2013-02-18

The webification of TV ads

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"Personalized" is one of the most (over-) used words in the digital realm. The seamless, continuous, consistent experience of one given user.
I can use Evernote and iCloud, consume Spotify and Canal+ (French pay TV) content, shop on Amazon, across all my devices, and always find myself at home, in a personalized environment, my environment.

Then I turn my TV on and get exactly the same content and ads as millions of persons.

I believe this is going to change, starting with ads. Not overnight - the TV industry is mature and well structured. But let me put two recent news into context.

News one: TF1, the leader of French broadcasters, announced a partnership with Weborama to serve targeted ads on their catch-up TV offering, using the same profiling technology as currently used on the web. It is a PC only initiative, and only on catch-up, but with the rise of connected TVs, don't be surprised to see it coming on your big screen, and inside the linear programming.

By the way, this might also lead to a personalization of the streams: think YouTube meets MoodAgent on your TV screen. Better personalization of your TV "channels", better targeted ads, leading to more consumption and better engagement, and higher monetization. Sounds familiar?

News two: Google revamped their AdWords campaigns to break the wall between desktop and mobile ads. Going forward, marketers will be able to plan their campaigns centrally, and will play with bidding options to target specifically device types, locations, hours of day ... But more importantly, it will reduce the gap between mobile and desktop CPCs. For Google, who is constantly nagged on the mobile CPC sensitively lower than on desktop, it's a big deal! And if you push the reasoning further, you can read "a screen is a screen, give us your expectations, we manage the display".

When correlating these two announcements, one can clearly see a future where TV audience is evaluated along the same metrics as what we see today on the web, and TV being one advertising channel subject to equally objective performance measurements: actual exposition, transformation rate (of a call-to-action on a second screen?), etc.

Highly disruptive for TV channels, who may fight this fiercely, but - will they have a choice? Wouldn't they risk loosing attractiveness for advertisers, who may increase pressure to get the same transparency as they enjoy on the web? And use the same tools and methods?

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