Author: Hannie Waldron

Addressable TV Advertising Has Reached a Tipping Point in 2024

Go Addressable’s annual summit has served as the industry’s pulse check on addressable for the past four years. This year’s event featured leaders from across the industry to discuss the latest trends in addressable TV advertising, including targeting, measurement, and media accountability, as well as the power of premium content, providing insights into how to harness the full potential of audience-based buying and ad innovation in a unified TV ecosystem.

As Larry Allen, VP & GM of Addressable Enablement and Data at Comcast Advertising, mentioned in his opening remarks, it’s a chaotic time in the industry for advertisers. Today’s challenges have resulted in it becoming difficult for advertisers to reach audiences confidently wherever they are watching content. Amidst this, addressable TV has further emerged as a tool that provides stability, scale, and confidence to reach audiences within premium, brand-safe inventory and drive results. In fact, our latest research conducted with Advertiser Perceptions found that addressable TV advertising has grown for the third consecutive year as 53% of advertisers now call it a must-buy. Additionally, two-thirds of advertisers who aren’t currently using addressable plan to start in the year ahead, up 57% from 2022.

Keynote: The Rise of Addressability

With advertisers continuing to seek the most efficient ways to reach audiences on multiscreen TV, addressable TV has become more than just an add-on, but a must-have. As the event’s keynote speaker Sam Bloom, Head of Partnerships at PMG, shared, fragmented media is leading to varied outcomes with many prioritizing cheaper media over more effective tactics like addressable. With so many conflicting narratives out there when it comes to consumer data and audience habits, buyers need to start to reverse engineer the best way to reach audiences, connecting planning and measurement which the use of addressable does. As Sam pointed out, in today’s complex landscape, don’t confuse efficiency with effectiveness; start with the outcomes then work backwards.

Addressable in Review:
A Buy-Side Check In

Speakers: Dave Antonelli, DISH Media, Maureen Bosetti, IPG Mediabrands, Lisa Giacosa, Spark Foundry, Cara Lewis, dentsu Media US, Jen Soch, GroupM

The day’s first panel featured chief investment officers from some of the biggest agency holding companies, offering a current state of addressable and looking at how the medium has evolved in the past year. Addressable is in fact at a tipping point, with more buyers including it as part of their media planning.

While all the panelists pointed out that while it’s not always a one size fits all approach to how to include addressable, depending on a client’s goals, as it scales and data improves, more clients are looking to addressable as a more foundational part of their campaigns, taking an addressable-first approach. Across the board, it was echoed how addressable helps advertisers reach their audiences effectively, extend reach, and create more customized connections to drive action.

When discussing how to get clients to allocate more to addressable, the main obstacle everyone noted was getting buyers to understand the true eCPM (effective CPM) of addressable. While many clients believe that addressable is more expensive than digital or streaming CPMs, they need to put it into perspective – not all things are created equal. Addressable CPMs are higher but because they are more effective in reaching precise audiences and avoid a lot of wasted ad spend that comes along when buying other mediums.

One thing is clear: addressable is growing and expanding and advertisers are buying in. As it becomes more complicated to reach audiences, we can expect addressable to become a larger part of the overall media planning process.

Identity Crisis: Advancements in Identity and Measurement

Speakers: David Algranati, Comscore, Dan Callahan, Spectrum Reach, Brett Hurwitz, Yahoo DSP, Jason Manningham, Blockgraph, Andrea Remoundos, GroupM

As signal loss remains a concern, the panelists pointed out how reliable identity data for accurate targeting, reach, and attribution is more important than ever. A campaign is only as good as the data it’s built on: The ability to match audiences accurately will ultimately impact a campaign’s success. If advertisers are making decisions based on inaccurate data, it can cost them their budget, which is commonplace in channels like digital where targeting imprecision can result in wasted impressions and spend.

Addressable on the other hand can reach audiences with precision since it is underpinned by a durable household (HH) ID. Further, having that HH ID associated with an ad view means that addressable can provide return path data to understand who saw an ad and converted in the same household. This means addressable allows advertisers to accurately tie attribution outcomes to ad exposures.

