In this exclusive Q&A, Lucy Gausden, programmatic specialist for The Barn at Arla Foods, discusses how marketers are leveraging CTV into omnichannel strategies, how the medium has benefitted Starbucks in campaign execution and measurement, and how other forms of digital advertising can complement CTV.

What led Starbucks to adopt CTV as a marketing channel, and what benefits have you seen from this adoption?

The rise in popularity of streaming services with our audience meant that this was a trend we needed to follow. We have consistently seen consumers move away from linear TV and seen costs of the channel rise. CTV can help us fill this gap due to its increasing reach numbers and low entry costs, meaning we can pinpoint our audience and target them on the big screen while taking advantage of the costs. 

In order to stay relevant with our audience and increase the reach of our campaigns outside of linear TV, we needed to adapt our TV strategy to meet this trend and adopt CTV as part of this. It allowed us to increase targeting capabilities to reach our audience in a more direct way as well as being able to take advantage of increased measurement and real-time insights. Measurement and optimisation solutions that we can access through the Quantcast DSP, such as Brand Lift Live, helped us to gain a deeper understanding of campaign performance. Having the flexibility to optimise CTV campaigns mid-flight while taking advantage of a more cost effective way to be on TV and increased precision of reaching our audience have been a large benefit to us and a strategy we look to keep building on.

How has the role of CTV in the purchasing funnel evolved thus far, and how is it set to develop? How does this differ from linear TV?

CTV gives us the ability to be more precise with our audience targeting, helping us reach our consumers more effectively. As publishers have started to develop more sophisticated engagement tactics such as QR codes and call-to-action buttons it has allowed consumers to interact with CTV ads. Giving consumers the ability to navigate to a specified landing page allows for a smoother consumer journey and increases time spent with the brand. CTV is destined to continue its growth and development with advancements in data, technology, measurement across all stages from awareness to purchase.

How does CTV help Starbucks chilled coffee reach its target audience in a more effective way than traditional TV advertising?

The Starbucks demographic index highly towards watching streaming services on their TV. The ability to overlay the interest and demographic data we have about our audience on to CTV utilising Quantcast first-party data, means we can precisely target our audience on TV in a more sophisticated way than ever before. Targeted CTV campaigns allow us to eliminate wasted impressions with a reduction of impressions served towards people who are not in our target audience. This means we can maintain cost effectiveness by focusing on our strategic audience.

Can you discuss any innovative or experimental approaches that Starbucks is taking with CTV advertising, and what do you hope to achieve with these efforts?

While we are still navigating the CTV space, we have been exploring both streaming and FAST channels to understand the role both play in our strategy. As the lines between all VOD services blur, this will allow us to experiment in this space further. We have been exploring channel-led creative and how we use contextually relevant creative to ensure our ads stay relevant on CTV as they do on linear TV and amending these to fit the context in which they are being served.

How can CTV creative be assessed and optimised on both in-flight and post-campaign bases? How does this impact its position within the overall marketing mix?

The transparency and real-time-insight capability of CTV has been imperative to understanding how viewers are interacting with our ads. The ability to use brand-lift studies to understand ad recall of our brands and products has helped us understand what our consumers are understanding from our ads, meaning we can use this data to optimise the campaign mid-flight, as well as to inform our future creative strategy.

Can you give an example of how a Starbucks chilled coffee campaign was optimised in real time, and how those learnings might impact future campaigns?

Starbucks chilled coffee has several ranges targeting different consumer needs and raising awareness of each range has been key to our strategy. To help us understand consumer perception of the Doubleshot product, we utilised Quantcast's Brand Lift Live solution to measure ad recall, asking the question “Do you recall seeing a Doubleshot ad?”. In real time we were able to understand that we were not getting the desired response of driving ad recall and needed to change our strategy. Immediately adjusting the survey question to understand the recall of Starbucks chilled coffee we gained the desired positive lift in ad recall. This helped us to understand that our comms were driving strong awareness of Starbucks chilled coffee, but not product specifics. We used these learnings to fuel future campaigns.

How important are premium CTV and digital video environments for Starbucks chilled coffee? What does Starbucks chilled coffee do to ensure its marketing appears only in appropriate content and environments? 

We have a close collaboration with buy and supply side partners to ensure complete control and transparency over our ad environments. Premium environments provide a higher level of brand safety and improved user experience, increasing the quality and credibility of our brands. The CTV space is constantly evolving so maintaining research of publishers and platforms in order to ensure they meet our high standards of quality is key for us.

How do you see other types of digital advertising, such as online video or display, complementing or extending CTV campaigns?

Running a holistic cross channel campaign using a DSP such as Quantcast allows us to run a truly omnichannel campaign. Monitoring reach and frequency cross device means we can increase the effectiveness of our campaigns, while allowing for storytelling to bring our consumers on our brand journey. Holistic reporting means that we can report on a full campaign, rather than the traditional channel-by-channel approach to truly reflect what our consumers are seeing.

What role do you see AI and machine-learning processes and tools playing in digital marketing and advertising now and in the future?

Analyse and organise massive amounts of data and autonomously and continuously iterate campaigns to drive the best measurable outcomes, which we are already seeing in the industry. This should allow us to be truly omnichannel and optimise between channels more fluidly. Consumers don’t recognise they are watching a CTV or online video ad and neither should we. AI can help us create fluid omnichannel campaigns that target our consumers in the correct need state to get the best results for our brands.