Connected TV: Everything advertisers need to know about ACR and OEMs for 2024
By Tony Marlow, CMO at LG Ad Solutions
Connected TV (CTV) has reshaped our media consumption habits, revolutionizing how we engage with content. As more viewers migrate to CTV platforms – 13% of UK viewers report watching less linear TV than 12 months ago – both subscription-based and ad-supported services have proliferated. Today, CTV is ubiquitous in UK households – 94% of UK internet users are reachable via CTV.
However, this rapid expansion is fragmenting the landscape with viewers moving across different platforms, services, and standards, making it difficult for advertisers to reach audiences effectively and optimize campaigns.
For marketers facing this challenge, there is a unifying factor in sight that streamlines the CTV ecosystem: automatic content recognition, or ACR.
What is automatic content recognition (ACR) and why is it causing such a buzz?
Creating a unified view of the fragmented CTV landscape is a complex endeavor. Traditionally, buyers seeking to purchase ad slots on TV had limited insights. While panel-based measurement solutions, such as Barb, provide some insights, ACR offers a more comprehensive and complementary picture.
ACR, a privacy-compliant measurement technology, empowers marketers to craft and execute impactful TV campaigns free from the limitations of specific input methods. It is like the Shazam of TV. By using artificial intelligence (AI) to rapidly analyze each frame's pixels and accompanying audio, ACR creates a digital fingerprint, complete with metadata that details what's being watched, where, and through which input method.
The implications for both targeting and measurement are profound.
What is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and how does it unlock ACR for advertisers?
Unlocking ACR's full potential involves collaboration with smart TV original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) – those companies that design and develop TV hardware and software. ACR identifies what users are watching on the smart TV screen - or the “glass” - whether from linear TV, streaming apps, HDMI devices, or even gaming consoles. For this reason, advertisers can rely on the OEM to scale their reach to millions and millions of smart TV households with a holistic and precise understanding of their audience behavior.
This empowers advertisers in several ways. They can pinpoint optimal channels, build sophisticated audience segments, gain incremental reach and achieve optimal frequency. Advertisers can also leverage innovative ad formats, such as creative enhanced with dynamic weather-triggered content or a QR code call to action. All of these benefits ensure that ads not only capture attention, but also deeply resonate with intended viewers.
How ACR benefits advertisers in the CTV landscape
Bolstered by ACR's detailed targeting and measurement capabilities, the global market for CTV advertising is projected to reach $11.4bn by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 18.2% from 2021.
The seamless integration of smart TV OEMs and ACR provides advertisers with a significant competitive advantage, offering a clear path to success in the rapidly evolving CTV landscape. In the past, CTV targeting often felt like casting a wide net. However, ACR enables sophisticated targeting, as well as effective retargeting strategies, for precision and optimization at scale.
ACR also powers a level of personalization not available with traditional TV. Ads are not only tailored to individual interests but also delivered within contextually relevant environments. For example, a football fan may watch sports content on linear TV, and then sports news and commentary on a streaming service. Marketers looking to reach football fans can utilize ACR to track content and ads ensuring creative reaches audiences in all environments without overserving.
Enhanced measurement capabilities
In addition to planning and targeting, ACR serves as the key to unified measurement. It provides a bridge between streaming and linear TV ad investments and enhances the efficiency of cross-channel media spending overall.
Capabilities go beyond conventional metrics, offering advertisers a comprehensive toolkit for evaluating campaign success. Metrics include ad completion rates, tune-ins, app downloads, web traffic, location behavior, and even purchase data. These insights empower advertisers to gauge TV campaign performance comprehensively, assessing brand awareness, reach, incremental reach, frequency, foot traffic, sales, site visits, and brand lift.
Further, the ability to implement precise frequency capping remains a vital aspect of effective measurement, ensuring that ads neither overexpose nor under-deliver, ultimately allowing messages to cut through the clutter. In collaboration with OEMs, these insights can be used in real-time, ensuring an agile approach to spending optimization that both improves the viewer experience and minimizes waste at the same time.
A revolutionary leap in an evolving landscape
CTV should be a cornerstone of any ad campaign, but marketers cannot afford to invest blindly. By combining ACR's granular targeting and measurement capabilities with the reach offered by OEMs, marketers can ensure their creative shines on the biggest screen in the house.
The CTV landscape, though vast and complex, is transforming the industry. ACR isn't just another tech buzzword; it's a key to unlocking a richer, more intuitive CTV experience. As technology continues to evolve, the integration of ACR promises to make our CTV experiences more personalized, interactive, and insightful.
ACR and OEMs are redefining the CTV landscape, marking the next revolutionary leap in advertising.