While the panel voiced that there will never be just one sole solution or standard when it comes to identity, they do believe that there will be a small number of identity frameworks that can work together, fueled by a universal, consistent HH identifier. It is important to use a consistent identity framework throughout the campaign process (planning, activation and measurement) to understand effectiveness of the audience and media.

For addressable to continue to grow in the year ahead, advertisers will need to continue to experiment and test and learn.

Maximum Impact: Evangelizing the Value of Long-Form, Premium Content

Speakers: Cullen Deady, Publicis Media, Sara Grimaldi, Paramount, Eric Haggstrom, Advertiser Perceptions, Matt Van Houten, Go Addressable, and DIRECTV Advertising

While advertisers may have a more defined view of what they consider premium or not, for consumers premium is personal and every viewer may have their own definition depending on what they care about. Although, one thing that advertisers and consumers alike can agree on is that when it comes to premium, it typically means an engaged, lean-in experience.

For the most part though, these premium experiences take place on the biggest screen in the home: TV, whether it’s traditional or streaming. Across the board it was shared how addressable TV advertising allows advertisers to activate premium inventory and reach audiences in brand-safe environments. Additionally, because addressable relies on authenticated audience data, advertisers can harness it to deliver relevant ad experiences to consumers. This means ad relevancy – not only in terms of the creative – but also the frequency of messaging since addressable can help solve for frequency cap issues. Using data, advertisers can deliver relevant, non-disruptive ad experiences in premium content to provide a better viewer experience and positively impact brand sentiment and conversions.

What’s Next for 2025

This year’s summit further demonstrated that addressable is no longer an add-on but a must-buy. During the fireside chat Erin Echter, Director of Marketing, Genentech Vabysmo, shared, as a pharma brand TV will always be a mainstay – but as audiences and viewing habits shift, it’s essential that their brand innovates to ensure they can reach all audiences wherever they are; and addressable allows them to do this effectively and efficiently. Adam Arnegger, Managing Partner, Executive Investment Director at Wavemaker added: For their clients, getting reach and cutting waste is a priority and addressable helps achieve both, while enabling them to effectively measure and optimize. For these reasons, we’re seeing addressable on nearly all of the media plans for pharma clients in 2025.

As Evan Adlman, EVP Commercial Sales & Revenue Operations AMC Networks, said in his closing remarks; buying audiences is something that advertisers have always done. But this has traditionally focused on age and gender. Now with addressable – we have the tools to do deeper targeting across channels, with better measurement that can tie ad exposures to outcomes.

The key to continuing addressable’s growth and expansion is more education. As pointed out by many of the speakers, addressable’s eCPMs are much more efficient than linear or digital CPMs since they ensure a campaign effectively reaches its target audience without wasting impressions or budget.

Thank you to all that joined us for Go Addressable Summit 2024: The Intersection of Addressability and Innovation. Your participation and collaboration help us educate the industry and push the medium forward. To keep up to date with all the latest work we are doing, visit Insights – Go Addressable.

To watch the full replay of the event, or check out the highlights here.

With the explosion of CTV and OTT inventory, marketer concern about digital ads showing up adjacent to unsuitable content has a new focus: content that makes it to the TV screen. Traditionally TV advertising was deemed brand safe as long as the inventory was on shows that suited the brand and reach goals of the advertiser.

Despite progress in fighting fraud and on safety issues on both the buy and sell sides, the industry is still searching for effective tools that allow advertisers to reach audiences in brand safe, premium environments. Ultimately, there are high stakes involved: a bad user experience such as ad placement within dubious content or contacting a consumer when they’ve opted-out can negatively impact brand sentiment. It’s imperative that advertisers maximize the use of the media and platforms that can deliver and better guarantee brand safety.

Addressable TV¹ advertising, as defined by Go Addressable, offers a higher level of brand safety thanks to the inventory pool of premium TV content across screens and solutions described below. Additionally, recent tech advancements made it easier than ever to activate on both traditional and streaming / connected TV. Go Addressable believes advertisers should prioritize authenticated inventory and technology, like addressable TV, that ensures their ads reach the intended audiences in an environment that aligns with their brand.

