• by Ronnie Lavi , May 1, 2013

The segregation of TV and digital is deeply engrained in advertising culture, resulting in separate and often competing silos. The common view has been that video is an either/or proposition: TV vs. online, with the two camps vying for advertiser budgets and attention. The unhealthy result is inefficiency, requiring higher budgets and more effort to engage fewer people.

Advertisers, however, are ready to move on. They want a holistic approach that brings an end to costly audience fragmentation and leverages the newest digital opportunities to break out and engage with audiences in fresh ways and at lower cost.

And now, this is possible --  thanks to the convergence of TV and online technologies and platforms. Early movers are already creating disruption across screens. And there’s been great progress in terms of tools and best practices to manage video across channels. But the silo mindset must go, too.

Planners, buyers, creative teams and technology vendors in the video space must align with the converged model advertisers and consumers want. Soon, video will be video – regardless of screen or context, and unless you adapt, you’ll be left behind.

Think Convergence

With a new mix of touchpoints at your disposal, it’s time to start asking some new questions when you plan video campaigns. For example, how many GRPs can you get online? How much will be incremental to TV GRPs? What is the ideal mix of screens to achieve the most reach at the lowest cost? What is the ideal frequency on each screen as well as the overall frequency?? What’s the best sequencing and daypart strategy for desktop vs. mobile vs. TV? Etc.

As for the answers, there are plenty of tools available to help aggregate and validate data across screens – OCR and XCR from Nielsen, ComScore’s vCE and vCE MP are a few examples.

There’s also data to support the benefits of convergence. IAB released a study of digital video and TV advertising in conjunction with Yahoo and MSFT. They found that by reallocating 15% of the budget from TV to Web in a combined buy, advertisers gained incremental reach of 4.2% on average – at lower cost.

The study also showed that performance (measured by brand metrics such as recall) is improved when a user is reached on both TV and online.

Envision engagement

With convergence, marketers have new opportunities to enthrall audiences - using interactive capabilities and even synchronizing screens to make concepts engage like never before.

The simple existence of organizations like the Second Screen Society underscores the explosion of activity in the synchronized screen space. In addition, new IAB video Rising Stars formats provide a great opportunity to move beyond the simple linear 30 seconds spot and as do innovations like Microsoft’s NUads interactive TV ads using XBOX and Kinect technology.

More to measure

The digital components of campaigns can also provide detailed user metrics -- from dwell time to brand recall -- to inform the broader strategy. Online video can also be used as a cost-effective, low-risk testing bed for video creative. With the real-time measurability of online, you can get immediate feedback on your creative, run A/B testing, and even experiment with dynamic elements to prove out your creative before it heads to broadcast. For example, a global beverage brand recently filmed, produced and tested three video spots online before selecting the best performer to air on TV based on views, sharing and consumer interaction metrics.

Video convergence is here to stay. It represents the biggest opportunity for innovation and leadership in the creative arena right now. Technology supports it. Advertisers want it. So it’s time to get out of our silos and run with it.