CTV's Recent Surge & How Gaming Fits in

so next up we're going to look at um ctv's recent surge so how does gaming fit into that so we've got um uh the folks from adjust gizmo and uh sarah from uh just who are going to join us hi sarah how are you doing well hey hey i probably ruined yours name i apologize for that so uh i'm terrible at pronunciations my apologies uh but yes tell us all about the the recent surge and how gaming fits in from your point of view i will uh uh leave you thank you yeah thank you so much so i'm going to be running this fireside chat with heisberg um my name is sarah i am a product marketing manager at adjust and i previously came from the streaming service side of things so i'm very passionate about the connected tv space um and we're going to be discussing how connected tv how you can

get started with connected tv measurement and also the world of ctv and how it intersects with gaming so i'd like to introduce heisbert who's our resident ctv expert and our lead product strategist and he'll be answering a few questions um so to start what is ctv ctv is stands for connected tv and it's basically a device category so it captures uh any tv device that is connected to the internet and uses the internet to deliver content so that inc ctv includes smart tvs it includes streaming devices such you know sticks and setup boxes and it can even uh include gaming consoles up to your point that gaming souls are sometimes used by people to to watch tv basically

awesome can you walk us through like a little bit of how sort of the ctv ecosystem works sure um so the best way is you can compare it quite well to mobile there are three types of players you have the device suppliers obviously so the sony's and the panasonic's of this world then you have those who um provide operating systems so android tv is a good example of that or fire amazon fire tv and then you have app developer app developers that um create apps or channels as they sometimes with a nudge to uh the old world of television or are called as well so they develop apps that function on the connected tv operating systems a lot of them are

streaming services so we all know netflix um uh and that's definitely the a large chunk of what you'll find on a connected tv as apps but uh increasingly um gaming is becoming more and more important as a vertical on connected tv as well now when it comes to two business models uh device suppliers and operating systems are usually purchase based for the streaming streaming applications there are roughly two types advertising so ad driven streaming services and subscription services uh abbreviated at as a vault and asphalt which stands for ad driven or subscription driven video on demand excellent so one thing that i'm wondering is just how

big is the connected tv market in in europe specifically so there are a couple of ways to approach that question if you look at it in terms of devices then already most of uh so the majority of tv devices in europe are uh connected tv devices so smart tvs or streaming devices um and we're coming from 12.1 percent in 2012. so this is quite rapidly eating up traditional uh tv devices um now the uh access to smart tv devices alone in european households is higher than in the us so you can say that the devices are there if you look at the consumption um then uh well if you look at the the biggest european market uh germany so the biggest consumer market then uh

46 of all germans germans stream daily and 32 percent watch every week so it's pretty big um and the um recognition of that is that advertising is moving there according to forrester the ad budgets for connected tv grew by 21 uh in 2020 which is also slightly bigger than in the us yeah it's absolutely huge here and i think europe is fast approaching us yeah um so why is connectedtv important for marketers in the gaming industry well i think the the obvious example is is reach um everybody has has started to stream uh during the pandemic or at least those

people who who hadn't yet um and what um [Music] digital connected tv allows you allows you to do instead of traditional tv is target audiences directly so you don't throw something into the void as with a traditional tv branding campaigns but there's also a qualitative argument so [Music] tv offers the highest quality when it comes to presenting a product so visually acoustically even in terms of storytelling because you know uh tv is is a laid-back device people are far more receptive to longer formats you can actually tell a story around your product and that is uh i mean connectedtv takes that to the next level because it adds qualities

such as interactivity to it you can you know uh make it fairly easy for people to respond to the digital ads they see on tv and i think particularly for gaming that can be highly interesting there's another point you make when it comes to cdb uh specifically for gaming is that connectedtvs is getting more and more of a platform uh for gaming so uh like i said most of the apps on connected tv devices are still video streaming apps but gaming is the fastest growing vertical um so it's not only going to be a a marketing channel uh to which allows you to market games that are then played on other devices but it's also a platform where gaming is going to take place more and more that's awesome there's a very cool future ahead for that um so if i am an advertiser how would i get

started with connected tv advertising i think uh it really depends on your goals so uh if you're looking for branding or performance uh you know if it's it's performance then what kind of performance is it user acquisition retention revenue subscription stuff like that based on that you can uh define the the ad formats you want to use and the inventory type so ad formats then we're talking about are you going to for the more traditional commercial commercial are you going to uh to use a short uh format video banners um maybe you know when when you think about the inventory type you want to um use endemic advertising that's advertising directly on the home screen of the operating system that's particularly relevant for games that function on connected tv themselves

once you've done that it's a matter of finding the right inventory supplier um there you can follow the types of players i mentioned you can go to the operating system so roku samsung android tv they all have their own dsps setup which you can use to buy inventory you can go to streaming services directly um in a european context i think a company such as join or the zone uh are are highly relevant and then um or the other option would be go to a dsp offering connected tv inventory and then you can think about xander or the trade desks that are have positioned themselves very strongly when it comes to connected tv inventory if you start maybe that's the best option because the dsps can offer you a lot of knowledge as well um but on the

