Programmatic TV adoption is on the horizon, with multiple firms investing in real-time TV-buying capabilities. The prospects for stronger adoption rose with news of the AT&T and Time Warner merger, and will continue as more users move toward
OTT TV.
Still, “whatever happens in TV, it’s not going to look like what happened in digital,” said Jim Nail, principal analyst at Forrester, speaking at
AdExchanger’s Programmatic I/O’s conference last week. “The challenges that need to be addressed in TV are not those that digital has to deal with.”
Nail noted that digital’s difficulties online included excessive inventory and a lack of effectiveness in direct selling, while in the TV industry there is a stronger supply-and-demand
balance, as well as much more high-value inventory.
Those moving into programmatic TV will also have to deal with seller reluctance from traditional buyers not yet convinced of
real-time benefits.
There are also issues with measurement. TV has a deeply embedded process that cannot be effortlessly modified to fit the digital models now in use. Also, the data
available to online marketers is not yet standardized with TV interfaces.
Further, ad-buying practices are not in tune with what is expected in the TV space.
Still, the way
TV advertising is bought will become more real-time, as impressions, conversions and creatives quickly become digitized, Nail said.
He did have a solemn note for those in TV buying:
“Entry-level digital buyers who are in the TV space need to find new jobs. When these systems get integrated, they will be out of a job.”
How quickly that will happen is
up for debate, and will surely depend on variables defined by the TV industry. In the end, “TV will evolve pragmatically, not programmatically. Programmatic TV will have to solve for different
problems than were solved in digital -- there will be a hybridization of the best TV and digital approaches,” said Nail.
In essence, TV will move in the programmatic space
focused on audience targeting, not necessarily optimizing for the real-time nature of buying as we saw with online programmatic.