During a session on connected TV ads, an audience member asked the panel why linear TV advertising hasn’t cratered since digital video advertising offers greater targeting and measurement. Kevin Arrix, senior vice president at Dish Media Sales, replied, “Linear TV hasn’t gone away because it works.”
While TV ad budgets have remained stable, advertisers are pushing the TV industry to offer better measurements that have more accountability. But several things need to happen before TV ads targeted at individuals become commonplace.
In order for addressable TV to account for a double-digit share of overall TV ad spend, TV’s ad delivery infrastructure needs to be upgraded, centralized and aggregated at a national scale and packaged with other data-enhanced products that combine linear TV inventory with over-the-top (OTT) video inventory, according to Dave Morgan, founder, CEO and chairman of TV ad targeting company Simulmedia.
The issues with scaling addressable TV have not dampened advertisers’ enthusiasm. Addressable TV ads was one of the new technologies that marketers expressed most interest in, according to a July 2018 poll of 250 marketing decision-makers by Street Fight.