Is clever data set to tip TV advertising on its head?

The arrival of personalised advertising platforms could change the TV ad model, leaving TV to learn from the data-driven tactics of direct. We are all aware of how important data is to the success of direct campaigns – it allows you to present the right offer to the right person at the right time. TV, by contrast, has always been seen as mass media aimed at reaching as many eyeballs as possible – a fantastic medium for brand awareness but hard to generate dialogue from.

However, the arrival of two new TV advertising platforms could be about to change all of that:
Clubcard TV – brought to you by Tesco, Clubcard TV offers ads that can be purchased and targeted to a user, based on their Clubcard data – looking at what they have bought to understand what else they might like

Sky AdSmart – based on a user’s sign-up information – specifically age, postcode and household composition – TV ads are targeted to an individual’s Sky set-top box
In these platforms the ads people see are determined by what you already know about them, putting data at the centre of TV like never before. Therefore, TV can potentially start to take some learning from the success of digital and direct:

Know your database
Use the insight you have on your existing database to inform who your core demographic is and use that knowledge to build a profile of who you should reach next.

Personalise
Show your audience you understand them by tailoring the ad to them. You are likely to get much better results from doing so, but this could potentially lead to increased production costs for TV advertising as a result of various creative executions being needed.

Add value
Use what you know about your customers to make sure they are getting value back from the relationship.

Trigger action
Aim to build an ongoing relationship with your audience. With multi-screening and smart TVs becoming the norm, there are lots of opportunities to make sure the conversation does not end with the TV ad itself.

Measure
A personalised and targeted TV ad experience should allow you to report and measure the direct effectiveness of TV advertising like never before. Based on these learnings, you can optimise your campaign and calculate what you need to do next – ROI will hopefully become all the rage in TV, as it is in direct.

We’ll wait and see how these platforms take off, and with data privacy becoming a hot topic it is important people do not feel like they are getting stalked in their own homes. However, I think they offer a way of being clever with TV that has not been available previously. TV can now be efficient and relevant in a way it has not been before.

With catch-up TV, the days of us all watching programmes at the same time are gone. Let’s watch the ‘box’ to see if the days of us all seeing the same advert will be a thing of the past too.

By DMA guest blogger Alice Willis, Planner, The Real Adventure

This is an edited version of a blog that first appeared on The Real Adventure.

Explore how to bring your one-to-one campaigns to highly engaged, micro-targeted TV audiences at the DMA’s TV summit on Friday 8 November.