The Expert Verdict on CTV: how to make your media spend work harder

The seasons change. The nights draw in. Are you going to be working from home more this winter? Hitting up those seasonal sales from your sofa? Spending more time indoors watching that binge-worthy box set? 

Did you know that as of Jan 2023 38% of UK and 44% of US workers (according to the 2023 State of Remote Work Report 2023) are working from home at least some of the time? The number of people working from home is expected to continue to grow in the coming years. A study by the Pew Research Center found that 71% of Americans believe that more people will be working from home in five years than they do today.

This behavior is leading to a knock-on effect of media consumption in the home and Connected TV (CTV) is riding this trend. How are you making the most of this and what tactics can you employ to enhance your TV campaigns and make your spend work harder?

CTV viewing is on the rise, accounting for some 28% of all TV viewing by UK adults and a fifth of US audiences. As CTV viewership continues to grow steadily, this positively correlates with the amount of time people are spending at home. Advertisers are flocking to CTV due to the obvious advantages in regards to audience segmentation but what are the challenges that still need to be overcome to make this spend work harder?

According to Digiday, attribution and engaging ad formats are the biggest barrier. In recent years the use of QR codes has become common to offer attribution and engagement. However, this is not without its drawbacks as Les Seifer, Head of Global Creative for Nexxen Studio comments: 

“QR Codes have increasingly become the standard method of driving actions beyond CTV ads, with limited, unified browser and remote control capabilities in these environments. Nexxen Studio has seen success with QR scans over the years, and have developed best practices for how to best leverage custom QR Codes for actions in CTV ads. One inherent challenge with QR Codes we see is that they require TV viewers to lean forward from a lean-back experience to engage.”

So what’s the next evolution to solve these challenges? We need to look for an engagement mechanic that is more in line with the behavior we exhibit whilst watching TV at home. Say It Now has been trailing voice engagement with Nexxen and the results are in! What does Les make of voice as an enhancement to CTV campaigns?

 “Voice-activated engagement across CTV environments presents a more natural, rewarding user experience that keeps viewers leaned-back while engaging with brands. We’re excited about it and have already seen amazing results. As more and more living rooms and smart TVs adopt smart speaker capabilities, voice-activated CTV ads will likely become the norm.”

So we’re going to see a load more of these types of activations which give the signals we need to optimise the channel mix and runtime distribution of our campaigns, effectively making existing media spend work harder. We can also underestimate the value of a CTV viewer, they are actively viewing rather than passively engaging with the content they have chosen as Zoe Bruton, Say It Now's Sales Director explains:

“CTV viewers have made a conscious viewing choice and as such are more engaged. The messages advertisers want to land need to be instantly actionable to deliver maximum value to the consumer and efficiency on media investment. CTV can lack a measurable and non-disruptive CTA due to its lean-back nature. High impact formats like voice-activated actionable TV ads encourage in-the-moment engagement and allow the advertiser to gather real-time data that can be used to optimise outcomes. With nearly 50% of UK households owning a smart speaker voice is becoming an essential part of the omnichannel fabric.”

So what now? You are going to see a lot more TV spots asking you to engage using your smart speaker. With more than 50% UK homes and 90 million US households having a smart speaker the footprint is there to engage.