'CTV will be used for checking out various customer hypothesis in markets’

Television penetration in India is estimated to reach 76 per cent in 2026 compared to 70 per cent in 2020, with both FTA (Free to Air) and Pay TV registering strong growth. The second panel session at the inaugural edition of e4m Connected TV Conference was about “TV360: How Cable, DTH And CTV Converge”.

The panellists were Atique Kazi, president – data, performance and digital products, GroupM; Samir Vora, CMO, Verse, DailyHunt and Josh; Prasad Pimple, executive vice president and head – digital business, Kotak Life; Saibal Biswas, senior VP and head of marketing, partnerships and PR, MediBuddy; Ashish Karnad, executive VP, Hansa Research; Jaiti Hariani, sales director, DoubleVerify and Sandeep Sharma, president, R K Swamy Media Group. The session was moderated by Vikas Khanchandani, country head, DistroScale Ltd.

Khanchandani opened the session by talking about what brands are looking for from TV, vis-a-vis, OTT and connected TV, and whether they see a need for a unified measurement for the same. To this, Sharma said, “CTV has been there for some time, but it has come to limelight, thanks to the JioCinema IPL – a feat that has brought it to the forefront. There are a lot of discussions, debates and excitement around this with our clients and many are now wondering how we go about planning. My personal view is that in India, everything co-exists. People also find a way to work their way around and make themselves meaningful. TV always has packed a punch and it continues to do so. I think CTV is the future. You cannot stop the power of an idea whose time has come. While your linear TV will remain the reach builder, CTV will be used for checking out various customer hypothesis in markets and I think that is the best way to use CTV.” 

“When we look at the overall TV as the ecosystem, be it connected or a linear TV, it is all about the brand perspective or the objective, that is, what exactly is the objective of my campaign. When we looked at TV as the medium, we always looked at the perspective of receiving good reach. But when we talk about immediate returns with measurement getting involved, I think CTV can become a major force in future, if it becomes a full funnel. For all other digital platforms we currently work with, the entire growth happened when all the platforms went full funnel. Till the time all these four players come together, create a proper ecosystem for brands to have the end-to-end visibility and ability to manage the campaigns on a full funnel level, the scale-up will take time,” Pimple added. 

Biswas elucidated, “From a marketer’s perspective, it is important to go after a target audience. Now, some of the platforms when we look at, especially from a digital perspective, will look at identifying the audience, targeting them and building certain impressions on the target audience so that if it is an objective of category creation or even brand salience, we understand that we have moved to those basis of impressions. This is a disjoint ecosystem. So, when we are looking at making an impression, we are not very sure what we will eventually get as an output. This is why, big advertisers are a bit hesitant to put their marketing money behind it.”

Moving further in the conversation, Karnad shared his views on bringing a coverage in YouTube and any other fit for content TV across all other platforms, and how this is possible in India. “While the advertisers have been talking about the need for measurement, I personally don’t think the publishers are honestly wanting a unified third party measurement to commend the practice. You first need to have an intent to have a unified measurement into place. Then all other things can be sorted out. When you are talking about a mobile phone, it is all about individuals. The moment you talk about connected TV, it is unknown who is watching on the screen. As this ecosystem grows, I believe people will be forced to come together at some point in time.”

Hariani said, “Wherever your media dollars are rising, there is a need for measurement. When you talk about digital, it’s all real time whereas TV is a weekly report. If we talk about targeting, TV is more household targeting and digital is more than one-end consumer targeting. So, both these methodologies are completely different. Therefore, finding a unified approach and making it feasible is something that is a challenge and I don’t think we are ready for it.”

Talking about TV360 kind of tools Kazi deliberated, “For me, it is all about addressable TV. If you look at our marketing ecosystem, brands have been built on television compared to brands built on mobile, which is significantly low. The power of television, that is, lean back, full view and volume cannot be ignored. So, TV is not going anywhere but the access points are changing. We were doing it via chords and now we are doing it via digital signals and we are also looking that some of those linear TV feeds will also become addressable in the future.”

Concluding the session, Vora conveyed, “To bet against CTV, saying that it will not exist or it cannot grow at a pace, I would not bet against that because I think the next two to three years, especially inflection point like IPL and Jio on this particular thing, would be torchbearers of this revolution.”