The future of TV is incredibly bright in India and globally: Nicola Lewis, Finecast

The exchange4media Connected TV Conference, held in Mumbai on Friday, April 28, saw a gathering of global thought leaders in the CTV and OTT space. Addressing the conference virtually was Nicola Lewis, Global CEO, Finecast, who spent a short but riveting session on sharing her thoughts regarding the CTV landscape and the significant opportunity it affords advertisers.

“On a global level, and by 2025, we're forecasting that the addressable TV opportunity will reach 45 billion; this figure is representative of growth in CTV penetration, increase in set-top box consumption and newly emerging forms of TV. If we focus on India itself, the growth trajectory is driven by multiple factors. CTV homes are expected to raise between 40 to 45 million by 2025 throughout that year. In addition, broadband penetration in India is now at 32 million. We also see that CTV daily audiences are growing at pace with a compound annual growth rate of 45% between 2021 and 2026.”

Based on all of this from a point of perspective, Lewis said Finecast was exploring many avenues of innovation and product development to enhance the advertiser opportunity, starting with targeting the accuracy of which CTV can serve an ad at a household level, a factor that plays a crucial role in building the addressable TV ecosystem. “Today in India we can target CTV households at a PIN code level.”

She added that the company further focused on breaking down budgets and costs to Geo polygon grids so that they can deliver enhanced geo granularities, a core aspect for Finecast. “What this will do is to help brands grow hyperlocally, which ultimately will continue to prove our ROI progressively.”

Additionally, and on a global level, she noted that Finecast is currently working on several proof of concept projects to show how they can leverage first, second and third party data to further enhance their targeting capability.

“A luxury jewellery brand, for example, can use that CRM database to target customers to boost their e-commerce sales. And these are all processes that we're looking to implement again on a global level that uses data rules ensuring that our approach to data is always 100% compliant,” she said.

Learnings across targeting mean CTV and streaming viewers continue to be considered high-value consumers as they tend to have higher purchase intent and are more likely to engage with ads that are relevant and personalized at a household level. “Specific to India, this does as well serve to drive higher returns on investment when targeting CTV and streaming audiences.”

“We've also worked with clients in Europe to integrate search intent data into their campaigns, which is a really future-facing initiative. And a great example is the fast food category, whereby we've matched delivery time based on when people are searching for fast food menus, enabling us to distinguish weekday vs weekend behavior of course regional differences across countries,” said Lewis

“We're also focused on exploring opportunities with ACR. So automated content recognition, which has the ability to garner more insights based on the type of content being consumed at a household level. Again, this is a strategic priority for India and one that really serves to drive opportunity for clients.”

Lewis noted that measurement is also incredibly important within addressable TV with brands seeking out CTV as a way to leverage longer ad formats which are not only cost effective but are also able to build high brand awareness and engagement. “Within this space, we're constantly innovating. So looking at using panels, industry data with bespoke measurement strategies and impact moving as far as building in new emerging metrics.”

“So as you can see from a buying cost point of view, the future of TV both in India and globally is incredibly bright. And we will continue to provide significant opportunities for brands and advertisers,” concluded Lewis.