SnapStream Series: The Future of Broadcast Monitoring & Compliance
This is the second blog post of a three-part series on a future of addressable TV ads
Key Takeaways
Addressable advertising can help local TV stations grow their revenues. To prepare for a future of addressable broadcast TV advertising, ad sellers at local TV stations should:
1) focus on their advertising sweet spots—for example, the automotive industry
2) find different ways to get viewers' geographic location and geolocation data
3) segment viewers in a specific way, such as who is in the market for a pickup truck
As broadcast TV advertising is becoming addressable, it’s not just Multichannel Video Programming Distributors (MVPDs) such as Verizon, Comcast, and DirecTV who have to gear up for that future.
Local TV stations have to prepare as well—and James Shears, the Vice President of Advanced Advertising at Extreme Reach, a creative asset management platform that helps ads get to the screens they need to be, has tips on how they can do so.
Think About Geographic Location, Geolocation, and Advertising Sweet Spots
Shears says that for local TV stations, addressable advertising is geared toward both geographic location and geolocation.
“It’s really about understanding where the consumer is,” he says. “Can you target based on zip code? Can you target based on location derived from a cell phone? The answer is yes.”
Local TV stations also need to consider what their advertising strong suits are.
“Your sweet spots are probably automotive, sometimes real estate and finance, and sometimes quick service restaurants—all things that are really bundled up with geolocation,” Shears says. “The first thing that you should think about is the automotive industry.”
For example, Shears says that ad buyers at tier two auto dealerships (a group of regional dealerships who have pooled ad budgets), stipulate a simplistic targeting approach, such as wanting to reach viewers within a particular zip code.
However, ad sellers at local TV stations should try to segment their audience in a more specific way. For instance, they could identify viewers who are in the market for a pickup truck.
Seek Different Ways to Get Viewers' Geographic Location and Geolocation
Shears says that local TV stations have several options when it comes to getting their viewers’ geographic location and geolocation data.
Sometimes, they can use authenticated opportunities to gather first-party data. Maybe they have an app that people need to sign-in to use, or maybe they can run a sweepstakes online which viewers have to give their email addresses or names and physical addresses to enter.
Local TV stations can partner with data companies to get that data too.
“The stations should focus on those companies that offer insight into first, the home where the TV actually is,” Shears says. “And look at some forms of device graphs to measure effectiveness. Did the person that saw the ad go to car showroom, as an example?”
Additionally, Shears notes that the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard will create data opportunities for local TV stations.
“It will provide different data points,” Shears says. “Now, that's probably a year or two away, but what it does is it allows you to leverage IP addresses, and from IP addresses you can kind of back in to your audience. Obviously, it would be anonymized, but you can figure out their location and census-level information, typically about who would be in that household, et cetera. That will help you build out your data profile.”
Get Specific Data About Viewers
How can local broadcasters get very specific information about viewers, like who is the market for a pickup truck?
“Some of it is behavioral,” Shears explains. “You can kind of figure out what shows they’re watching. If you're a local broadcaster, you're probably hyper-focused on news. You can get some insights in terms of what stories are really resonating with people—are there things throughout the daytime block that they're really focused on?”
From there, he says a local broadcaster can partner with a data company that does “look-alike modeling,” which is also a common technique in online advertising. That means the data company will find audiences that look like one another. It would look at the characteristics of a specific segment, and then go find audiences that are similar.
To trace that information back to particular viewers, local broadcasters can partner further with MVPDs, which have the viewership data that happens on their set-top boxes. From there, the MVPDs could pinpoint viewers in an anonymous, privacy-compliant way.
Shears also points to Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology, which is quickly hitting mainstream. Smart TVs, he says, rely a lot on ACR data. Since they’re connected to the internet, they operate from an IP address.
“From the IP address, data safe havens can be used to pull attributes from that specific household,” he explains. “Really, the companies can apply census-level information. On top of that, smart TVs and ACR technology can capture genres of shows, engagement scores, and so forth. Because of that, these data sets could be quite comprehensive, covering both behavioral and demographic.”
Local broadcasters can also turn to Nielsen, which packages up “vast amounts of data,” including census-level information on who is watching particular programming. Nielsen also has data on things such as “overnight ratings for quick insights.”
Ultimately, Shears believes that there are so many data sets and vendors available that local broadcasters should not focus on one option.
With SnapStream Monitoring & Compliance, you can monitor your feeds for regulatory compliance and advertising proof of performance. Our solution includes closed captioning verification, loudness monitoring, audio watermark detection, and more. SnapStream also offers tools for searching TV; sharing TV clips to Twitter, Facebook, and more; and sharing clips of live events to social media in real-time.
