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What will the CTV/OTT trends be in 2021?
There has been a transition from a mostly offline existence to one that’s primarily about online activities. Connected TV and over-the-top (OTT) media now reigns, overtaking linear TV, as we move beyond video-on-demand (VOD) offerings to everyday programming, movies, live streams, and even more content.
By the time the pandemic is over, customers who switched to streaming because of the lack of sports will not have to switch back, due to the fact that streaming providers will stream mass amounts of sports. As a result of this shift, marketers continue to invest in CTV.
While linear TV still spends more on average than online video, many companies argue that the trend is shifting towards the net-driven media. According to eMarketer, CTV advertising in the US expanded by 25% in 2020. The revenue from ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) increased by 31% and digital upfront TV ad spending rose by 11%.
Agility is one reason why CTV advertising underwent major growth in 2020. In 2021, marketers will continue to invest in CTV, in order to reach homebound consumers and to combine the flexibility, precision, and real-time capabilities of digital with the impactful storytelling of linear.
For brands to take full advantage of new marketing opportunities like native formats, dynamic ads, AR, audio, and more, they will be required to access inventory programmatically, alongside other media types, including desktop, mobile, DOOH, audio, XR, and beyond. Technology companies will have to make it easier for media buyers and brands to plan and manage TV campaigns electronically.
Increased attention for emerging formats like DOOH
According to Verizon Media, CTV marketers are nearly twice as likely to spend on digital-out-of-home (DOOH) than non-CTV marketers. The correlation between CTV and DOOH is expected to grow, with 68% of CTV marketers planning to increase DOOH spend in the first quarter of 2021. This proves that marketers who are witnessing CTV benefits are more willing to invest in another format.
New metrics arise
Marketers will continue to focus their advertising on reviewing action-based outcomes such as website traffic, adding to cart, absolute shopping, and app downloads, and will move away from KPIs such as completion rate and reach. To address this, we will see significant progress in creating a uniform standard for CTV identification in 2021.
When it comes to measuring success, marketers feel more comfortable switching to new means of measurement, from old video metrics such as KPIs to metrics that capture better the CTV/OTT and DOOH impact. Old KPIs such as viewability, ad completion rate, and video completion rate have been used with one-to-one user ratios for display and desktop video. But, CTV/OTT and DOOH are one-to-many user ratios. So marketers will evolve their ads and measurement strategy accordingly.
These findings presage an optimistic future for the next couple of quarters. At BRAVE, we’re helping publishers and marketers to push their budgets further with the latest research to drive digital decision-making, and the latest solutions to improve our partners’ and consumers’ experience.