Smart TV’s Summer of Advertising Love

In just one midAugust week aloneHulu wrapped Upfront advertising sales for its 201819 season with a 50 percent increase in commitments over last year according to Peter Naylor the companyamp8217s Senior Vice President of Advertising Salesamp160 Individual original program sponsorships are up 30 percent including multiple sponsor buys for The First the serviceamp8217s space adventure film starring Sean Penn that debuts September 14ESPN Plus in existence for six months as a directtoconsumer subscription service is preparing a free version working in several advertising formatsamp160 amp8220Yes weamp8217re interested in an adlike experienceamp8221 declared ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro at a recent media day session inside the Walt Disney divisionamp8217s Bristol Conn headquartersamp160 amp8220You can expect to see that going forwardamp8221Toyota joined Sprint as charter sponsors of CuriosityStream one of the first programming services to use smart TV sets and devices as a key distribution vehicleamp160 Under this deal Toyota will be the ventureamp8217s exclusive auto advertiser will be involved in copromotion campaigns and starting next month will demonstrate its line of hybrid cars on a variety of science and technology content under the amp8220Toyota Theateramp8221 bannerNews of this nature supports projections by Tru Optik and other media research firms that approximately 7 billion to 82 billion in advertising will go through smart TV sets and devices this year up from 47 billion last year amp160That amounts to 12 percent of overall TV ad spending amp160Tru Optik sees bigger leaps for smart ads ahead 133 billion next year and 20 billion for 2020AMC Networks recently launched a pair of initiatives to take full advantage of smart TV ad growth amp160The first in partnership with Sorensen Media offers addressable commercials on AMC IFC We TV and Sundance TV live simultaneously among smart TV sets and devicesamp160 The commercials show up in real time and target specific household demographics and interestsThe process amp8220enables us to deliver this addressable technology and provide extra value to our advertisersamp8221 explains Adam Gaynor the AMC Networks vice president who supervises Agility the ad sales unit developing addressable and other unique ad formats amp160amp8220Smart TVs are growing and as they continue to grow we get more excited that this opportunity will get stronger for usamp8221 heamp160saysSorensenamp8217s technology is performing well to this point and thatamp8217s encouraging AMC to create new relationships with current sponsors and open dialogue with new advertisers amp160amp8220Addressable is becoming a bigger part of the budget of different clientsamp8217 media mixes as it becomes a bigger part of the marketplaceamp8221 Gaynor assertsGaynor labels this addressable direction a amp8220crawl walk runamp8221 situation one reason why he declines to identify the participating advertisers so far and what channels they are running spots throughamp160 How about viewer reactionamp160 amp8220Let me put it this wayamp8221 he says amp160amp8220Viewers donamp8217t see them as addressable ads amp160They see them as relevant ads amp160Itamp8217s early days amp160We know weamp8217re delivering those ads amp160We havenamp8217t heard anything contrary to thatamp8221BBC America will join this engagement at a later dateamp160 AMCamp8217s growing lineup of smart TV setdevicedistributed services such as Sundance Now and horrororiented Shudder are expected to be involved at some pointAMCamp8217s other new ad direction experimentamp160with interactivity is through a partnership with mobile technology provider ACTV8me amp160In this undertaking some national commercial spots house an audio feature thatamp8217s inaudible to consumers originating from ACTV8meamp160 However when a consumer sees one of these spots a smartphone message is triggered in seconds inviting that consumer to take advantage of a product offer merchandise discount or coupon using a mobile walletamp8220This allows us to offer this level of interactivity where we know what spot was watched when it was watched when the offer was delivered and whether the user accepted that offeramp8221 Gaynor says amp160amp8220Furthermore weamp8217ll know if the viewer redeemed that offer proving the attribution with TV amp160This is another product with which weamp8217re in the early stages but weamp8217re attracting a lot of attention and having a lot of great conversations amp160We look forward to coming back and discussing some of the success storiesamp8221Can smart TV sets and devices be part of this initiative overamp160time with consumers getting offers through themamp160as well as via smartphonesamp160 Gaynor leaves open that possibility amp160amp8220Weamp8217re looking at everything that can give us a deeper relationship with our advertisers who want deeper relationships with their customersamp8221 he saysThereamp8217s another August development in this smart TV ad arena worth monitoring and it comes from Sinclair the largest US broadcast station owner amp160The company is now selling 15 and 30second commercial time for direct placement on Roku and Apple TV with other smart TV devices to follow amp160CompulseOTT will run the ads on more than 100 TV networks and services amp160In quick fashion CompulseOTT has placed more than 5000 campaignsamp8220It really fills a niche within both the local marketplace and the national marketplace for greater targeted advertisingamp8221 Sinclair President and Chief Executive Officer Chris Ripley noted during the companyamp8217s latest investor conference call amp160amp8220We think that marketplace is already a multibilliondollar marketplace but itamp8217s underservedquotNote amp160This is the second in a series of columns about the expanding smart TV set and device universe now available and being used in nearly twothirds of all US householdsClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Smart TV’s Summer of Advertising Love

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Simon Applebaum

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Smart TV’s Summer of Advertising Love

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