In association with Rakuten Advertising

In this exclusive interview ahead of ATS Madrid 2023, ExchangeWire speaks to Giovina Di Tonno, senior director, media sales, Rakuten Advertising, on how connected TV (CTV) can be used as part of an effective multichannel media strategy, and how the Spanish CTV market compares to that of other nations.

How can CTV be used effectively as part of a multichannel media strategy? What are the key best practices marketers should consider?

Firstly, CTV is actually the best channel representing multi-channel media strategies because it's exactly in the middle between TV and digital. You get benefits from both, while improving upon the limits of TV and digital. For example, you receive the typical engagement that you can attain on television using the same device, but it has the same targeting capability and buying model of digital. 

On the OpenRTB side, we need to focus on top targets that you can find on CTV but cannot reach anymore on linear TV, for example the cord cutters and the “TV-lite” user. Another way of maximising a multi-channel strategy via CTV is to use, exploit, and develop around the targeting capabilities that the CTV actually has, for example geotargeting, contextual, and device type, and not the potential capabilities that CTV may never have. Focus on the metrics that can be tracked, for example viewability and cost-per-view, more than on metrics that do not make sense to measure on CTV, such as return on ad spend (ROAS).

How does the CTV market differ in Spain compared with other European and international markets?

In all markets, we are observing the same growth trend in terms of consumption, and in terms of viewing habits across different forms of CTV, for example a bigger shift to AVOD due to the current economic situation. As in other countries, we have tracked a growth of investment larger than 100% year-over-year.

What is different in Spain is the approach of buying CTV. If I compare Spain to markets such as Germany or the UK, direct buying is still the most significant buying method that drives revenue on CTV. Programmatic is not the most relevant part. It is growing, but it is still a minor part. In Spain, CTV media buying is 60% via direct IO reservation and the remaining 40% via programmatic, compared to Germany or the UK where 100% of buying is done by programmatic. 

This is a big difference which obviously necessitates differences in approach, media strategy, capabilities in reporting, and pricing. Traditional television ads are bought mostly via direct IO and this obviously influences a medium like CTV, that is exactly the next step compared to traditional TV.

How are cross-screen viewing behaviours evolving across different demographics within Spain? How can marketers capitalise on these changes?

To answer this question, we need to divide CTV viewing behaviours into the phase before COVID, and the phase after the COVID. Before COVID, CTV typically was the medium preferred by millennials and following generations, or cord cutters or light TV watchers. For example, prior to the pandemic, the percentage of our streaming customers that were cord cutters was around 21%, so a major component. These customers typically approach streaming content with a cross-device approach. An example scenario is that they start watching content via their phones during the morning, they go to the office and then resume via desktop during the lunch break, and finish the same content in the evening via connected TV.

After COVID and in this economic climate, the situation is a bit different. We are seeing a major shift in terms of age, gender, and other social demographic clusters. Other age clusters are starting to watch streaming content, especially free streaming content, because of new habits and the current economic situation. We are still seeing the typical cross-device approach to streaming consumption, but also a larger increase in the percentage of viewers accessing via connected TV. 

Obviously, we needed to change our media buying approach to capitalise on these changes. For example, we needed to change frequency, because if the content is watched during the morning, then lunch, maybe finalising the evening, obviously I cannot work with low frequency of traditional television. I need to work with different frequency due to the different consumption of the content because the risk of losing a potential user exposure is really high. 

Another thing on top of frequency we need to capitalise upon are areas about creative video strategy and the message to share with the customer. Typically on CTV, brands still use the same video that they use on television, on YouTube, or on standard video. It does not make sense because, again, the age of the audience is different, and above all the cross-device approach requires a different creative and messaging to be effective. 

How will the use of CTV in media strategies evolve following the deprecation of identifiers in display and mobile channels, from both branding and performance perspectives? 

Essentially, if we speak towards CTV rather than streaming traffic that comes from mobile and desktop, we are a 100% cookieless ecosystem. We are lucky in that we are not impacted by the end of the third-party cookie era that hopefully will arrive and we can take advantage of being an IP-addressed ecosystem.

On both the branding and performance side, geotargeting could be key. If you think about geotargeting, it can support performance in terms of precision of spending in terms of cost-per-reach. In my experience, in CTV media planning, if 60% of total campaigns are planned with contextual targeting, the remaining 40% is typically planned with geotargeting. Typically, the buyer that uses geotargeting is the buyer that approaches CTV while also keeping in mind the limited coverage and cost-per-reach. They may also be experienced in TV buying, which helps them in comparing reach.

ATS Madrid 2023 will be held on May 9th at Teatro Amaya. Tickets and further information are available via the dedicated ATS Madrid 2023 event portal.