• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 11 hours ago

Turning on your TV and getting hit with an immediate message seems high on the agenda of many digital and streaming platforms' advertising sales efforts.

This comes as limited advertising connected TV (CTV) platforms have their own.. ahem.. limitations.

So you now have Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung and other connected TV platforms pushing even more “home screen” efforts -- the stuff many viewers see when starting up their TVs and/or streaming operating systems.

In the pre-streaming age, brands push to get the “A” positions in a regular TV ad two- or three-minute break. That first position has the biggest impact in getting immediate attention.

LG Ad Solutions is now jumping into this pursuit for its smart TV system. Over the past year, it has seen a more than 60% year-over-year increase in general-market advertisers integrating Home Screen ads into campaigns.

LG tacks on other data as well: Nearly all LG Smart TV users begin viewing on the home screen on average three times a day. In addition, there is the usual data we would expect to see: Nearly five times higher awareness, and nearly nine times stronger recall.

What are the downsides? The obvious: They are mostly non-skippable for consumers. Other complaints: Highly animated home screen ads can slow navigation and program/streaming discovery.

Consumers may also have concerns over privacy issues. In many cases, viewers may not be able to opt out home-screen messaging in this regard.

Brands' advantages may also be limited, according to some sources. With other brand messaging emanating among other devices, viewers can seemingly ignore and tune out content.

While there is strong awareness and recall with home-screen messages, another weak area can be conversion -- the near-term immediate engagement -- whether on a brand’s site or elsewhere -- so many advertisers are looking for.

And in addition, fragmented measurements on diverse CTV platforms can make comparing performance of home-screen messages difficult.

The easiest solution for many products and services: Cover the waterfront. Use home-screen as part of a broad-based media campaign.

Consumers? It’s part of the TV-streaming ecosystem you signed up for.