The deployments are different in every market around the world but, slowly but surely, addressable TV – technology which helps advertisers target individual viewers – is rolling out globally.
But don’t bet on this granular-targeting super-power usurping the traditional construct of TV ad-buying – wherein the goal is to reach a mass audience, measured roughly – any time soon.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, GroupM chairman Irwin Gotlieb says the two types can co-exist.
“Television has enormous capabilities beyond Top of the Funnel and addressability is what enables that,” Gotlieb tells us.
“(But) you (should) never stop doing top-of-the-funnel. If you focus all your efforts on identifying and picking off the lowest hanging fruit and you don’t put any effort behind watering the tree to insure that there is more fruit that becomes low-hanging, what you wind up with is a dead tree and no business.”
GroupM long had its Modi Media business unit trained on helping deliver advertising solutions through over-the-top TV devices.
Now, in the UK, it also has Finecast offers advertisers access to 180 different targeting segments – from socio-economic to life stage, purchase and financial data – spanning multiple TV channels, pay-TV platforms, set-top boxes, video-on-demand services, over-the-top providers and game console. And the company aims to roll out globally.
“We’ve had pretty good success in the UK. That’s an active business,” Gotlieb adds. “We are making huge inroads in Canada. I’m heading to Australia in a month – Foxtel there has gone addressable. We are working really hard in China. We’ve got Thailand marked as a potential opportunity. I could go on and on and on.
Gotlieb says addressable should help ad buyers find the low-hanging fruit. “We would not be fulfilling our responsibilities to our clients if we didn’t do this proactively,” he says, channelling Peter Drucker: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
This video was produced by Beet.TV in Las Vegas at CES 2018. Please visit this page for more coverage.