Addressable BVOD: Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should
COVID-19 is causing a sharp rise in broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD) viewing as Australians seek home-based entertainment during social distancing. With ad dollars invested in this channel working particularly hard, advertisers should revisit the proportion of BVOD in their media mix, as buyers are using the opportunity to apply data-driven targeting methodologies. But just because BVOD inventory can be addressable and data can be applied to every buy, advertisers shouldn’t restrict BVOD activity to only targeting niche audiences.
Key points:
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Consumption of BVOD content surged 27% during the last week of March, as viewers began to spend more time at home. BVOD viewing already increased over 40% last year, as consumers got used to watching TV content on their own terms, at a time convenient to them, via their screen and channel of choice.
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Where eyeballs go, ad dollars will follow, so it’s not surprising BVOD ad revenues rose in parallel with viewing last year, bucking the downward trend in the wider TV advertising market to rise almost 43% in the second half of 2019. While advertisers may be cautious with media spend during the current crisis, BVOD is likely to remain one of the most effective ways to reach engaged audiences.
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Increased investment in BVOD advertising is supported by developments in measurement such as VPM, OzTAM’s Video Player Measurement product, and VOZ or Virtual Australia, OzTAM’s all-screen, cross-platform reporting standard for the Australian TV market. These developments make it easier for media buyers to plan audience reach across TV and BVOD.
BVOD is treated as digital because it’s delivered through an internet connection. But simply applying display methodologies to BVOD completely misses the art of TV. There are inherent risks in pigeonholing BVOD as either digital or TV; instead we must ensure it encompasses the best of both worlds, enabling both broad reach and addressability.
Because BVOD is generally bought by digital buyers, it is sometimes viewed as a performance product with data points used against every single buy to ensure ads reach the niche audience segments deemed likely to convert. This narrow focus on addressability risks limiting scale as well as forgoing vital branding activity that the TV aspect of BVOD is so well suited to.
BVOD shares traditional TV’s benefits in achieving broad reach across highly engaged audiences by delivering ads around professionally produced, curated content in premium environments. As Binet and Field’s 60:40 brand building to sales activation ratio illustrates, brands need to invest more in filling the top of the funnel than in converting niche addressable segments further down.
By applying a display-like methodology to BVOD planning, and restricting activity to niche buying, brands risk ignoring the reach element of the channel and reducing its effectiveness. BVOD can be used alongside broadcast TV to create broad reach and engagement, laying strong foundations and allowing the more precisely targeted performance-based messaging that subsequently reaches those audiences to convert.
TV is no longer just a linear broadcast mechanism, it’s delivered through any and every device. BVOD might be delivered through an internet connection and bought by digital buyers, but it is essentially TV so its buying mechanics must reflect the broad reach and engagement of that channel, as well as leveraging the addressability of digital for benefit rather than simply out of habit.