Let’s take a deep dive into ways addressable TV is providing brand safety for advertisers.

1. Addressable TV Complies with Content Adjacency Requirements:

While brand safety isn’t only about content adjacency, it is an essential part as different brands have unique interpretations of what is considered “safe.” Addressable TV allows advertisers and agencies to determine if the ad placement complies with their policies for appropriate content.

2. Addressable TV is Virtually Fraud Free and Offers Full Transparency in Reporting and Measurement:

Fraud continues to be exposed as a serious issue in the non-addressable OTT and CTV inventory. Many advertisers are seeking more transparency from their media partners to see exactly where their ads are running in addition to understanding how their ads performed. In the pre-campaign planning stage, addressable TV employs subscriber authentication using insights from first-party data. This ensures accurate household matching, cuts down on bot traffic and increases the efficacy of inventory for brands. Upon campaign execution and completion, addressable TV offers post-campaign reporting transparency, which shows exactly where ads have run, and highlights where a client’s target audience was exposed across a portfolio of premium video inventory. These ad exposure logs can be matched to attribution events (a purchase, a website, in-store visit, etc.) reliably based on the authenticated household identity. All of this provides highly accurate and transparent performance metrics for a campaign.

3. Addressable TV Respects the Viewer Experience:

Amidst growing concerns of poor experience across TV viewership, buyers and sellers have been focused on how best to ensure that their ads are relevant and non-intrusive. Addressable TV considers and respects the voice of the consumer. For instance, the authentication services that addressable impressions are delivered by (e.g., MVPDs, vMVPDs, D2C services, etc.) capture consumers’ choices as part of their registration process. They can also update their choices or preferences when they want and how they want. This also means that consumers’ decisions, choices, and privacy preferences are cared for and respected during the audience activation process of every campaign.

4. Addressable TV Upholds Consumer Commitments Around Sensitive Audience Data:

Another benefit of addressable TV regarding brand safety is that providers do thorough audits of the audience attributes in advertising segments. This audit is done to ensure that audience segments are not used inappropriately in order to safeguard the reputation of the provider and their direct relationship with the consumer.

Addressable TV Should be Front and Center for Marketers’ Buys When Brand Safety is a Concern

The concept of brand safety has become vastly more complex, going well beyond viewability and content adjacency. In the digital and CTV landscape there is still concern from advertisers about the quality and control of inventory they are buying. So, in a time when reaching audiences in a premium and brand safe environment is more important than ever, advertisers need to understand which channels can really ensure brand safety.

Addressable TV offers the industry a solution ensuring advertisers have brand safety built in, using audience-targeted capabilities to deliver relevant messages to receptive consumers at the household level on the big screen across linear and connected TV.

This content has been modified from the original article published here on 614 Group.

Check out our latest report, Guidelines for Planning & Buying Addressable TV Advertising, where we explore buy-side issues like brand safety and demonstrate how addressable TV is a powerful tactic for advertisers to help make their media dollars work harder.

Sources

1. Go Addressable defines Addressable TV as: “The ability to serve targeted ads to specific households based on deterministic identifiers, allowing brands to define and serve their message to the desired audience, wherever and whenever they’re watching content on TV/CTV/STB. Those targeted households can be matched to 1st, 2nd or 3rd party data sets or modeled by behavioral, demographic and/or geographic factors from 1st, 2nd or 3rd party data sets.”
2. Ad Exchanger: Adalytics Exposes An Alleged $10.5 Billion Black Hole In The Google Search Partners Program, November 2023
3. Go Addressable defines non-addressable as: “Inventory that does not have the ability for advertisers to serve targeted ads to specific households or users based on deterministic identifiers.”

It’s not news that the TV landscape is evolving and becoming more fragmented and complex. TV has expanded across screens and platforms, to include live programs, original streaming content, and VOD programming. Viewers are seamlessly switching between linear and streaming content, jumping across apps, and ultimately consuming TV whenever, wherever, and however they want.