other hand if you want to use endemic inventory uh yeah that's something that you can only find with um um within the operating system so then you have to go to uh to the suppliers of operating systems awesome and this is something you've started to touch on but i wanted to ask further can connected tv advertising be truly a performance channel as we know it's typically traditionally a brand channel yeah well ideally it brings the best of both worlds together so i i think it will always remain uh a branding um so to say uh it will always uh have branding and this branding effects because of the great opportunities for storytelling and things like that um but when it comes to performance uh one phenomenon to keep in mind very

strongly is dual screening um we've done we i just we've done research and we found that the vast majority of people so depends a bit on the country but we're talking about dementias of 85 90 the vast majority of people watches connect to tv with their mobile phone at times and like i said the connected tv is a laid-back device like regular tv um but people act on their mobile phones so when you inform them via an ad on connected tv there's a very um likely chance that they will take action on their mobile phone and advertisers can stimulate this and this is where performance comes in so um what you can do if you're promoting a mobile app you can put a qr code in your connected tv ad and you can allow people to scan the qr code they you know on the tv

screen and download uh your app immediately um burger king already experimented with this and uh i'm currently working with some of our gaming clients to do exactly the same things doesn't have to be a qr code you can also think about voucher codes you can think about push notification and you can explore what's possible cooperating with particularly the operating systems because they're starting to offer apps that allow you to turn your mobile phone into a remote control so i think the yeah it's a very good time to start uh experimenting with that and it's going to be interesting to see what what comes out of that um in the very long run i'm going to i think we're going to see uh far more

commercialized content and also i guess a kind of a merging of genres maybe um video streaming and gaming will will merge in a sense that you will be able to [Music] see a movie and directly download uh you know uh items that are displayed in in this movie so um you're watching the new james want movie and you get uh an opportunity to um in a in a game obviously drive uh the uh aston martin for example that would be particularly convenient around halloween i think so that we don't have to just go searching for all the costumes we can just download them right there take them right out of the eos yeah so um in terms of targeting what does connected tv have to offer for gamers um

i think i'd like to make i mean you can think about many things there but i'd like to make two points so what's important to keep in mind when we're talking about connected tv is that it's it's not only a legback device but it's also a social device so when you're targeting connectedtv you're targeting households rather than individuals um i'm working with a client that offers kind of an educational game and in their messaging they usually address parents because yes the game is used by kids but you know it's the conveyor the parents that download the app on the mobile phones for connectedtv they ch they have to change this because the ad will be seen by parents as well as kids so uh they had to adjust their messaging to it and came up with with an ad that works for the for the entire uh family so that's one thing you know you're

you're targeting uh households and that's an important thing to to keep in mind um then i think uh connectedtv can be pretty strong on on niches there is a lot of localized streaming content in fact the the success of streaming services because uh you know the the everybody will go for for the next game of thrones or the next uh madman or something but the the main differentiator particularly in europe uh to create customer loyalty is now um [Music] local content um and there are even you know local streaming providers emerging and um they allow you to to target very specific niches and sometimes with surprising results there's a very funny example of hot star hot star is an

indian streaming service but it's used by european advertisers to target the indian diaspora in europe why well hotstar has uh the broadcasting rights for the indian cricket league so that's there you see that you have um you can use connectedtv to reach out to nations excellent so uh i have two more questions um the first one is kind of what we're all about which is how can you measure results for connected tv advertising yeah um well you can so that's a good news you can measure it um the traditional way of doing this is a probabilistic way usually based on region and time slot so you you'd say okay we have a commercial it's broadcasted on this particular channel within this particular region at this particular time and then you see if

sales or downloads or whatever you want you measure go up um you can enrich that with panel research and then we're talking about you know establishing a brand lift um now for branding i think that works quite well the problem with this kind of measurement i think specifically for for gaming marketers is that it's exactly this that it's optimized for branding uh and it approaches uh tv as an isolated channel now most of the the gaming companies we work with they have you know they want to have a holistic perspective they want to see um how this connected tv stands out compared to my facebook campaign and my my google ads campaign you know things like that um if you're looking for that yes then you have to go to a mobile measurement provider that is positioned to do this it has the right technology

and uh has the right uh partners within the connected tv world awesome well my last question is before we move on to the q a is just a fun one which is what are you currently streaming uh i am um i'm using the zone uh i also particularly like their their their marketing it's it's very smart that it even manages to convince somebody who's working in marketing and uh they have a great way of of uh offering their content and make making sure you don't drown in in uh football um and something i'm very much looking forward to but i guess i'll have to be patient is the uh um the lord of the rings thing that amazon's going to do uh it's the biggest budget ever for a tv series i saw one picture and that looked

mind-blowing and i'm a great tolkien fan since it was i think 12 so that's going to be an important thing amazing well i will pass it over to some of the questions that we've had come through so i'm going to just take a look um so one attendee is wondering can you see games using this ad format to engage more audiences um i'm not quite sure what ad format uh referring to probably the one uh with the with the qr code yes i think so uh i think you can do this and and reach out to people uh if you get the right uh if you get your targeting right but maybe not only in terms of audience but also in terms of context to reach people who would not

