reach in a multiscreen advertising campaign (77%).  Streaming and free ad-supported streaming TV plays important roles in attracting to reach light and no-TV viewing households so a careful combination of all viewing forms is vital to reaching as many viewers as possible.

Interestingly while optimizations can vary by ad category, audience, and geography, the essential foundations of a multiscreen campaign remain true across these different factors. “Regardless of ad category, audience, or region, we see that traditional TV provides a scale of reach that advertisers should maximize on, while streaming provides incremental reach and reaches households that are hard to reach through traditional TV due to little or no viewing,” she stated.

The report noted that that 20-30% of investment be applied to streaming regardless of these different factors. “When we’ve researched how to maximize reach among different audiences, we’ve consistently supported this recommendation. We do see audiences, like retirees, maximizing reach closer to a 20% of investment to streaming, while young adults closer to the higher end of the range. Advertisers should keep the behaviors of their audience in mind when deciding on strategies, but a foundation in traditional TV is important to achieve the scale of reach,” she added.

With this latest version of the report, “there’s a great opportunity to see what the common strategies are among our highest reaching multiscreen campaigns to be sure those are being included in advertising strategies,” Hagarty explained. “These high-reaching campaigns shared several strategies including consistent advertising across endpoints and time of day – emphasizing the importance of advertisers following the audience where and when they are watching to maximize reach.”

For those advertisers trying to best structure their most effective campaigns, “It can be difficult to verify the full impact of campaigns when TV and streaming are not being optimized within one strategy. Creating a holistic multiscreen campaign leads to greater opportunity in campaign optimization for the intended audience,” she offered.

Understanding the full media landscape is crucial to campaign success. “If an advertiser has been waiting to adopt a multiscreen strategy, the time is now as our data shows that it is becoming increasingly important to combine traditional TV and Streaming. If an advertiser has a multiscreen campaign, I recommend verifying that your campaign is using traditional TV as a foundation and is inclusive of strategies that reach audiences consistently across many endpoints,” she concluded.

 

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Artwork by Charlene Weisler

Effectv Viewership Report Reveals Important Viewership Trends

Effectv has just released the results of the latest wave of their TV Viewership Report which is published bi-annually and offers marketers a fascinating trend of consumer viewing habits in the Comcast footprint. Data was collected from more than 29 million households whose members watched more than 15 billion hours of TV and from more than 20,000 multiscreen campaigns garnering over 1.5 billion impressions.

The report noted that while insights and data increasingly fuel the way in which TV is planned and bought, marketers increasingly need to know how to best use TV’s reach and precision to be more effective in delivering results.

Highlights from this wave 2H 2021, included:

1.    1.   The majority of streaming viewership happens on the TV Screen which indicates that traditional TV is still strong. The study found that, on average, video consumers in Comcast households were spending more than six hours watching traditional TV daily. But, viewership habits and preferences are shifting to include more devices and services.  Overall, 78% of Effectv Streaming happens on the TV screen. This includes viewing to connected TV, VOD served via an Xfinity set-top box, a mobile app or device and a web browser.

2.    2.   Traditional TV is the foundation of multiscreen campaigns driving a majority of multiscreen campaigns. Notably, 82% of multiscreen campaign reach comes from traditional TV with very little duplication with streaming services.

3.  3.     Sports programming enhances campaigns offering 2.5x more impressions per spot from sports. In fact, 42% of all households reached by sports programming were incremental to the campaign demonstrating the value of audience extensions.

4.   4.    Streaming provides incremental reach to a campaign. In fact, 51% of HHs reached through streaming were incremental to the campaign, overall. The results from more than 20,000 Effectv multiscreen campaigns revealed that over half of the reach from streaming was incremental to the campaign beyond traditional TV reaching light and no traditional TV viewers while also increasing frequency.

5.   6.    Multiscreen benefits exist across audiences. Multiscreen tactics work in similar ways across the audiences advertisers are trying to reach. Unique reach from TV attracts Hispanics, young adults, suburbanites and retires while streaming extends among the well-educated, affluents, rural blue collar and young adults.

Advertisers can best leverage all of the fascinating viewership trends from the study by noting when and where to place their spend. For peak efficiencies, the report also found that peak investment levels in streaming topped at 42% because streaming investment allocation is contingent on the audience. Generally speaking while reach was highest when 20-30% of investment was allocated to streaming, advertisers are advised to consider adjusting their investment within 10-40%, based on audience. Beyond 30%, the benefits from adding streaming were outweighed by a loss of reach.