While this explosion of content is great for consumers, it has become more difficult for advertisers to try to capture attention and manage reach. And while many advertisers are turning to CTV to try to reach audiences, the truth is that not all of that content is ad supported. According to Nielsen, streaming accounts for 38.4% of monthly TV viewing in the U.S., but when you look at ad-supported streaming platforms, that ends up accounting for ~18% of total TV viewing.

So, how can advertisers reach audiences across all forms of TV without inundating them with the same ads repeatedly? They need a convergent solution, across linear and streaming, powered by deterministic data, delivered in premium brand safe environments.

That’s where addressable TV advertising comes in.

At a recent TV Upfronts event, Go Addressable broke down five essential strategies for success when it comes to addressable advertising and why advertisers should allocate 10% to 20% of their TV to this medium. Here are five key things advertisers should keep in mind as they plan out their TV buys for the year ahead to ensure they are driving results.

1. A convergent TV solution is crucial

It’s clear that finding viewers where they are watching TV is more important than ever. Advertisers need a convergent TV solution that allows them to reach audiences across linear and streaming so they can manage campaigns holistically and see the true impact of their media.

The good news is that addressable, while originally rooted in linear TV, has evolved into a cross-platform solution where reach and frequency can be managed and can be used to streamline goals across platforms. And, because addressable is rooted in inventory from MVPDs, it gives advertisers scale across the most premium TV content in the market. In fact, there are 68 billion available addressable impressions within brand safe, premium environments across the Go Addressable footprint that advertisers can tap into.

2. Deterministic data is King (or Queen)

Data is the main building block for identifying the right audience, and amid increasing signal loss, the value of accurate, reliable data is more important than ever to advertisers. Starting with quality deterministic data is what allows advertisers to reach their high-value audiences, because not all data or identity solutions are created equal.

In a recent study with CIMM on the reliability of IP addresses as an identity solution, it was found that the ability for a campaign to attain reach and scale was impacted by the data used for targeting. The research showed that addressable match rates, which are fueled by audiences authenticated against MVPD subscriber data from MVPDs, start with a 95% initial match rate and maintain consistent match after the quarter. Campaigns that utilize IP addresses alone start at a 60% initial match rate and can drop to as low as 24% after 90 days.

3. Tech matters

While data should be at the core of any TV campaign, incredible technology is still needed to power those campaigns. Because at the end of the day, advertisers need the ability to precisely deliver against their most valuable audiences, cross-platform, with increased efficiency to limit waste and understand the impact of their media.

They also need to manage reach and frequency so they can ensure they aren’t over or underexposing viewers. To solve for this challenge, advertisers can utilize addressable tech to manage heavy TV viewers and create segments of light-TV viewers and make sure households are being delivered the ad the optimal number of times.

These are amazing tactics fueled by powerful tech that allows advertisers to look at their TV buys more holistically and increase campaign reach among certain audiences.

4. Young adults are watching linear and streaming

There is a misconception that young adults don’t watch linear TV anymore and can only be reached via streaming. That’s just not true.

Research shows that the majority of adults 18-49 watch TV across linear and streaming. That means, if advertisers are relying solely on CTV to reach them, they could miss a significant portion. Addressable data and technology can help brands find their audience even if that is a younger audience or an audience that doesn’t watch as much TV.

5. Actions over metrics

Today, advertisers are held accountable for media metrics, and business outcomes and results. It’s not enough to just reach audiences, advertising needs to drive the right action. With addressable and its deterministic data used for measurement, brands can better understand the connection between accurately reported exposures and outcomes across the purchase funnel, whether that be awareness, a website visit, an in-store visit or even sales lift. Further, brands get a better understanding of the performance and what is driving action so that they can better optimize for future campaigns.

Addressable TV is a key component in the changing TV landscape

While the definition of TV may be changing, the truth is TV is still the cornerstone of advertising because it works. So, while premium linear TV has evolved, it has done so in an effective way; it has converged, across platforms, and technology like addressable allows advertisers to buy it more closely aligned to how they might buy impression-based digital with all the additional controls.

