Ad Dollars Slowly Shifting to Streaming, Panelists Say
Advertisers have been slow to shift their focus to streaming, but that's starting to change, said streaming industry officials Wednesday in panels during the virtual StreamTV Advertising Summit. Viewership “eyeballs” are surging, “but maybe advertising dollars haven’t quite caught up yet,” said DirecTV Head-Programmatic and Digital Sales Rose McGovern. Panelists also discussed ad targeting and discoverability at the event. Ad budgets for streaming are on the rise but “shifting or scattered,” said Aulden Kaye, head-Advertising Partnerships at Philo. The industry is “headed in the right direction,” McGovern said.
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Advertising budgets “are starting to come over” to streaming as its users increase, but advertisers have largely stuck to their traditional linear TV playbooks, said Alex Borras, commercial lead for Samsung ads: “We’ve got a little ways to go.” Most companies still run 30- and 15-second streaming spots as they do on linear TV, even though streaming platforms are generally more flexible, Borras said.
Several panelists said they see little difference among advertisers between the various kinds of ad-supported streaming. “I don’t think they see the world” as streaming video on demand, versus free ad-supported streaming television versus linear,” said Steve Sklar, Frndly TV vice president-advertising and monetization. A divide does appear among the service types for live programming, said Jennifer Hess, Fubo vice president-ad operations. Viewers are “more engaged” for live content, and Fubo, which is focused on sports programming, has more views for live content than for on demand.
Ad targeting and audience measurement for streamers are at “an inflection point” and could be improving, said Boras. Targeting is currently “cumbersome” because of a lack of standardization, said Hess. “Increased standardization and transparency across the board” would improve things for advertisers and platforms, said Kaye. Ad duplication and repetition are “pain points” for targeting, said Sklar.
Advertisers coming to streaming from linear TV have expectations that they will receive the same information about audiences that they’re used to on the other medium so it's important that streaming services are able to provide that, said McGovern. Unlike digital ads on social media networks, streamers aren't yet able to reliably target individual viewers with advertising, said Steve Silvestri, Warner Brothers Discovery senior vice president-advanced advertising. Since multiple residents of a household may be viewing content on the same account, a household is the smallest unit streamers can currently target with tailored advertising. “We would love to move to person level. But the reality is we're living in a household targeted world,” Silvestri said.
The discoverability of content is important to advertisers, panelists said. “If a viewer can’t come in and find their content, they are going to exit,” said Hess. Fubo bought an AI company in order to improve discoverability, Hess said. Customers are more likely now than in the past to “churn out” of an app they just downloaded, said Borras. “There is no loyalty.”