The marketing world has been turned upside down with the news that digital media spend has finally surpassed TV advertising spend. But it’s not because TV is shrinking; it’s because digital has grown so much.
TV advertising is huge—a $178 billion global industry! But the days are numbered for the traditional ratings-based TV ad-buying process, largely based on changing consumer behavior. People are viewing more content than ever before—as much as a full-time job, according to Deloitte’s 2018 Digital Media Trends Survey. But they are watching it across screens.
Same Medium, Different Channels
This fragmented viewership is making the old viewership ratings system, which has historically acted as the industry’s currency, incomplete and undependable. As David Levy, president of Turner Broadcasting, puts it, “We are in a new era of media, and it’s time to retire the Nielsen television metric. While it undoubtedly served its purpose, it no longer fully captures how to successfully measure an audience in today’s landscape.”
The entire industry needs to reevaluate how ads will be bought, sold, targeted, and measured because sellers aren’t getting credit for all the viewers a program may truly have, and buyers can’t trust the ratings to tell them the whole story of who is in front of the screen.
As consumers expect more from their TV ads, marketers are expecting more from their media targeting. With the rise of data-driven advertising, especially on digital channels, their expectations for TV advertising are now the same as digital: reach with precision and flexibility. Marketers want to tap into the power of their own CRM data or leverage trusted second- or third-party data to deliver a consistent omnichannel experience across screens. This has introduced an explosion of available technologies to improve television advertising.
The More It Changes, the More It Grows
With people watching slightly less conventional TV, traditional linear TV spend is expected to decline by 2% annually over the next 3 years, but that doesn’t mean the dollars are leaving TV altogether. They are being reinvested in more data-driven capabilities, like addressable TV, which is expected to hit $3.04 billion in 2019. As more consumers access content in new ways, OTT providers will also continue to see ad spend grow.
With a massive audience of hyper-connected people, data at our fingertips, and household-level targeting now possible to reach consumers across all screens in a privacy-conscious manner, the future of people-based TV advertising is here.
To learn more about the changing TV ecosystem, read our eBook, Advanced TV: The Future of People-Based TV Advertising Is Here. It arms you with the fundamental knowledge you need to join the conversation and bring the precision and flexibility of digital to your TV strategy.