The benefit of this is advertisers can now rely on technology and deterministic data in order to deliver the most efficient TV campaigns, based on their most valuable audiences in top quality and brand-safe content. Regardless of the size or duration of a campaign and whether targeted broadly or narrowly, addressable is a powerful tool that should be used as an integrated tactic for overall TV buys to make that budget go further and obtain the best results throughout the entire funnel.

Go Addressable’s third-annual summit this year focused on discussing some of the biggest topics of addressable TV advertising; how the medium has progressed, what is needed from the industry for total convergence, the importance of authenticated identity, and where the future is headed.

Addressable TV advertising has been growing steadily in usage as advertisers better understand its capabilities and potential. In fact, during her opening remarks Amy Leifer, Chief Advertising Sales Officer at DIRECTV Advertising, shared custom research from Go Addressable and Advertiser Perceptions on how advertiser intent to spend on addressable has grown consistently over the last three years from 34% in 2021 to 40% today! Next year, 2 out of 5 advertisers say they will spend more on addressable than they did this year.

One thing was clear though, as the industry moves towards building a better ecosystem for buyers, sellers, and consumers we must continue to keep focused on the future if we really want to Go Addressable. As the event’s keynote speaker Rishad Tobaccowala shared, the future cannot exist in the containers of the past so the time for the industry to act is now.

It’s All Coming Together: The New (and Improved) Addressable Buying Landscape

Speakers: Jason Brown, Spectrum Reach (Moderator), Cullen Deady, PMX Lift, Lisa Giacosa, Spark Foundry, Jean-Mark Papin, Horizon, and Brad Stockton, Dentsu

Our first panel featured executives across four major agencies, providing a temperature check on the state of addressable adoption and what, if any, barriers still remain. The good news: there has been steady growth in addressable TV advertising, with an increased acknowledgement of its effectiveness and relative cost efficiency. All panelists seemed to agree that one of the most important actions needed is to debunk the myths that marketers might believe about addressable’s effectiveness. Education is needed to help brand marketers understand the true eCPM of addressable. It can actually make media dollars go further since it is more effective and can help manage frequency and drive incremental reach. The truth is that addressable offers more in terms of reaching more targeted audiences and helping to avoid wasted impressions. Being able to help prove the real effectiveness of addressable TV advertising will help push it forward.

Another important factor is making it easier for buyers to transact across sellers. The ultimate goal is a holistic approach to planning, buying, and measurement that truly reflects the way that consumers are now viewing premium video content, moving beyond legacy media modeling.

There is so much opportunity for advertisers when it comes to addressable TV. A key area of focus for Go Addressable is to knock down the perceived barriers for marketers through research and education. In fact, based on a recent survey, the number of advertisers who are satisfied with addressable TV has increased steadily in the past three years. With dedicated work that number should continue to improve.

Convergence in Action: Where Addressable TV Fits In

Speakers: Kevin Arrix, DISH Media (Moderator), Stephanie Foster, Yahoo!, Angela Girardin, Nielsen One Ads, Andrea Remoundos, GroupM, and Sara Wallace, FreeWheel

The second panel of the day tackled the convergence of addressable that we are seeing in an increasingly complex world with different models and buying types across various video types. Like the marketer panel, they agreed that the industry needs better uniformity to ensure that advertisers can buy and manage addressable campaigns and use it successfully in their media strategies.

The real solution for full-fledged convergence is making it easier for advertisers to have a cohesive view of their video investments. Despite all the progress, silos remain; we are still seeing that many companies are organized in a way where the CTV and Linear TV teams sit separately. There is work being done to encourage the two to come together so that these channels can sit alongside one another. Allowing for more programmatic buying of addressable will also provide more flexibility, transparency, and uniformity so clients can better optimize.

Enabling more inventory to be programmatically bought will help bring the teams together and improving measurement for addressable TV will drive it forward and allow us to understand the impact addressable TV has more holistically.

