ITV’s strategy for mass reach and addressability
The UK premium TV market is experiencing growth and ITV is at the forefront. In an interview with The Media Leader, managing director, commercial, Kelly Williams outlines ITV’s four key pillars for success: mass reach, addressability at scale, creative solutions and outcome measurement.
ITV’s fifth focus now is on revenue diversification. Indeed, at the end of last year, it signed a deal with YouTube to make its content available on the Google platform.
Find out how streaming is driving ITV’s growth, the unique strengths of the UK market compared with the US and collaborations like Universal Ads, designed to expand TV advertising to more brands.
Watch the full interview
While streaming’s growth in the UK is partly to do with the big streamers’ strong performance alongside other factors such as major live events, Williams points out all UK “established” players grew in this area last year. As he notes, UK TV players are “well-established and well-funded”.
However, while the digital platforms have grown the overall advertiser pot, TV itself remains hard to buy. Hence the news in June of a joint ad marketplace between ITV, Channel 4 and Sky, using Comcast Universal Ads technology.
For Williams, while Universal Ads is a good platform, it is “not built for the media agency world” in order for broadcasters to tap into “the fat end of the long tail” to grow the overall TV pie. “We’re trying to collaborate more and more and that felt like an obvious place to start,” he explains.
Stressing how broadcasters continue to compete with each other, “for agency business and for big advertisers”, Williams concedes: “My gut feeling is, over the next five to 10 years, we’re going to have to collaborate more and more. It does feel there will be consolidation over time.”
The interview was conducted by consultant Justin Lebbon and took place in Cannes in June.