• by Tobi Elkin  @tobielkin, August 16, 2017

Connected TV (CTV) and over-the-top TV (OTT) technologies are top of mind for marketers, bringing new opportunities to connect with consumers. In fact, eMarketer estimates that 168.1 million people in the U.S. will use an internet-connected TV this year, up 10.1% over 2016.

BrightLine is taking advantage of the market by building, serving, and delivering interactive ads for CTV with media companies and OTT technologies

It has partnered with the likes of AMC, A&E, Discovery, ESPN, CBS, ABC, Fox, NBC, and Hulu, along with content delivery platforms including Roku, Samsung, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft’s Xbox, and Sony PlayStation, ad networks, and demand-side platforms.

Digital News Daily spoke with Jacqueline Corbelli, BrightLine's chairman and CEO, to get a feel for the trends she's seeing in the space.

Digital News Daily: What trends do you have your eye on, and why are they significant to the streaming video business?

Jacqueline Corbelli: Scaling household addressable advertising beyond the set-top box to include streaming TV audiences. Spending on addressability continues to grow, from less than a billion dollars in 2015 to an estimated $1.26 billion in 2017. 

That’s explosive growth in absolute numbers for sure, but the growth rate in targeted TV ad spending delivered via cable and satellite set-top boxes is actually declining -- by 84.8% in 2016. And there’s an estimated drop of 65.8% for 2017.  

As the number of TV viewers supplementing or replacing their traditional viewing behavior with streaming TV content over the internet continues, growing addressable targeting requires expanding it to targeting in the OTT space. We see this firsthand through strong demand for our own targeting services, that the TV ecosystem is moving very deliberately to provide OTT household addressability in order to target streaming TV viewers.  

Sitting alongside household addressable targeting is omni-screen measurement that finally integrates device data across not only desktop and mobile, but also TV, in a true apples-to-apples way that is actionable. The growth of streaming video is a real impetus to the pace of activity we’re observing across TV networks and the Big Data companies they partner with to close the loop on omni-screen measurement.   

I also see enhanced and evolving ad formats. We’re in the middle of a groundswell of demand for "personally tailored" ads that are smarter and more relevant for viewers. They’re ads that enable localized messaging, TV commerce, and dynamic advertising that all occur within the time-bound spot TV experience.

DND: What do you think of big content providers like Disney creating their own streaming services? How do moves like that change the landscape?

Corbelli: With Disney, offense is defense. The best content is in the best position to continue to own the big screen and cross-screen experience. Disney is saying "we’ll go our own way." Consumers will go where the best content is. I do think video content will end up back in bundles as consumers look for convenience and we won’t pay 10 different content providers.

DND: How would you characterize the challenge around measurement?

Corbelli: This is a collision between traditional TV-based Nielsen ratings and digital which will shake out. Advertisers won't put up with it. The streaming services will have to deal with it. The networks are frustrated with it too because they want to do personalized and dynamic advertising across OTT. They want to marry household data with everything they know about what and how people are watching content on their various platforms. The networks are creating their own data grids across all devices and their properties so that they have the ability to see how many streams are viewed of each show and on what devices, etc. Addressability efforts need household data.

When the big players bring measurement forward, that will put pressure on Netflix and Amazon.

The networks are trying to be in more step with streaming video and do a better job with targeting, data, and being omni-screen -- and bringing all of this directly to the brands.