Go Addressable is committed to helping improve measurement and help provide better proof of ROI in order to encourage advertiser adoption. Currently, the organization works with the top 20 attribution vendors in the market as a way to develop better offerings. As a result, 59% of advertisers report seeing an improvement in measurement in addressable TV.

Data: Addressable’s Superpower and How to Maximize It

Speakers: Larry Allen, Comcast Advertising (Moderator), Kimberly Gilberti, Experian, Bill Harvey, RMT Inc., Emily Kistner, Adstra, and Jason Manningham, Blockgraph

When it comes to addressable TV, data is really the fuel that powers it, so it is critical that advertisers start with the best data input in order to get the best output. As Bill Harvey said, addressable is a very powerful tool that research has found delivers a higher ROI than linear alone given its precise targeting, reinforcing its value as a tactic in effective media plans.

The industry is working to provide interoperability across data and identity partners so that advertisers can have an accurate view of their audiences across the entire campaign lifecycle from planning, to buying, to finally measuring. Data accuracy is an imperative to allow advertisers to leverage data in the best ways and to make meaningful connections with their consumers.

Looking ahead to 2024

Go Addressable is helping marketers and agencies understand the power of addressable TV advertising so they can truly harness it and use it to its fullest extent. During the event’s Fireside chat with Joe Keating from Hill’s Pet Nutrition, he shared how he has really leaned into addressable to help build the brand, better understand consumers, and reach the right audiences. He pointed out that more convergence will make it easier for other brands to see the value of addressable in their own strategies.

As Travis Scoles, SVP of Advanced Advertising at Paramount pointed out, waste is the enemy of addressable TV. Once buyers have a better grasp of its capabilities and how to use it in a full funnel marketing plan, the channel will be unstoppable. There are three key things that the industry must do for this to happen, and these are the areas that Go Addressable will be focused on in the next 12 months:

1. Provide clarity on the best practices of addressable to make it easier to engage and transact at every step.
2. Foster industry collaboration to drive addressable implementation.
3. Utilize research insights and case studies to showcase the merits of addressable advertising.

Thank you to all that joined us for Go Addressable Summit 2023: Building the Converged Addressable Future. Your participation and collaboration help us educate the industry and push the medium forward. To keep up to date with all the latest work we are doing, visit Insights – Go Addressable.

To watch the replay of the event, visit Go Addressable Summit 2023.

We’ll see you next year!

As the 2023 upfronts get underway, advertisers are once again faced with the challenge of reaching consumers and achieving optimal business results while balancing the growing array of television distribution formats in their media plans. With premium video content being consumed across various screens and fragmentation increasing, advertisers are looking to leverage data insights to target viewers with precision while maintaining the reach of traditional TV, using aggregated viewership insights, and with a commitment to protecting personal information. Addressable TV has reached critical mass, offering an effective solution that allows advertisers to reach specific audiences at scale with unprecedented precision. According to research commissioned with Advertiser Perceptions, 90% of agencies and marketers agree that Addressable TV is critical to the future of television advertising.

Despite the growing adoption of addressable advertising, many advertisers might not fully understand its benefits or use cases. But with media and marketing dollars under increased scrutiny, advertisers should consider the following four ways to incorporate addressable TV advertising into their upfront plans.

1. Complement Traditional TV Buys

Traditional TV still plays a pivotal role in many advertisers’ media strategies, and this is unlikely to change. Addressable TV advertising is a strategic tactic that can enhance linear TV campaigns by bridging gaps and providing better viewer experiences through more effective targeting and ad frequency management per household. By coupling the two, advertisers can extend the reach of their traditional linear TV strategy and drive incremental reach to consumers who may not have been exposed to their messaging. Incorporating addressable TV advertising into upfront planning in this way can help ensure valuable return on ad spend.

