e4m-Samsung Ads CTV Roundtable: Industry heads discuss leveraging the power of screen

Maximising TV budgets and preparing for a larger addressable CTV universe has become critical for advertisers in today’s era. According to Statista, as of 2022, the number of households in India that owned connected TV sets amounted to 25 million. This figure was estimated to almost double by 2025. The viewership of CTV was found to have increased by over 30 per cent between 2021 and 2022.

To dwell more on the booming CTV landscape, a set of industry experts discussed how to leverage the ‘power of screen’, at e4m-Samsung Ads CTV Roundtable in Gurugram on Wednesday.

The speakers included Anupam Tripathi, Media Head, Lenskart; Anusha Srinivasan, Digital Media Activations Manager, Reckitt Health, Reckitt India; Archana Aggarwal, VP – Media, Airtel; Bhawna Sikka, Category Head; Oral Health Care, Haleon; Kunal Dhrangadharia, Global Brand Lead, Royal Enfield; Monika Mishra, Director – Marketing, Mobikwik; Sahil Rawal, Vice President - Brand Product Platforms Marketing, Max Life Insurance; Samir Sethi, VP and Head of Brand Marketing, Policybazaar.com and Syed Sibtain Imam, Media Head, Honasa Consumer Ltd (Mamaearth).

The discussion was moderated by Prabhvir Sahmey, Senior Director, Samsung Ads while Abbhishek Chadha, Executive Vice President, North & East, Interactive Avenues was the co-moderator.

Sahmey kickstarted the discussion with a presentation, where he highlighted that connected TV essentially started selling in India around 2017. Before this period, most televisions were not entirely internet-enabled. In 2022, India saw nearly 25 million monthly active CTV users. “Of all TVs that we see, about 80% of them are connected to the internet on a daily basis, we estimate this number to be around 40 million and expect it to be much higher by the time it is 2025,” Sahmey shared.

He also mentioned that a significant portion of Samsung TVs are spending time watching streaming content. In this regard, he said, “India is the only market where streaming content is the largest. US & Europe markets are just playing catch up.”

Consumer journey has seen its set of shifts pre, during and post Covid. Chadha addressed the same and posed to the experts that in this regard, how should CTV as a medium be evaluated.

Dhrangadharia chimed in here and mentioned that as an emerging media, it definitely is an avenue that one can explore. “But right now how things are structured is that we ask for a structure, a brief is floated on that basis and then a plan is given back to us with certain measurables in place,” he said.

He further highlighted that if the objective is to drive awareness, and if there is a certain audience that the brand is able to take care of on the basis of this medium, it needs to come automatically from the agency’s side that ‘this is the preferred medium’. “If that initial conviction is not there, as a brand I would not give a lot of organic precedence to this media,” Dhrangadharia added.

Speaking of what has happened in the past two - three years, Sikka shared that while CTV can be considered under digital, what it does within digital has evolved. “Now when you are looking at media, you are looking at a more integrated approach. When it comes to efficiencies for a mass plan, it will still be TV because it gives me the kind of reach it does. TV from an efficiency perspective would still remain dominant,” she said.

However, Sikka added, when it comes to effectiveness, CTV can come into play.

Mishra said that for a brand like MobiKwik, the view through rate is way more on a CTV than on any OTT platform or YouTube. “This may be because there is inertia in getting up and pressing the skip ad button. It is too early for us to say that it has worked for us, but that is one help that CTV has done for us. At Least for the last two campaigns, where we had planned for CTV, the VTR has been to tune of 98%,” she mentioned.

Aggarwal believes that for an emerging media like CTV, it is just a matter of getting enough scale. “Right now it is very fragmented in terms of everybody selling it separately and what is included in CTV, there is a lot of grey area on that part. That bit of clarity within the segment is also very critical,” she said.

Chadha pointed out that when one looks at the aspect of measurable business impact, that is where CTV would get a seat at the table. “Whether we have a sizable scale to measure the business impact, that is the question,” he said.

Rawal added that from a life insurance perspective, there are two ways to look at the CTV medium – branding and performance. At Max Life Insurance, he shared, the conversations have mostly been around allocating spends to branding. “TV is something that is definite and gives you a large reach. But eventually there is something called a CTV, which will have a bigger screen and immersive audience and also something that we can measure,” he said.

Tripathi pointed out that the reason why the view through rates are higher on CTV is the same reason why the clicks are lower. “So for us, it comes 100% under branding,” he mentioned. Speaking of challenges, Tripathi shared that while brand awareness is of importance to Lenskart, consideration and purchase intent are also very critical. And for that just being present with FCT or ad or CPMs doesn’t really help.

He also highlighted that the success of CTVs largely depends on the success of OTT platforms. “A majority of the programs shot today are being produced for TV. So the control of the OTT players to give you integration and hardcore brand value positioned in the content is very limited,” Tripathi said.

Sahmey feels that over the next 5 years, there will be a clear demarcation between what is being watched on mobile and what is being watched on TV. “CTV CPMs will be much higher than current linear CPMs that we are seeing today, because on CTV you can know exactly how many people watched that program. You have actual metrics which can be validated by any third party platform,” he said.

Imam highlighted that another challenge is consolidation. “If I have to make a CTV plan, wherein the objective is to reach 60-70 million audience, I have to plan YouTube separately, I will have to have a Sony LIV or a Hotstar or a Samsung TV. So if there is a way in which I can do a unified planning, that can help,” he mentioned.

Sethi acknowledged the discussions around how to best measure the effectiveness CTV advertising spends and how the various brands as well as the Samsung team shared what they have been seeing on this front. “I really hope measurability becomes a lot tighter in this space,” he mentioned.