 

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Artwork by Charlene Weisler

 

 

The State of Viewership – the Latest Effectv Research Report

The past 18 months have seen dramatic shifts in media usage as evidenced by the latest TV Viewership Report, which examines the first half of 2021 versus one year ago. We appear to be entering a new era where viewership behaviors continue to be shaped by a range of tumultuous events, and as a result, as the report revealed, "Live viewing grew as a percentage of total time spent with TV. Shifting restrictions on travel and public gatherings likely contribute to both the continuing strength of live TV and shifts in where that content gets consumed." As in previous studies, the data used in this analysis is from first-party anonymized, aggregated viewership data collected within the Comcast footprint of some 17 million U.S. households. Click here to download the 1H 2021 report.

Among the key findings from the latest study:

• TV Reigns Supreme. The TV screen is still the preferred choice of device for viewers.

"We've seen content consumption patterns ebb and flow over the last few years of recorded data. What we have consistently found is that audiences largely have a desire to watch premium video programing on the largest screen available, despite the amount of choice in terms of devices and apps available to stream content." -- John Brauer, Vice President, Insights & Analytics, Effectv

• Streaming Is Important. In fact, according to the aggregated ad exposure data, 76% of streaming consumption is happening on the big screen and can be considered the perfect complement to a TV advertising campaign because of the hard-to-reach audience it attracts. The study revealed that streaming impressions are +209% more likely to be viewed by light or no-TV viewing HHs.
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• Cable Is the Top Choice. Overall, Comcast households are spending on average 6 hours and 2 minutes with TV daily while cable TV's share of TV viewing remains strong at 70% compared to broadcast and premium.
• TV Keeps It Live. Interestingly, the study also found that 88% of all TV viewing happened live throughout the first half of 2021, slightly higher than the same time period last year.
• More Dayparts and More Networks. In terms of dayparts, about 70% of live viewing occurred outside of primetime. The top five networks accounted for only 31% of all viewing in 1H 2021. Overall, Comcast households watched an average of 30 different networks during this period, with 304 different networks achieving "most-watched" status.

"Simply put, when you have more networks in your campaign, you get higher reach among your target audience. Campaigns that are spread across 20 or more networks are optimal and just as the 'top networks' in my household are likely Bravo, HGTV and DIY network, another household's may be completely different. As a result, there are more than 300 'most-watched' networks across measured households." -- Heather Coghill, Senior Director, Audience Insights, Effectv.

Year-to-Year Comparisons

As the nation becomes vaccinated and people yearn to return to a form of normal, it's not surprising that time spent viewing television naturally would decline. The data supports this, as 1H 2021 had the first year-over-year declines in time spent viewing since data recording began. These declines began in March 2021 and can be attributed to comparisons to 2020 when stay-at-home orders were in place. Interestingly, with viewing still over six hours a day on average, the share of live viewing remains strong and continues to lead against time-shifted viewing throughout the day.

Cable TV continued to command the majority percentage of viewing, increasing its dominance from last year. In 1H 2021, the share of viewing for cable networks gained from 67% share in 1H 2020 to 70% share in 1H 2021 and 71% in 2Q 2021.

Platform Usage Differs by Genre

Consumers also view content differently depending on the platform. Traditional TV is favored for live genres like sports and news, while streaming is favored for young adult, family and entertainment.

However, streaming delivers hard to reach audiences such as cord-cutters and light TV viewers, enabling advertisers to leverage the best of both worlds. In examining more than 20,000 Effectv advertising campaigns in 1H 2021 that included both traditional TV and streaming, it was found that streaming serves as a strong complement to any traditional TV campaign. Notably, more than half (57%) of Effectv streaming reach was incremental to the TV portion of the campaign.

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Performance also varied by market. "What this means for advertisers," the report noted, "is that households watch in different ways in different markets. Investment allocation decisions about traditional TV and streaming must weigh multiple factors including viewing habits, audience segments and geography."

Conclusion

With each successive viewership report, it is becoming clear that while viewership patterns have shifted and will continue to evolve, there are highly strategic ways that advertisers can use television in all of it various forms. Audiences are in charge and are taking advantage of all the available choices of platforms and devices so they can watch what they want, where and how they want to watch it.

"The latest TV Viewership Report demonstrates linear TV's ability to reach audiences effectively and efficiently, but it also reinforces the need for advertisers and marketers to utilize streaming to expand reach incrementally." -- John Brauer

Click here to download the 1H 2021 report.

 

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com