Why connected TV is the next big thing in digital advertising

The growing adoption of smart TVs has made Connected TV (CTV) an important vehicle for advertisers in India. Experts assert that CTV has many advantages when it comes to advertising.

First, CTV complements linear TV by offering incremental reach to brands. Second, CTV provides a captive audience to brands that are highly engaged and affluent. Third and the most important factor is that CTV advertising is cost-efficient besides providing targeting capabilities and measurability.

In a mobile-first digital market like India, OTT platforms are highly bullish about CTV both from audience engagement and monetisation points of view.

ZEE5 India Chief Business Officer Manish Kalra believes that advertising on CTV is the next big frontier for brands in India as smart TV subscriptions have skyrocketed in the last few years. "From an advertising standpoint, CTV offers a strong platform to engage with the young millennial audiences, highly engaged and affluent thus leading to an increased proclivity to spend owing to higher disposable incomes."

GroupM India President – Data, Performance, and Digital Products Atique Kazi notes that CTV advertising will allow brands to look at building incremental reach on linear TV. "They will try to focus on a niche/fine targeted audience, avoiding linear TV wastage or to bring overall cost efficiencies on TV ad investments. Many brands are already active across categories and FMCG brands have been the first movers towards CTV advertising," he stated.

Unlike global markets, the cost of CTV advertising is very competitive in India. "Currently CTV pricing is very competitive in India compared to global markets. This is a good time to enter the space and create an awareness to engagement funnel for marketers," Kazi averred.

According to The Trade Desk India General Manager Tejinder Gill, CTV allows marketers to use data science to measure, optimize, and change their TV campaigns in real-time.

"CTV enables advertisers to apply data in a way that’s simply not possible with linear TV. It is no longer about reaching an audience at a certain time on a certain show, but about reaching an audience based on what we know about their preferences," he added.

Gill also said that advertisers can benefit from reach and frequency reporting – including insights from linear TV exposure – and connect their campaigns to real-life metrics such as in-store visits and brand conversion lifts.

He also mentioned that the shift from linear television to CTV is far more significant than the digital transformation of other content channels. Indian marketers, he said, see CTV as an opportunity to apply data to what is often the largest segment of their advertising spends.

"As marketers look to advertise across different digital channels where the consumer journey can be accurately mapped and understood, CTV is set to become a key component of omnichannel campaigns. CTV can reach consumers in a high-quality viewing environment and measure the full impact of their campaigns in real-time," he stated.

Samsung Ads Senior Director-India and South East Asia Prabhvir Sahmey said brands that are willing to invest and learn about this growing media will reap the rewards by being forward-thinking and ahead of the trend. "CTV provides the perfect environment for brands to marry the big screen, the high-quality experience of TV ads with the accuracy of targeting and measurability seen already in digital advertising," he stated.

Sahmey further stated that AVOD video platforms will play a pivotal role in CTV advertising in the years to come.

Affle-owned mediasmart’s Vice President - India & SEA Nikhil Kumar said that the Advertisers globally and in India are lapping up this uniqueomnichannel connected CTV advertising experience. Clients, he said, are using CTV for high-impact storytelling on CTV, amplified engagement on CTV exposed audience on mobile and driving action and conversion on mobile.

He also pointed out that brands can launch CTV campaigns to a specific audience in the same household, target premium inventory, measure results, and also drive them to the nearest store. "If one were to look at the brand impact of CTV in comparison to the traditional TV or online video, CTV in the past has proven to have led on both metrics of ad awareness and purchase intent in comparison to linear TV, on independent brand lift surveys," he added.

The Trade Desk India's Tejinder Gill believes that the industry has just scratched the surface as far as CTV advertising is concerned. "While TV viewership in India is rapidly shifting to CTV, advertising spend is yet to fully catch on. We have only scratched the surface of the transformation of TV advertising and what it means for advertisers in India."

mediasmart's Kumar said that the cheaper and easy availability of Smart TVs & dongles (Amazon Fire Stick, Chromecast, etc.) and internet plans together with compelling content propositions of leading OTT players, are going to significantly accelerate the growth of CTV going forward.

"As consumers spend more time on this device and content format, ad dollars will also eventually move in this direction as the India market will see growth for both subscribers funded SVOD (Subscription Video-on-Demand) content and advertiser-funded AVOD (Advertising Video-on-Demand) content on CTV. We, thus remain bullish on this opportunity and see India as a key market for our CTV business on mediasmart," he said.