so to say um be gamers by nature uh and then you can say that that for the content they're watching they can try an interesting uh related game so yeah i think that could work and um [Music] absolutely awesome uh so we've got another question that says do you feel that these ads are disruptive or are they going to be more effective on younger generations than others which i think is an interesting one i guess it can cut both ways and there will always be disruptive ads uh however i think connectedtv does have the possibility to uh make advertising less disruptive the most elegant example of this i've seen so far was an ad on hulu that appeared uh when you hit the pause button so you're streaming whatever you're streaming and you hit the pause button and then you get an ad and

uh you can make this super contextual uh again in relation to whatever the people are watching um here you can think of well if somebody's watching a fantasy show you can you know immediately throw in in fantasy games there um but i actually saw the opposite it was contextual in a way that it related to the pause because it was an ad for toilet paper now i mean the pause button it's because the bathroom visit and uh that is is i think where it yeah you can make um advertising far less of an interruption of what people are uh actually doing on their devices definitely um so one question we have come in through that says can you see indie companies using ctv or will you need a large platform and backing to get involved which i think is something we've been exploring a bit yeah

that really depends um i think if you go if you look at the so to say that the really big streaming uh companies then it might be too expensive because cbms are relatively high but if you find the right niche and i think some of the dsps might actually be able to help you doing that so these be like like sander um uh then it it can work but it it's something that in all honesty needs to be explored a little bit more because yeah that is um i can't be too sure about that yet definitely still a lot more to explore um so we've got one question about vr uh the question says we've seen shows like vander van der snatch do so well can you see interactive tv entering the realms of vr and having ads being interactive as well um well the ceo of roku

which is the the biggest supplier of connected tv in the us said we're not going to do interactivity for now with one exception advertising so i guess that's a bit of an answer um but i hope so and i actually hope that um [Music] they will change their minds and uh you know show tv shows are going to be uh much more interactive as well and i think that again that will blur the lines between uh gaming and and video streaming at one point yeah absolutely and that kind of goes into this uh other question that we have here which is at what point does ctv crossover into other mediums and platforms does it include mobile and potentially other devices as game consoles which i think you were getting into in our talk as well well i mean if you think about dual screening you know uh then i guess we're very already quite close to the

point where the mobile devices is part of the tv experience uh and if you also consider that we're reaching a point where even your refrigerator is connected to the internet yes then then we're going much more much more integration um maybe at one point you know the some fantasy animal will jump out of your refrigerator or something i don't know but it's it's uh yeah it's absolutely one question that's kind of interesting that um i don't think we have a great answer for yet but i'll ask anyways which is are you working with any tv shows currently that you can talk about and how they are incorporating ctv that's just a really interesting avenue it is um our uh how shall they put this our core client base are mobile app marketers so um but yes we're moving

deeper and deeper into the connected tv space because our clients are demanding this uh and uh i think we're not very far from that point anymore all right well i think i've got most of the questions let me just take another look um uh one question just about if um idfa changes have affected the ctv market at all or is it still a free-for-all market is is the question it's still free for all markets yeah um i mean it's it uh the it depends a bit of the kind of measurement you uh apply but the particularly if you if you uh think about what we what we said about uh direct response uh then we're in in the zone where there is clear client engagement uh and it also

is relatively easy to um build in um a good consent management so awesome um oh we've got another question so what are you really excited about what are you really excited to happen in the next year within the ctv realm i already mentioned lord of the rings so they can't mention that again but that's also more more content-wise um so something i personally look forward to you know in in my professional life is and something i really like to do is is supporting our clients with new ad formats uh you know and i really enjoyed this this pause thing um this this pause ad format i i love it to work with with clients that are experimenting with direct response and

are trying to find inventive ways to to dig into this dual screening phenomenon so and i i think uh i mean burger king already did it which is a great way to know that it's has reached the mainstream uh i think more and more of our clients will be uh wanting to do this as well uh so that's i'm yeah that's what i'm looking uh forward to and um yeah i guess the the sky's the limit as far as that goes so so i think um i uh by next year um i hope to come back and have a big presentation of all the exciting new um ad formats we've been experimenting with in uh 2022. awesome yeah there's definitely a lot of space and time to be innovative so excited about that great stuff thank you very much folks

i'm really i yeah the thought about what we can now do with the connected tv i think is astounding and i'm really excited to hear you guys talk about it i know that um it's this area i've been thinking about since about uh 2000 when we first started working with the open which was sky digital uh experiments back in the early you know naughties and we were trying to look at how you could connect mobile express that something that never happened back then and we'll keep seeing some really interesting experiments and i think you'll reach a point where whether it's an interactive screen that's full size or in our hands it won't matter it's the fact that we're engaging with content in really interesting ways that's the key piece for me exactly great um and uh sarah thank you very much um and uh i'll move on to the next session so thank you all you