Global content consumption on Advanced TV (ATV) is surging. Brands are paying attention and recognizing the opportunity to deliver powerful people-based marketing against this highly engaged audience. 

At the same time, the conversation around privacy continues to heat up, with consumer awareness is at an all-time high. As such, companies need to prioritize privacy and transparency to build and maintain trust with their customers.

We hosted a live discussion on these topics and more with industry experts across Europe - Catherine Hallam from ITV, Charles Ping from Winterberry Group, Dean Weaving from Deliveroo, and Paola Colombo from Publitalia ‘80.

Defining advanced TV

There are a lot of acronyms that are part of Advanced TV. But when you look at them you see most of them are actually delivery or access methods. Catherine Hallam perhaps put it best:

“They are terms the industry is using, but for the consumer it is all just TV and how they access that TV. They want what’s easy for them.” 

So when we are talking about Advanced TV it is the best part of what we used to call  traditional TV plus all the extras. It is the extras that gives companies the addressability for targeting and measurement. “It is those extras that will really show why Advanced TV is advanced in its nature” added Catherine.

Advanced TV has changed the way brands think about TV

Advanced TV has changed the way we look at or think about TV. Brands like Deliveroo sees the shift as an opportunity to do even more, bringing the targeting and measurement capabilities from digital advertising, to Advanced TV. Opportunities to deliver hyper personalized advertising based on restaurants available in particular locations, and the type of programming being consumed. As Dean Weaving said:

“It’s a space we’re really trying to lean into and get a lot more information on.”

A permanent and positive change 

Starting in February and March 2020 when the first lockdown started in Italy, Publitalia ‘80 saw audiences of OTT doubling and they have been seeing the same development this year. It is a trend that isn’t showing any signs of slowing. Not only are more audiences watching content on demand, they are watching it for longer.

Charles Ping from Winterberry Group agreed and added: 

“We have definitely seen some fundamental changes. 2020 was a blip on our curve rather than a direction change and the industry has recovered much faster than we thought it would and these things are all permanent behavioral changes.”

Building and maintaining consumer trust

As the conversation moved to privacy, Charles Ping set the scene:

“Particularly against the privacy backdrop because we have forces that are making people interact and forces both regulatory and from players making trust be more embedded, that has to be good for everyone.”

Advanced TV can only continue to grow if all companies involved are prioritizing the privacy of their consumers. From changes driven by the tech giants, to increased regulation, privacy is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’, it is a requirement. 

Consumer awareness is at an all time high, and companies can not afford to risk the trust of their customers through the risky handling of their data. As Paola Colombo put it:

“If you break that trust that you’ve built in decades with consumers it's hard to get it back.”

Advanced TV Trends for 2021 and 2022

Taking a look into the near future, here are the trends our panelists identify for the next 12 to 18 months: 

Catherine Hallam from ITV: “Partnerships in the ecosystem have already started. Media owners that potentially in the past would have kept themselves extremely separate collaborating with other companies is starting to increase. These partnerships are not only going to happen more but also will go deeper in terms of technological and addressability links, data links and a lot more combined innovation.”

Dean Weaving from Deliveroo: “We will see more companies trying to learn across the multi-market approach. There is so much going on, especially taking a look at the past year. And there is so much we can learn from the different markets.”

Paola from Publitalia ‘80: “First-party data and data partnerships with advertisers will get easier.”

Charles Ping from Winterberry Group: “Right now we have the technology, we have the proof of concepts and we have use cases working. Scale is what is coming next. We will also start to see a holistic view of understanding the value of media across both those programmatically bought traditional media channels and the world of broadcast.”

Watch the full live discussion on-demand to hear more from these industry leaders.