Member Article

AdSmart levels playing field for TV advertisers

Despite the many recent advances in entertainment technology – smartphones, tablets, streaming services such as Netflix – recent statistics would seem to point out that the more things change, the more they stay the same: Britons love watching TV, typically for around four hours per day, according to Thinkbox.

With all the potential distractions at our fingertips people sat in their armchair of an evening, likely half-asleep, and flipping around to see if there’s “anything good on” clearly remains alive and well, and is as popular as it’s ever been.

Sky has been a gargantuan player in the UK TV market for nearly 25 years, and have arguably blazed a number of trails which have since been followed by other broadcasters. Their latest innovation, Sky AdSmart, is in my opinion, the start of another trend which will become commonplace over time.

Sky AdSmart is simple and effective. In essence, it uses your customer data – the stuff you’ve already shared with Sky, blended with certain Experian data – to serve you custom-made ad breaks. And you don’t even know that you’re watching them. In fact, there’s a chance you were watching AdSmart breaks yesterday.

Each night, your Sky box downloads a selection of adverts which have been deemed suitable for your household. They may be for local products and services, or they may be for products which fit your household make-up, i.e. baby products for young families, or life insurance for older-skewing households.

During an ad break on any of the dedicated Sky channels (One, 2, Living, Sports, Atlantic, Movies etc), your single neighbour may be watching the latest Meerkat ‘hilarity,’ you, as a mid-30s, mid-affluence parent of children under ten, may be watching an advert for Centerparcs at the same time.

So why is Sky investing so heavily in AdSmart?

Well, despite the huge growth in digital advertising of all kinds - UK firms spent more than £6bn on digital ads in 2013 – and despite the time-shifting viewing that we all now take part in, the simple fact is that scheduled, broadcast TV still plays a huge part in most Britons’ daily routine. Traditional TV advertising still reaches millions of eyeballs each day. It’s expensive, but it still works.

AdSmart gives your advert a much stronger chance of being seen by the intended audience, taking a big step towards an all important ‘guarantee’ that your brand is seen. It doesn’t matter which (Sky) channel you watch, the adverts are served up to you the in same way.

“But,” I hear you say, “most people just skip through the adverts…“I know I do. But there are three things to consider here:

Sky’s own customer data suggests that more than 80% of viewers still watch in the traditional manner. Even when skipping at x30 speed on a pre-recorded show, the average viewer will still pick up on around six snapshots of a 30 second TV advert. Maybe advertisers should look at this as a creative challenge, as Volkswagen did with this commercial We’re now no longer in the realm of traditional TV advertising – Sky and its AdSmart customers are as keen as each other to reduce wastage in a campaign. Both parties are in the business of measuring solid, measurable impressions.

Look, I’m not on Sky’s payroll, and we don’t do any media buying at YourFilm. But we do produce TV adverts for clients both locally and nationally. Over the last few years, we have lost clients who simply haven’t been able to justify the wastage experienced with traditional (local) TV campaigns, even at low levels of airtime expenditure.

The advent of AdSmart – and the similar services which will inevitably follow from other TV companies down the line – levels the playing field again, re-opening the door for even small companies to one of the most powerful advertising mediums ever created.

We’re spoilt for choice, on both sides of the equation. Viewers have an increasing number of ways to choose what we see and how and when we see it. In line with this, advertisers have a bewildering number of ways in which we are able to put our messages in front of potential customers. TV hasn’t lost its lustre, it’s just in the process of adapting. Sky AdSmart is an important step in that evolution.

www.your-film.com

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Matthew Newman .