Understanding programmatic TV

The UK’s TV market might be at least five years from achieving anything that resembles digital ad-serving, but that doesn’t mean that we need to hold back from innovating, writes Matt Whelan

Programmatic TV is a phrase that’s been increasingly thrown about over the last few years. It conjures up visions of a world where a TV advert is targeted at viewers based on all the data available about them or their household.

So, if I use the last tea bag when I make a cup of tea before sitting down to watch Midsomer Murders, my smart home will tell an ITV ad server somewhere.

That server can then give PG Tips the opportunity to reach me throughout the show with sequential messaging that climaxes with fantastic offers to be immediately redeemed via my phone (perhaps at the time my smart kettle reports I’m nearly ready for another brew…).

We’re a long way from this slightly unsettling future. In the UK, the TV buying, and even targeting infrastructure is simply not equipped to deal with real-time requests, or even individualised ad serving in most cases. But there are vendors out there right now touting “Programmatic TV” solutions, so what do they mean?

Programmatic in relation to the purchase and sale of ad space simply means “an automated process”. Programmatic is not specifically describing real-time-bidding, dynamic ad serving, or any of the other features that stand out within the digital display ecosystem that has come to epitomise the phrase.

This is a crucial point – anyone talking about delivering programmatic TV (PTV) right now is talking about adding sophisticated automation to the planning, targeting or measurement process.

Easily the most common use of “programmatic” is within the planning of TV campaigns to incorporate online delivery. There are a number of vendors, such as TubeMogul, which have the ability to take TV audience data, and automatically blend it with online data.

This enables you to target that same audience segment online, programmatically boosting your reach or frequency through cost effective online channels.

If frequency is important, programmatic retargeting is also possible. TV measurement platforms such as Adalyser have the ability to identify the individuals on your website who are likely to be responding to TV.

These individuals can be retargeted through digital media, which is a powerful way to build screen-neutral awareness within an audience, and also unlocks real sequential creative delivery.

Where ads are served through addressable TV environments, individual households can be identified as having seen ads and targeted in a similar way in a digital environment. DataXu are working with Sky in the UK on solutions like this.

Delivering sequential creative is an interesting opportunity. Data-driven planning can be easily criticised as un-creative but it unlocks real opportunity for creative advertisers to implement a more impactful campaign by moving away from simple weight of spend and repetition and into something that becomes more individually appealing the more it receives audience interaction.

TV ads drive a web-based response, let’s not be afraid of that fact but embrace it. Analysing what audience response looks like leads to more responsive and impactful creative, as well as ad placement, for that audience in the future.

So far we’ve only talked about using data to programmatically supplement TV, how do we make sure it has a direct impact on the TV campaign itself? Right now there are a number of solutions to enable you to “programmatically” add a data-driven approach to your TV buying.

Sky Media’s analytics product is an excellent example of this, enabling advertisers to compare their customer data to a robust sky viewing panel to identify the viewing habits of the most valuable segments.

This information can be utilised to buy linear TV more effectively, optimise your creative to the right audience, or power the addressable AdSmart solution. There’s also a measurement angle for post campaign effectiveness – using the panel to identify how new customers were exposed to TV ads.

Campaign measurement and optimisation is a key area where programmatic solutions can add substance to a traditionally hard to track and inflexibly bought media.

At The Specialist Works we are now able to allocate budget seamlessly between online and offline audio-visual channels based on their measured response and impact on advertisers’ goals.

If data-driven targeting was the big programmatic improvement in 2016 then creative placement and delivery optimisation will be the main programmatic focus for 2017.

So what about beyond that? In the UK we’re at least five years away from achieving anything that resembles digital ad-serving.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing – real time bidding and the almost unlimited availability of remnant inventory in the digital world has led to very poor consumer experiences, the response to which is the creation of ad blockers and a backlash against targeting and even personalisation in general.

TV is one of the greatest weapons advertisers have, so moving slowly and with caution to avoid this outcome is no bad thing.

Other TV markets will be better equipped than the UK to achieve this kind of delivery sooner; the quantity of both addressable viewing data and available air time in the US makes it a more fertile launch ground for example.

But that doesn’t mean that we need to hold back from innovating. Those of us leading the charge are busy adding sophistication wherever we can in the UK and there is an opportunity for every advertiser to add efficiency to their TV delivery with the right programmatic partner and delivery system.

Matt Whelan is digital strategy director at The Specialist Works