Reach and frequency remain the most important metrics in video and CTV advertising, says Samantha Doughty, AV Investment Director at Zenith, but the industry still lacks consistency from a measurement perspective. However, projects like C-Flight and Origin are working to connect up reach in video environments, which would represent a “massive step forward for the industry.”
In this edition of the Buy-Side View, Doughty discusses the metrics that matter to clients, the need to simplify language and access in the CTV space, and why broadcasters should be shouting about their offering to advertisers.
What is your biggest bugbear when it comes to video and CTV advertising?
I’d first say the fact that we refer to CTV as CTV. Connected TV more accurately refers to the device that someone’s watching on, and not the advertising, which is obviously the space that we operate in. But I also think we’re not looking at the space as connected as we should be. When it comes to BVOD, SVOD, FAST, linear TV, all of these things can technically be under the CTV bracket. But we’re in a media bubble that cares way more about these differentiators than the average consumer. So the more we can look at them as a connected space, I think the more effective and better our media plans become.
We should be following the audience where they are, we should be looking at the reach and efficiency of all the channels that come under the umbrella, but as one rather than as all these individual acronyms and separate entities, which we’re sometimes guilty of doing.
How do you think the role of the agency has changed over the past ten years?
It’s a particularly interesting one for me, because I’ve been in the industry ten years this year! And it’s moved on really quickly over that time period. Ten years ago, we’d see TV and broadcast eating up the lion’s share of the budget completely uncontested. And what I think is interesting is that at the time, this really aligned with clients and the average consumer and viewership habits. So it would be easy for a client to understand why all their budget would be going into TV, because TV shows and linear were dominating all of the conversations at the time, everyone was gathering around to watch everything on a Saturday.
Now viewing is much more fragmented, so the conversation that we have with the clients does become that little bit more difficult. Not everyone has the same viewing habits; obviously SVOD has been on the rise massively, and some people will sit and spend all of their time with YouTube, and some will remain loyal to that free-to-air content, and linear TV specifically. Our job as an agency is to try to realign that conversation.
Broadcast is still a massive part of the plan; even if we have some viewers that ignore it completely, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t bring massive reach and efficiency to your media budget. For example Netflix will have absolutely huge shows come out; Stranger Things, Squid Game, they can dominate those water cooler moments. But the commercial opportunity isn’t as massive as it is on broadcast. So it’s about us connecting up that conversation again, and making sense and simplifying the really complex market that we have now, because things are way more fragmented than they were ten years ago, and it’s not an easy answer to the question anymore.
Which do you think video advertising is the most effective for – generating awareness and brand-building, or driving short-term sales?
I definitely think it can play an important role in both, but for me, unquestionably, when we’re talking about big-screen video specifically, it remains at the heart of any awareness and brand-building campaign. There’s way more connected approaches now, so Amazon will have full-funnel opportunities that allow you to connect all portions of the plan together, YouTube has massive impact in that demand-generating area. I started my career in DR TV, so looking at the search spikes that came off those big TV spots. It’s undeniable that all kinds of video can have that impact on sales.
But ultimately video from a creative perspective is an emotional format, and I would argue it’s the best in building that emotional connection with the viewer and consumer. It’s way more memorable, and it instigates conversation as well. So from a brand-building perspective, I’d say that’s undeniably where its strength lies.
What team within your agency handles CTV, and why?
It’s the AV team in our agency. It goes back to the point that we need to be looking at AV and video as one connected media solution across all of the channels that sit within it. So I personally don’t think there’s any point in having the team that’s planning and buying your linear TV to not know what’s going on in CTV and not looking at that as one big pie.
We will, of course, lean on our programmatic counterparts, because sometimes it does make sense for the activity to be activated from a different team. But I believe having the AV team sit there as a cornerstone of that strategy is the only way that we can bring all of this together.
How is the growth of CTV changing your TV buying strategy?
I would draw a parallel here with the World Cup, and how the games that will be broadcast on the BBC will take away commercial airtime for whatever’s going to be playing on ITV. And that’s something that, as buyers, we will always consider. We need to be looking the same way at CTV. So for example if we talk about Netflix in the SVOD space, when they release the last series of Stranger Things, we know that audiences are going to be gathering there.
