It’s a Creators’ Community, and We Just Live In It:?Creators and Influencers create deeper, more authentic brand connections for consumers, especially among young and multicultural viewers who look to support brands that align with their values. Long-term partnerships can build great trust and consistency between brand, creator, and consumers.
- With 1.3 trillion minutes of video watched in 2021, Twitch has expanded from gaming to music/live concerts. In addition to standard ad units, Custom Creator streams will help advertisers further integrate within the Communities.
- In partnership with Cameo, Snapchat plans to allow 45K influencers to connect with advertisers more easily for custom activations.
- Nearly 70% of users feel TikTok has had an impact on US culture and more than 90% have taken an action on content seen on the platform. Capitalizing on this success, TikTok is launching?Pulse?where brand units are contextually targeted to appear next to the top 4% of videos to capitalize on “of the moment” trends.
- Publishers are enhancing Creator-facing products to also help them more easily connect with brands to monetize their influence.
See Me, Buy Me:?Consumers have increasingly higher expectations for what they get from ads, and publishers are investing in technology to help deliver.?Shoppable ads will be everywhere, helping consumers satisfy their ultimate “I need it now” urges and brands deliver the final POS experience:?
- Examples of shoppable ads: YouTube and Twitter are testing with live shopping events; Peacock and Roku’s Shoppable CTV units, CondeNast Shoppable; Snapchat’s AR dress- up capabilities, and TikTok’s partnership w Shopify for easy in-app shopping.
- Amazon and NBC are both launching Virtual Product Placements where product units can be dynamically inserted within the foreground/background of a video. This evolution of traditional product placement allows for significantly shorter lead time and enables thousands of permutations across previously released/new content.
Content is King and Sports is the Prom Queen:?Publishers are investing heavily in original content to entice viewers. While entertainment has been leading streaming viewership, sports has lagged behind and publishers are aiming to change that.
- Amazon’s 11-year NFL partnership starting in Sept will showcase their exclusive capabilities for viewers including Prime Video features?(AWS, X-Ray), Twitch integrations, and new advanced technology that delivers ultra-low latency optimal for live viewing.
- Twitter announced a new partnership with Fox Sports which will produce exclusive content for upcoming FIFA tournaments, including the World Cup. Will also include in-match previews, near real-time highlights and live pregame shows from Fox’s Twitter handles. WNBA also extended its existing partnership for several more years.
- Snapchat has expanded its content deals with NFL, NBA, and WNBA – great news for the 205M people who have already watched sports on Snapchat
- Fubo’s introducing Sports Books to their extensive repertoire of live/regional/international games
- Crackle leaning into the success of?On Point, their most-watched series in 2022 to invest in sports docuseries including content about Vince Carter, Ja Morant, etc.
Data, Data, Everywhere:?With every publisher touting incredible growth numbers, it’s clear that viewers are leaving data trails everywhere:
- The manufacturers: LG, Samsung, and Vizio all house an incredible amount of data. Going beyond CTV viewing, manufacturers can remotely connect across all devices within the HH. Connections between all HH devices will allow viewers to have a seamless viewing experience (content + ads) wherever they are. For advertisers, this also means cross-device frequency capping to limit waste.
- The publishers: While publishers like Peacock sit on a vast amount of proprietary data, they need other partners to connect the identities across their growing portfolio of content offerings (video, social, audio, etc.)
- The measurement companies: Samba, ComScore, and Nielsen all focused on delivering holistic HH viewing data
- The hybrids: Roku, Vizio, and Amazon are uniquely positioned with the ability to tie in cross-device behavioral data most easily
- With increased viewership and headwinds like walled gardens, an array of device ecosystems, co-viewing, etc., consistency and scalability of data is important for advertisers to make insightful decisions (eg. incrementality in reach). In that vein, LG has begun licensing its data with agencies and measurement partners to encourage more transparency across the market. Expect other structured deals to help address the interoperability of this “new frontier”.?
