Connected TV Viewing Rises Sharply, Marketer Engagement Does Not

by Wayne Friedman , August 31, 2015

Although connected TV/over-the-top viewing is sharply climbing, engagement in advertising on connected TV/OTT platforms is low.

An Association of National Advertisers/BrightLine survey says one in five -- 22% -- “engaged” in connected TV/OTT advertising over the past year. “Lack of familiarity” was the main reason for those not currently engaged.

The time frame for engagement in ads seems more murky: 13% intend to engage in connected TV advertising over the next year, while 59% are unsure.

Still, viewing of over-the-top streaming devices on connected TV sets is rising precipitously -- 380% in the first quarter of this year over the year before.

The June 2015 study of ANA members included 215 client-side marketers -- 51% who are "senior marketers" and 49% who are "junior marketers" with on average 15 years of experience in marketing.

A little less than half of those respondents said they allocated 1% or less of their total TV advertising budget to TV.

Nearly half of current connected TV/OTT advertisers -- 48% -- plan to allocate more media budget next year, with money coming from traditional TV activity (71%) and digital media (37%).
trend

BrightLine, a provider of rich media/interactive solutions on TV for the entertainment and advertising industries, has produced 600 executed programs for companies for over 90 million TV households.

ana, connected tv, engagement, media measurement, research, trends, tv

5 comments about "Connected TV Viewing Rises Sharply, Marketer Engagement Does Not".

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Michael Greeson from The Diffusion Group, September 1, 2015 at 5:32 p.m.
Marketers knew of this emerging platform (i.e., connected TVs) as early as 2006 and understood beyond a doubt they had plenty of headroom to exploit it. Unfortunately they are still grappling with how best to use it. Grrr...
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Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, September 1, 2015 at 6:54 p.m.

Half of the respondents say they don't use TV in their advertising???? Makes one wonder what kind of sample was used for this study----doesn't it?

Marcelo Salup from Iffective LLC, September 2, 2015 at 8:42 a.m.

This is the silliest article. Of course engagement is low. Two reasons:

1. What engages is not the medium itself, but the content. It's the creative message, not where it runs, that causes the action. You'd think that, by now, people would realize it. Treating the medium as the source of engagement only shows that, for most advertisers, creativity is just a commodity and creative agencies have done a poor job of adding a premium to their product.

2. OTT viewers watch in a different way. Therefore, there has to be a different way of communicating to them. Maybe it's not a :30 spot, maybe it's a :60? Or a sequential series of :30's so people can "discover" them? Any which way, there's got to be a fresh approach. Why don't we have a fresh approach?

(1) Inertia and lazyness - people don't want to invest the time, effort and resources needed to explore these new ways.

(2) Pricing - 20th Century pricing encourages 20th Century solutions

Marcelo Salup from Iffective LLC replied, September 2, 2015 at 8:46 a.m.

Yes. On the other hand, there should be a sample made up 100% of OTT viewers addressing the question of how do these people really consume content. But it should not be "instead of" but "in addition to" other research. People don't want to spend money on research and time understanding it. Makes you wonder about the quality of thinking behind our industry.

Rajaram R from TCS, September 3, 2015 at 1:21 a.m.

Fully Agree with Marcelo.. I think one of the biggest mistakes done by advertisers is to see the audience gathering alone and not the reason why they have done there. Understanding it will open them more advertising aveneues like the ad discovery or interactive ad(possible in OTT). All it takes is one advertiser and agency to start this and everyone will follow it as it has always been..