20 for ’21: Our Must-Read Posts of the Year About Cross-Channel TV

Despite the prospect of continued uncertainty in many parts of our lives, we’re looking forward to 2022 with the assurance that marketers have more opportunities to get TV spots in front of their target consumers than ever before. After all, according to eMarketer, 16 of the current top 20 streaming video services in the U.S. are AVOD or have ad-supported tiers. ViacomCBS’ free, ad-supported Pluto TV just became a $1 billion business, per Adweek. And once approved by regulators, Discovery’s merger with WarnerMedia will create a cross-channel advertising powerhouse. Brand advertisers and their agencies are poised to reap the rewards of linear and connected TV like never before.

As a new era rolls forward, here’s a look back at 20 selections of our coverage of this unprecedented time for television, advertising and technology from 2021:

130 Billion Reasons Why TV Will Still Matter to Advertisers
The growth of CTV ad spend is going to be huge -- we project it reaching $100 billion by 2030. However, even in 2030, we’re still likely to have 25% of U.S. homes using linear connections as a primary TV content source and half of U.S. homes still using linear to supplement their streaming, generating an incremental $30 billion in advertising. Read more.

Cookiepocalypse Now? Not Necessarily for TV Advertisers
Google’s plan to block third-party cookies has left digital publishers and marketers struggling to adjust their data strategies to address consumer privacy concerns while still collecting information that helps target ads to the right audiences. Will linear and CTV advertisers have an advantage in this new landscape? Read more.

The Future of Media Measurement Includes Nielsen... and Others
Nielsen has some real challenges with its TV panel (not to mention its accreditation), but there's no simple way to replace it as the currency for the majority of national TV ad spend in the U.S. However, digital-born players with media measurement products in line with where media consumption and ad spend are going will pick up a lot of new business. Read more.

The Top 7 Reasons TV and Video Advertising Are Right For You
TV has made brands into household names, moved products off shelves (and sites) and shaped how we think of ourselves for over 80 years. Despite all of the technological leaps and upheavals since the invention of television, video remains the ideal medium to tell stories, demonstrate your value and elicit a response from your target audience. Simply put, your brand needs TV more than it needs digital. Yes, really. Read more.

Reports of the Death of TV Advertising Are Greatly Exaggerated
With traditional TV still capturing the majority of video ad spend and viewers flocking to ad-supported streamers, the trend is clear: cross-channel advertising – spanning broadcast, cable, and CTV – is the most viable means for brands to reach audiences at national scale. And we’re not the only ones who see the big, wall-mounted, high-def picture. Read more.

As Companies Rethink Digital Ads, Cross-Channel TV Provides Solutions
With the costs of digital skyrocketing, now is the ideal time for brands to make their budgets work harder by shifting ad dollars to television. Here are the top 4 capabilities you should demand from your media planning and buying partner to ensure they can maximize scale while cost-efficiently driving impressions from untapped audiences. Read more.

Debunking the Top 4 Myths About TV & Video Measurement
TV is just for branding? Too expensive? Too difficult to prove out? Digital channels have you covered? In an era of “alternative facts,” the last thing our industry needs is misinformation about media and marketing driving decision-making by advertisers and agencies. So let’s “un-learn” the most common misconceptions about television and video. Read more.

What You Should Know About TV Advertising Reach and Frequency
When it comes to conversion (sales, site visits, app downloads, etc.) TV, reaching even one new person is often better than reaching the same person twice. On linear TV, if you can buy spots that are the most likely to reach new potential customers -- even if that reach doesn’t come at the lowest possible cost per thousand impressions -- your CPM will increase, but you’re also likely to achieve campaign results that out-pace the higher costs. Read more.

No More Silos: TV Advertising’s Future Is Both Linear and Streaming
The implications of a dual-channel future for the ad business are significant. For starters, the definitions of content, audiences, measurement and outcomes will need to be consistent across companies. And buying on only TV or digital metrics won’t cut it anymore. So we all need to nail this together -- and fast. Read more.

Putting Viewers First in Video Ad Delivery Is a Work in Progress
We’re in the midst of a massive shift from linear TV viewing to streaming video viewing. One would hope that as we enable viewers to watch studio-produced premium content in an on-demand streaming environment, we would also make sure the ad experience mirrors the premium, viewer-controlled content experience. Read more.

The TV Ad Industry’s Chance to Kill the Gross Rating Point Is Finally Here
For decades, marketers and media pros have bemoaned the need to convert tightly defined strategic targets into blunt, broad, sex/age demographics to use as the primary metric for the planning, buying and measurement of their TV ad campaigns.But no more. The era of GRPs is coming to an end. So… what’s next? Read more.

What Advertisers Should Know About TV Audience Targeting and Planning
With no shortage of targeting options and data providers to choose from, reaching your strategic goals can be easy – with the right partner. We take a look at the most popular companies for audience creation so you can get a better understanding of how media planning for cross-channel TV differs from traditional approaches. Read more.

How Direct-to-Consumer Brands Can Grow With Scaled Video
The most successful DTC companies have a history of disrupting the legacy retail experience using search, social and affiliate campaigns. But to become one of the only brands in their categories that customers are willing to consider, DTC marketers must unbox a video strategy that includes linear and CTV advertising in addition to digital. Read more.

How to Select an Advertising Agency for Your First TV Campaign
If you’re a brand contemplating your first advertising campaign on TV (whether on linear, CTVor, preferably, both), at some point you may want to enlist a TV ad agency and relevant tech providers. Topics to explore with your potential partners should cover three key areas: strategic audience targeting, media planning and buying, and campaign measurement. Read more.

Why You Should Wait Before Buying Amazon’s New TV
It seems inevitable that Amazon will eventually just give us its new smart TV for free as part of a bundled service of Prime and others of its products. Why? All you have to ask yourself is how much money a company can make if it owns the outfitting, computing and communication needs of the digital homes in the U.S. and around the world. Answer: an awful lot. Read more.

Are We Ready to Entrust Our Lives and Living Rooms to Adtech?
When it comes to delivering consumer value, our industry needs to stop saying it’s giving people the right ad at the right time, when so much of what is delivered is optimized to only the 0.01% of likely responders. Let’s get real about doing the right thing and build a future with fewer, but more relevant, ads that all recipients actually want to see. Read more.

How Direct-to-Consumer Brands Are Winning With TV Ads
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands have traditionally been leery of advertising on television because it was perceived as unnecessary in light of alternatives such as paid search, social and display. But savvier DTC brands have been able to succeed with TV by utilizing surgically precise targeting, real-time reporting, advanced measurement and partners who can prove cross-channel impact. Read more.

Why Video Advertising Must Put Customers First, Not Channels
There was a time when media was so siloed, specialized and individually impenetrable that optimizing channel by channel was the bread and butter of this business. Now there's no reason not to buy across all ad-supported video in an integrated, automated and optimized fashion so you can focus on putting your customers – not channels -- first. Read more.

What Exactly Is the Metaverse? Get a Crash Course
It’s not just Facebook that’s gone Meta. Everyone is talking about the metaverse these days. And almost every new initiative, from gaming and crypto companies to Roblox to NFTs, are being scrutinized for their “metaverse-ness.” But what, exactly, does metaverse mean? And where does it come from? We can help you figure it out. Read more.

Download our Cross-Channel TV Playbook for a detailed guide on how to unlock audiences on both linear and connected TV.

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