• by Jamie Power , Op-Ed Contributor, October 31, 2017

The combination of technology and data provided by addressable TV has changed the game for advertisers and reinvented the role of television in the marketing mix. Throw out those old marketing textbooks -- television is no longer just an upper-funnel vehicle.  Brand marketers do not have to rely solely on GRPs -- they can now build campaigns that achieve each brand’s specific goals. Television can now help drive consumers all the way from awareness to an actual sale. 

Here are three reasons why you should include addressable TV in your next campaign: 

1.It brings new, higher standards to data-driven brand advertising that digital can’t match. Why? There are no bots watching television in your living room. An addressable television impression is 100% guaranteed to be served in front of the audience that the brand selected. An advertiser can have confidence that they are getting exactly what they are paying for.

An addressable TV impression only counts as an impression if the ad was viewed for a consecutive eight seconds.  If a household has DVRed content and skips through the commercials, the advertiser is not charged. If a television is left on the same channel for a few hours with no touches on the remote control, that set-top box is deemed a “zombie box”; those impressions are scrubbed out and the advertiser would not pay for them. 

2.It has the reach brand marketers need. Addressable technology will be deployed in more than 70 million households by the end of this year. Currently, more than half of U.S. TV households can receive an addressable TV ad. 

3.It allows brands the opportunity to leverage first-, second- and third-party data for targeting. Data is matched against subscriber files allowing high-value audiences to be identified, and then technology allows messages to be sent only to specified households. Households that have babies see diaper ads; households that have dogs see pet food ads; people that are suffering from diabetes see messages for drugs that can help them. Ads that are relevant to each household resonate at much higher rates.

Post-campaign attribution provides the ability to tie a television exposure back to a brand’s KPI, adding a new understanding to the value of television. After a campaign, there are no questions. Clients can recognize if there was a sales lift, an increase in brand penetration, or an increase in web traffic; they can identify where they stole competitive share or whether their campaign drove foot traffic into a brick-and-mortar location. From each campaign, we learn and we gain insights to optimize future campaigns.

It's a new day for television. Addressable television brings the best of two worlds together. From the digital world, addressable TV adopts a data-driven targeting approach, but also brings in the safe, brand-building environment of television.