Why Programmatics' past may just help shape TV's future

Television advertising enjoyed a modest start to life in India. Adverts made their debut on the silver screen in 1976 (courtesy of Gwalior Suiting). But this didn’t kickstart a revolution; rather, television advertising stagnated for an extended period. Slot length and format remained, to all intents and purposes, unchanged. Meanwhile, new channels such as digital banner ads were being rolled out en masse - each bringing fresh opportunities to determine attribution and measurement.

It wasn’t until Smart TVs’ arrival in 2011 that the winds of change began to blow. Streaming TV content over the internet became the new status quo, driving a change in how consumers interact with TV shows, movies and channels. Fast forward to present day and Smart TV penetration is only trending in one direction - 40 million households are set to own a Smart TV by 2025, up from 25 million in 2022.

It’s no wonder, then, that Connected TV (CTV) is a staple of advertising playbooks. Television’s technological coming of age and the ascendance of programmatic CTV advertising has facilitated a new way to connect with audiences. Brands can now drive efficiency at scale within an environment that doesn’t risk their reputations. But that doesn’t mean it’s an automatic home run.

CTV’s long-term growth could hinge on learning from its predecessors' mistakes. Programmatic’s initial ascendance was littered with growing pains. Questions around consent, measurement and fraud were raised - and this has left us with a complicated digital landscape where accurate, standardised measurement is difficult to come by.

Is CTV the new cookie?

Personalisation was the Holy Grail during the early programmatic days, ensuring advertisers could deliver the premium click-through rates (CTR). We now stand at the cusp of a new age - one based on both precision and reaching audiences at scale.

But this needs to be balanced against concerns from regulatory bodies and consumers around how personal information and data is used. And whilst programmatic CTV advertising is capable of filling the impending cookieless void, we first need to iron out the wrinkles that have been present for some time - including consent.

Getting ahead of audience tracking should be front-of-mind for any advertiser worth their salt. Capitalising on CTV’s status as a household device - rather than a source of personally identifiable information (PII) - is a stepping stone to achieving this. The consent-driven framework, whereby consumers opt-in to providing their sensitive data, can be a powerful asset that eases conversations surrounding CTV buying.

Learning from your past

Adopting a user-centric approach could also be the catalyst to solving CTV’s measurement problems. Raising the industry standards and implementing opt-in consent mechanisms can deliver the actionable, accurate measurement performance metrics that advertisers crave (and which match up to other digital formats).

The word ‘fraud’ has been thrown around in association with programmatic advertising - with more than 40% of the open-market programmatic inventory estimated to be fraudulent in 2022. However, this shouldn’t be considered the norm across the board. Our Tizen operating system ensures that apps that stream through our OS are shut down when the TV is turned off. We have found that CTV ads running with TV set turned off is primarily an issue with connected devices.

Furthermore, our partnership with DoubleVerify in Europe enables advertisers to capitalise on premium media quality measurement and protection solutions. This affirms that Samsung TVs and Samsung TV Plus operate with little fraudulent CTV activity, with all insights being accurate representations of ad exposure and engagement.

Living in the moment

Overcoming previous question marks is all well and good - but it means nothing if we don’t address the elephant in the programmatic room right now. And this starts with accepting that both the programmatic stack and the digital advisor are falling behind the pace of CTV growth.

Acknowledging that CTV, as a device, has a unique operating cycle compared to the open internet is the first step to rectifying the problem. Consumers set aside periods of the day to enjoy ‘TV time’ - the same can’t be said for desktop and mobile. This means that the current supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-side platforms (DSPs) can’t accurately ascertain volume of inventory, stunting the purchasing process.

Then there’s the linguistics problem. The CTV landscape is dominated by a mess of jargon, making it difficult for the industry to develop an agreed framework. Case-in-point, FAST has a vastly different structure of how ads are requested compared to other video-on-demand (VOD) platforms. FAST operates with ad pods, the same fundamentals as linear ad structuring. All of this means that it’s a complex, convoluted daisy chain for technologies to navigate.

But it’s the insufficient funding that is arguably crippling programmatic CTV’s growth the most. Engineers’ perception of CTV’s value (or lack of it) means they’re reluctant to make wholesale changes to the SSPs and DSPs and are content to focus their efforts on the open internet.

CTV shouldn’t be treated as a bolt-on; it needs to be at the heart of the platform - which is why at Samsung, we’ve developed our own CTV-oriented DSP. Others in the industry should be expanding their current stacks or investing time and resources into brand new platforms.

Rome wasn’t built in a day

Programmatic CTV advertising isn’t the new kid on the marketing block. It’s been cementing its place at the table for some time, enabling advertisers to navigate the challenges of the evolving TV environment. But a glance at the history books - as well as the present day situation - reveals that there’s still some way to go.

The programmatic CTV market is forecast to boom over the forthcoming years. Its long-term success, however, hinges on it being used efficiently and in a consented way. And whilst everyone is quick to praise its ability to reach viewers in premium environments, this shouldn’t overshadow the need for greater accountability and higher standards. Fail to address both previous question marks and modern-day hurdles and we’re doomed to rinse-and-repeat the shortcomings of the early programmatic era.