There are few people in advertising better informed about what’s happening in TV and video than those working in ad tech. The technological middlemen enjoy an unrivalled vantage point when it comes to seeing what’s happening right across the market. So it follows that the people at the top of those companies are well-positioned to predict what will happen in the coming year, which is why we spoke to CEOs from six of the leading ad tech companies for the third instalment of VAN’s 2013 trends series.
Dean Denhart, CEO, BlackArrow
Here’s one thing we know about 2013: TV still matters! Despite the insistence of the digerati, TV is not going away. In fact, viewing is increasing on both the big and little screens, and both television and online video ad spends for next year are predicted to grow, to $65.6B USD and $4.7B USD, respectively.
What this means for 2013 is that we will see a continued migration of content consumption – with the exception of live news, sports and events – to the on-demand world. We will see consumption of on-demand content through the TV and authenticated devices increase 30% or more.
This is the year you’ll see how consumer behavior and the technologies in place will make the on-demand TV advertising market place real. Measurement will start to tilt towards on-demand to justify audience views, ad loads will continue to trend closer to linear ad loads, and advertising will become more addressable. The ultimate challenge and the opportunity will be to create true cross-device monetization opportunities by tying all consumption devices, including the TV, together, creating a whole new marketplace for programmers, service providers and advertisers. It’s gonna be big.
Tod Sacerdoti, CEO and Founder, BrightRoll
Mobile is the fastest growing video ad category in the UK and it’s projected to grow at an explosive rate in 2013. As viewers consume more video content, and as the lines continue to blur between desktop and mobile web browsing, advertisers are following viewers online and across screens. According to comScore, more than 82 percent of the UK online population watches digital video. Our recent study revealed that 60 per cent of advertisers expect mobile to have the largest increase in media spend in the coming year, while 64 per cent plan to use mobile within their own digital video budgets.
In support of this rapid consumer adoption of mobile, we’re seeing the increased development of mobile apps that enhance the mobile user experience. This trend provides a significant opportunity for advertisers to target audiences across mobile video inventory (e.g. mobile gaming) with more interactive video ad unit formats to reach viewers when and where they are most engaged.
Dave Morgan, CEO of Simulmedia
2013 will bring lots of attention and lots of noise in the video ad community around cross-platform measurement, with both Nielsen and Comscore vying to drive adoption of products that measure reach and frequency against specific audiences on both television and web video. The hope will be that finally TV and web video buys will be linked by more than just price and impressions, but as extended reach or frequency of audiences reached. Whether the announcements and noise will translate into market adoption is a question whose answer we won’t know in 2013.
Jayant Kadambi, Co-Founder & CEO of YuMe
Connected TV content represents an excellent advertising opportunity for brands looking to generate consumer awareness and drive greater audience engagement. Through recent research studies about the existing world of Connected TV and the growth of Connected TV, YuMe strongly believes 2013 will be the year Connected TV video advertising moves from experimentation into one of the scalable production campaign screens for digital video; especially related to multi-screen in-home campaign targeting.
As Connected TV represents the next generation of TV, we will continue to see explorations in new ad unit formats and platform capabilities as the chipsets evolve on the devices. The Connected TV platform fragmentation will accelerate as Connected TV original equipment manufacturers (OEM), OTT OEMs, game consoles, and platform operating system giants such as Google and Apple fight it out for supremacy in the living room; leaving advertisers with a challenge reaching their audience.
That said, YuMe has made it a point to invest so brand advertisers and consumer electronics manufacturers can reach the audiences they need to – on Connected TVs and other screens. With 45 percent of consumers saying they expect to purchase a new television in the next 12 months, YuMe believes a third of those consumers are extremely likely to purchase a Smart TV. Alongside the combination of strong engagement and rapid growing numbers, Connected TV is on set to take its place in the home alongside smartphones and tablets.
Sorosh Tavakoli, CEO of Videoplaza
Both the buy and sell sides have been testing the water in terms of programmatic trading and RTB. We’ve already seen this play out in the display market and this will start to happen for video beyond test budgets in a number of European markets. The opportunity for automation around remnant inventory on the PC appears straightforward. However, there are still outstanding questions around the use of programmatic with premium inventory, non-PC traffic, commercial breaks and long form content, all of which will need to be answered over the coming year.
There has been much hype in 2012 about the growth of connected TVs and IPTV, and we’ve seen large-scale adoption of IPTV in markets like France. In 2013 the massive investments in this space will start to show real scale and we’ll see more connected TVs in homes and being connected.
2013 will be the year of data in many ways. Advertisers are increasingly demanding data and publishers are using it in ever more constructive ways, all of which will lead to better targeting and efficiency for the industry. The need to access, control and protect data will be critical for premium publishers and media owners in 2013.
Doug Knopper, Co-CEO, FreeWheel
This year, we saw amazing growth in video consumption driven by all of the new ways we can access content such as on tablets and video game consoles. Next year, we will not only see the continuation of that explosive growth, but expect to see advertisers and agencies drive the TV-Web convergence by demanding cross-channel ad packages on TV, digital, social, and mobile. Consumers have shown us that good TV is good anywhere it is viewed, whether in the living room or on the go, and the rest of the industry will catch up with that change in thinking.
Also, expect to see a significant reduction in complexity within the video tech space. The LUMAScape shows the extent to which things are messy right now, and as the drive towards allowing TV dollars to flow to digital happens, that process will be dominated by only a handful of companies at scale.
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