Some takeaways from FTVA

This week’s Future TV Advertising Forum in London once again proved its worth as the most important meeting of TV and advertising minds on the calendar. Huge thanks to all at Mediatel Events for consistently delivering such a fantastic event.

I found at this year’s FTVA that broadcasters are rediscovering some of their swagger. In previous years the threat to their dominance by major internet companies (or GAFAN, a term that probably won’t make the Oxford Dictionary but is becoming widely accepted in the broadcaster world) has been discussed in somewhat hushed tones. This year there is a new-found bullishness about that threat.

TV's USP

Such bullishness is partly down to the noises coming from some of the biggest advertisers and media buyers, who clearly still have a preference for TV, citing its mass reach and standardised trading and measurement models. TV is also a premium experience for the user. The incredibly high standards of content, video delivery and reliability are simply unmatched by any other medium. Where else can advertisers deliver a premium 30-second ad with such high levels of viewability? Facebook’s 3 seconds per view simply does not compare.

Mass concurrent reach is TV’s USP. While it’s no secret that overall viewing figures are on the decline, if you drill down into the numbers you find that, for the short-term at least, broadcaster’s revenues are looking secure. On average the UK viewer watches 5 hours of TV per day – a figure I find slightly unbelievable, but this is not surprising as it’s actually the over-50’s who are the main contributors to that figure. Over 50’s watch a lot of TV. They also hold 40% of consumer wealth. In other words, they are the target demographic for many advertisers.

Wastage? What wastage?

An interesting message from a number of advertisers and agencies that I’ve heard a number of times this week is that when it comes to TV there’s no such thing as wastage. The likes of Wicks and Unilever point to the fact that there’s no easier single point of contact with your audience than through the TV, even if only 10% of the total viewership are relevant to the product being promoted. The other 90% is not wastage, it’s brand awareness. An example given was that of Dove for Men. What was traditionally a female-focussed brand was successfully realigned to a male audience because that male audience were already familiar with Dove – as a result of previous “wastage”.

Clear route forward

The challenge for broadcasters is to deliver TV’s USP in the online world. At the moment OTT promises much but lacks the centralised infrastructure that makes TV so appealing to advertisers. There is much work to do, however the industry as a whole knows the road it needs to take – via standardised ad-tech, trading and measurement – and it was clear this week that many of the collaborations required to achieve this goal are already being established.

These new friendships are, of course, being driven by a common threat. GAFAN is not going away, and Amazon in particular are widely expected to bid for major sports rights at some point. If they do, then the data they have access to would help create an incredibly attractive proposition for advertisers, not to mention the links they could provide from an ad directly to a shopping mall. However, broadcasters also have access to data and if they can manage and use it effectively as a collective then they too will be a prime target for ad spend in the online world.

But let’s not carried away just yet. Collaborations are in their early stages, and a lot needs to happen to standardise workflows if broadcasters are able to realise the full potential of digital tools like programmatic trading and addressable advertising. It is essential that these goals are reached if broadcasters are to truly establish themselves in the digital age, however those over-50’s are going to be tuning into their TV sets for a while yet so there is some breathing space to get the online model right.

Broadcasters are right to feel bullish. I suspect that at next year’s FTVA their swagger will be in full flow – I’m looking forward to seeing it.