How Allant is helping TV marketers better reach their target audiences
Allant, a Chicago-based company working on advanced TV targeting, last week released Advanced Advertising Insight (AAI), a product that pulls together CRM and third-party data to allow marketers to better reach their intended audiences via TV ads.
The data gathered provides audience counts (say: women 24-45 with a household income of $100,000) across a wide range of cable, satellite, and telecommunications providers. If actually reaching this intended target is still difficult – and with the addressable TV market still in a nascent stage, it is – at the very least, post-campaign reporting has become more accurate and actionable.
Following the campaign, AAI analyzes the data gathered from across distributors to determine whether the ads reached the right audience.
For more on Allant’s new product, we spoke with Eric Schmitt, Allant’s executive vice president of TV and media:
Found Remote: Can you briefly explain AAI and how marketers will benefit?
Eric Schmitt: Advanced Advertising Insight (AAI) enables advertisers and agencies to reach custom audience segments in TV advertising. For example, if you’re marketing SUVs or minivans, your audience might be suburban mothers with young children. For marketing roadsters, you might look to reach younger women who don’t have kids and live in the city. Instead of a broad segment of “women 18-49,” AAI lets advertisers reach their target audiences more precisely and efficiently. After an ad campaign, AAI shows advertisers an analysis of who saw the ad and how many viewers then bought the product or service. AAI works with traditional TV ads, household addressable ad platforms, and video on demand.
FR: What is an example of a brand that would benefit from AAI compared to a traditional TV buy?
Schmitt: Traditional TV buys are based on broad audience definitions, typically age and gender. Auto brands like Ford and Toyota can benefit by refining their target audience based on data showing which viewers are likely to soon buy vehicles. Consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands from P&G and Unilever can use data from store loyalty cards to identify audiences based on what viewers have bought in the past. Even film studios benefit – they can direct their movie promotions at homes where viewers that are likely to go to a theatre.
FR: AAI seems to be somewhat addressable but not entirely. Why wouldn't a TV marketer just turn to Roku, Hulu, or even cable providers who have first-party data and addressable offerings?
Schmitt: Marketers should use addressable! The trick for ad buyers and agencies is to work with multiple addressable ad sellers in a way that is consistent and scalable. For example, marketers need a consistent definition of who counts as a soccer mom, whether she’s in Kansas or in California. Using Allant’s AAI, an ad buyer can use uniform viewer definitions across several addressable ad sellers for both front-end audience segmentation and back-end campaign measurement. Also, these same segments and reports can be applied to traditional TV spot buys. This is important, because tens of millions of U.S. homes still aren’t reachable via addressable video.
FR: Why is TV still a good medium to reach premium audiences compared to digital advertising?
Schmitt: Whether on TV or online, premium video advertising has unique advantages over display ads. Video ads command attention, can tell a story, inform, and evoke emotions. These characteristics make video uniquely appealing for marketers looking to build awareness and brand preference. TV is crucial, because it still accounts for the overwhelming majority of available video ad inventory and reaches nearly every household in the U.S.
FR: Anything else?
Schmitt: Advanced TV advertising – the ability to reach households and viewers with more precision than just age and gender - is evolving very quickly. This creates a golden competitive opportunity for marketers and their agencies. Allant’s AAI helps these companies take advantage of more precise and measurable TV ad technology by creating custom audience segments across all flavors of TV advertising.
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