So the way that it’s impacted it most is that it gives us that little bit more information and strategy to work with, in order to predict consumer behaviour over that period. We can either lean into that in the way that Morrisons have done in sponsoring Clarkson’s Farm, or we can take a step back and use that information to inform our linear TV strategy.
What could agencies do better to help clean up the industry?
I definitely think language is a big one. You’ll find that each media practitioner, particularly in AV, has their preferences in terms of the language we use to describe different elements of the video plan. I can rattle off a few acronyms! Obviously we’ve got TV, BVOD, SVOD, ASVOD, FAST, YouTube, OLV… We are an industry that relies really heavily on acronyms, and I think sometimes this just confuses the space even further, because while it might be helpful for us to differentiate these, when we really want to make sure we’re singing from the same hymn sheet, we need to be clear on what language actually represents which part of the plan.
I’ve worked on plans before where CTV has meant anything outside of broadcast, but obviously on a general perspective, CTV can encompass that space. So we need to be really clear on how we communicate that across the board.
Which ad tech solution has delivered the most impact for your business?
From my perspective it would be PMX Lift, which is a Publicis proprietary product. It addresses a lot of the issues that we face when we’re buying individually from suppliers, now that there are so many suppliers in the market.
It gives us a single access point to a lot of key suppliers in the industry, across BVOD and the ASVOD space, and it overlays connected identity data, so that we can manage that reach and frequency, and cut through to a single audience, rather than having a million different bylines with different audience definitions, and that disconnected frequency as well. You’ll find if you’re wanting to go after that bespoke audience, but buying direct from several different suppliers, often they’ll have different definitions, and how they’ve built that audience is slightly different. So what PMX Lift does is it allows us to bring that together and be more consistent.
Which metrics do you value the most when it comes to video and CTV advertising?
For me, and what I’ve heard from my clients over the last few years, it’s reach and frequency by far. Benchmarks and metrics like view-through rate and click-through rate can be valuable and they’re great to track. But when we’re looking at plans, it’s more of a first hurdle than anything else. So if a CTV buy has non-skippable inventory but a low view-through rate benchmark, it would raise red flags off the bat, and it probably wouldn’t make the plan to begin with, to be honest with you. So reach and frequency is fundamentally how many people you’re reaching with your ad, so it’s going to be the most important.
The one thing I’d just call out is that we’re not in the place we want to be collectively as an industry yet, in terms of connecting all of that up from a measurement perspective. And with projects like C-Flight and Origin, that is definitely the biggest ambition, because having that connected piece on reach is going to be a massive step forward for the industry.
What could publishers, broadcasters and pay-TV companies do to compete more effectively with the tech giants?
When Google came to market with YouTube, I think what they did really successfully is shout about the product a lot. They were very loud when they entered the market. They had really consistent comms about the reach that their platform can give to both clients and agencies, which put them on the map immediately. Amazon have taken a similar approach, in my personal opinion, and have become one of the most visible companies to agencies and clients.
We’re seeing steps in this direction from the broadcasters, particularly in terms of their collaboration with each other and the agencies. But I think we need to encourage them to remain on the front foot in that sense. With the market being more and more fragmented, there’s way more to choose from in a video perspective than there ever has been.
We need them to be helping us to tell the story of why broadcast is still so key for an AV plan in this day and age, which it absolutely is, but obviously their expertise, data and insights are going to be what really drives that forward for us. Regular content showcases, new measurement opportunities, and more visibility from their partnerships teams would help drive that. And I am seeing that happen now, but we need to make sure it’s consistent, because for a long time that spend was uncontested, so they didn’t need to be shouting as loud about the great things they do.
Which person in the industry inspires you the most today?
I want to give a shout out to Dan Bond, who now works on Publicis Imagine [as AV Business Director]. He was my director when I first became a manager in AV many moons ago! I still believe that step to AV manager specifically is the most difficult one and the most changing role there. And I think in our industry we need to be better at giving more props to strong leadership at this level, and how it can impact the work that we do from a long-term perspective. He was instrumental in me finding my voice in media and my independence with the job. I obviously learned an absolute ton from him from a media perspective, but more specifically, the way that he led his team really stayed with me and influenced the way that I wanted to lead going forward in the industry.
I believe that beyond just doing great work for the clients, cultivating more junior talent and creating that strong team dynamic is so key to the way that we work in media agencies, and I think it’s really key to the way we move forward as an industry. So I don’t think that we should overlook that impact.
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