2. Unify Streaming and Linear Audiences

Addressability is not limited to linear TV advertising; it also can be used to serve targeted ads across set-top boxes, streaming platforms, or CTV devices. By using addressable, advertisers can improve audience targeting and measure reach across both linear and digital channels, which historically has been difficult. Addressable TV offers the opportunity to unify the two, creating a more audience-based approach and a better understanding of ROI.

3. Engage High-Intent Consumers with Relevant Messages

One of the most valuable applications of addressable TV advertising is its ability to identify and reach in-market households with a high likelihood of purchasing a specific product or service. Addressable TV provides privacy-focused ways to reach a specific audience using aggregated data. By using addressable TV advertising, advertisers can target specific creative or messaging to in-market households, which can drive conversion and enhance the customer experience. By incorporating addressable TV advertising into upfront planning, advertisers can engage with customers as they move through the consumer purchase funnel.

4. Close the Loop Between Media Exposure and Consumer Action

Addressable TV advertising can help close the loop between media exposure and consumer action with deterministic attribution and measurement. In a privacy-focused way, advertisers can target specific audience segments and limit the exposure of ads to households outside of those segments, reducing wasted impressions. With accurate attribution, advertisers can better plan and measure the impact of their TV investments.

Addressable TV is Ready to Go for the 2023 Upfronts

As advertisers’ needs continue to evolve, addressable TV advertising is playing a major role in the new TV landscape by providing improved targeting, measurement, and attribution capabilities. The tools and technology are available, and advertisers should take advantage of them by incorporating addressable into their overall TV strategy. The 2023 upfronts provide a massive opportunity for advertisers to embrace addressable TV advertising and achieve optimal results.

Resources for Going Addressable

Go Addressable has put together resources to accelerate adoption and help educate and enable advertisers wherever they are in their addressable TV journey. Visit the Content Hub to access the playbook, glossary, blogs, and other timely insights.

Today, audiences are consuming content everywhere and, on every device, causing viewership fragmentation and numerous choices for marketers. As marketers build their media plans, they are faced with determining the best way to reach their target audience. Online digital advertising has made a compelling case for reaching audiences but faces several challenges for marketers including lack of scale, reach and premium content. Addressable TV arguably provides the best of all worlds, utilizing aggregated and de-identified first party data, advertisers now have the ability to serve ads directly to the households they want to reach next to today’s most sought-after premium content at scale. As part of an ongoing series, we will be discussing the benefits of addressable TV and its positive impact on marketer’s media mix. First, we’ll examine how addressable TV offers precision audience targeting at scale in a safe, privacy-compliant way and why addressable TV is the best of all worlds.

The Connection To The Consumer

Video distribution platforms and today’s smart devices are a direct connection to the home, and therefore the consumer. This allows marketers to match specific approved viewership segments or custom target lists, through a trusted third party, with first party de-identified data. From a targeting perspective, that is incredibly powerful. It means an addressable enhanced TV campaign will have the reach and scale of television with the HH targeting capabilities.

With the death of cookies not far off, advertisers will be looking for ways to fill the void; addressable TV can be a big part of how that void gets filled. TV distributors provide marketers with a direct conduit to their best potential customer without reliance on cookies, MAIDs or other less-reliable identifiers.

The direct connection to all screens in the home at scale, in a privacy compliant way, is the backbone of TV distributor’s ability to provide addressable advertising using accurate data, methodology and delivery mechanisms.

Spectrum Reach’s Commitment to Customers

At Spectrum Reach we continue our commitment of advancing the addressable television landscape by evolving our technical infrastructure, improving workflows, and advancing census-based measurement solutions for our partners and media sales clients. Additionally, Spectrum Reach has made investments to help scale the addressable marketplace including Blockgraph, an identity solutions company, and, Comscore, who provided census-based measurement and analytics for the media industry. Finally, through Ampersand we are scaling the access to local addressable TV for advertisers… These and other investments have helped establish Spectrum Reach as one of the leaders in addressable advertising. Our participation in Go Addressable has highlighted the need for teamwork in the space and is helping to advance TV addressable by driving education and addressing issues facing the industry. Our commitment to addressable advertising is strong. Charter’s customer privacy policies exceed industry standards and are aligned with a promise to protect customer’s personal information.

