If you search online for ‘the future of TV’ then you’d be forgiven for coming away confused. You will variously read that it is flat-lining or attracting more of an audience than ever before.
Before we get into the ‘whys’ of what is driving the contradictory rhetoric, we should probably remind ourselves of the facts.
Australians watch more than 4 billion minutes of broadcast TV on their TVs every day; television has 99% household penetration and almost 9 in every 10 minutes that we spend watching content is spent watching broadcast TV on a TV set.i
Hardly the vital signs of a media in terminal decline.
What TV is in, however, is a state of advancement. The combination of technology, connectivity, data and mobility means that TV is now moving ‘out of its box’. Whilst the majority of TV minutes are still watched on actual sets, eyeballs are no longer restricted to the living room; TV has evolved to become video and we can watch it wherever we go. This means that although traditional TV continues to attract a mass audience, it is an audience that is increasingly fragmenting.
Note the use of the word fragmenting vs. declining. Eyeballs are stronger than ever; 8 in 10 Australians tune into broadcast TV each week and 4 in 10 watch their favourite show on catch up searches. It just means that, as we move through the decade, when we talk about TV we are no longer just talking about watching content on an actual TV set at a scheduled time. Instead we talk about our favourite content, irrespective of on what device and at what time it is consumed.
We have seen advancements in the way that TV is planned, bought and sold. For decades TV has been sold via standard cookie-cutter age and gender demographics but technology and data now exist to make TV buying more addressable and accountable. Advertisers can now target towards behaviours whilst gaining insight into buyer preferences. We have seen dozens of local and global brands embracing behavioural audience-based buying segments within this market. Given over 50% of total advertising spend now goes to digital, which has been selling this way for some time, it is a natural fit and a natural evolution.
This shift in focus to audience-based buying was reflected in this year’s recent upfronts. Nine’s refrain was that it “knows our audience”; Ten announced a shift to dynamic trading in early 2017;SBS Viceland announced its cross-platform opportunity to target millennials; Seven announced the launch of their trading platform focusing on audience stability, control and dynamic reporting, and MCN continued to push forward on their already successful audience based trading models.
This new way of advanced buying combines the best of both worlds – broadcast quality content at reach and scale with performance based measurement and addressability that can include conversion to sale to ensure brands are able to get the optimal return on investment for every TV dollar spent.
Some brands are recognising that blunt demographic targeting is less relevant in particular as life stages are becoming less predictable. We’ve always been unique, however we have become more liberated and diverse in our interests. We are not our parent’s generation and age and gender are no longer reliable indications of interests and purchase decisions. My own life, for example, is completely different from my mother’s when she was my age.
This diversity in life stages and experience is being reflected in creative campaigns. The typical 30 second TV spot is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Coke’s “Taste the feeling” global campaign, for example, contains six different TVCs targeted at different personas and life experiences with titles like ‘brotherly love’, ‘first kiss’, ‘break up’ and ‘the supermarket’ and scheduled accordingly. Multiple iterations of creative will become increasingly common and will naturally necessitate more precise methods of audience targeting.
Over the coming years we will see yet more changes in the TV industry. The length of content and TV spots is likely to change, the way we pay for TV will change (imagine if micropayments take off), the way we share it and the way we market it will change. However the constant will be demand for quality content and the ability of TV content to command premium advertising dollars.
When this kind of disruption occurs you have two choices. You can either resist change (which didn’t work out too well for those in the music industry that refused to act upon the ‘Napster’ effect) or you can actively seek out and embrace the real opportunities the proliferation of ‘always-on’ screens affords.
From where we stand TV is genuinely in a Golden Age with more people to watch it, more devices to watch it on and more opportunities to connect with an engaged and addressable audience.
TV is most definitely coming out of its box; embrace it.
By Yasmin Sanders, senior director, Programmatic TV | ANZ, AOL Platforms