Addressable TV offers truly unprecedented precision in audience targeting. By matching aggregated and de-identified first-party data sets with consumer data, distributors can generate census-level, privacy-compliant household data, providing unmatched targeting capabilities for marketers. With addressable TV, distributors can help brands deliver greater accuracy and increased reach through proven and scalable distribution platforms. Said another way, brands can finally take the best content on the planet and use it to Go Addressable.

The world of TV advertising is undergoing a seismic change. As the use of data continues to fundamentally shift the way marketers reach and measure their audiences, brands are looking for ways to ensure TV advertising is offering capabilities as precise as digital, but with the reach of traditional TV.

Against this backdrop, addressable TV has emerged, representing one of the most significant shifts in advertising to date. Addressable TV advertising offers an effective, accountable, and optimizable ad experience for all players in the media ecosystem, and therefore is a topic of great importance to advertisers and publishers alike. With excitement and interest building, advertisers are seeking resources and education while demanding options for executing addressable TV at scale.

This is exactly why Go Addressable was launched.

Founded in June 2021, the Go Addressable initiative includes – a group of industry leaders with the goal of accelerating the growth of addressable TV advertising and making it easier for advertisers to incorporate addressable TV into their advertising campaigns.

Why is this so important? Because TV buying is rapidly shifting to a data driven, impression-based model, and advertisers are asking for it.

According to a new study commissioned with Advertiser Perceptions, 88% of agencies and marketers agree addressability is important to the future of television advertising. Additionally, over 3/4 of marketers and agencies say that linear addressable is the key to solving their marketing objectives in a fragmented media world. Because of this, One in four advertisers not currently spending in addressable TV report that they plan to start in 2022.

Not surprisingly, spend for addressable TV is expected to grow in 2022. In fact, 1 in 3 addressable TV advertisers surveyed say they will spend more in 2022 – which is in line with eMarketer’s prediction that linear TV addressable ad spending will grow 33% this year.

So is addressability a key part of TV’s future? You bet. The interest is there and the spend is growing. But data suggests there is work to be done to improve on the opportunity.

According to the Ad Perceptions study, slightly more than half of the advertisers surveyed (all media brand decision-makers) are currently using addressable advertising. Moreover, only one in ten advertisers are very satisfied with current addressable TV options. In our eyes, this spells opportunity! More education and more industry-wide solutions are necessary to realize the full potential of this game-changing medium.
This is where Go Addressable comes in.

The mission is to accelerate the growth of addressable TV advertising by focusing on three key pillars:

• SIMPLIFY. Help simplify the process of buying and managing addressable TV campaigns, proposing solutions aimed at reducing inefficiencies and driving value for advertisers.
• SOCIALIZE. Provide advocacy, education, actionable insights, use cases and technical updates on a regular basis to keep the industry informed and engaged with addressable TV.
• SCALE. Help facilitate seamless distribution, ease of planning, standardization, flawless execution and unified measurement for addressable TV – combining the scale of traditional television with the precision of digital media.

Today, Go Addressable held its first annual industry summit, titled “Go Addressable 2021: Advancing the Future of Television.” At this event, leaders from companies spanning ViacomCBS, AMC Networks, DISH Media, WarnerMedia, Blockgraph and Invidi shared insights and best practices on how to master the addressable TV marketplace now and in the future. If you missed the summit, you can watch the full event here.

Go Addressable also introduced a new Content Hub that provides visitors deep and timely insights into addressable TV – we hope you’ll take a look around and come back often. This Content Hub includes blogs, videos, infographics, industry guides and more, created to keep industry players informed and up-to-speed on the latest addressable TV advertising news and insights.

Addressable TV is here, and the goal is to take it to the next level with this groundbreaking multi-company initiative. Wherever you stand in your journey towards addressable advertising, we hope you’ll benefit from our commitment to the growth and evolution of TV advertising. In this industry, rising tide lifts all boats, and we should all commit to building the future of addressable TV together. It’s time to go addressable.