98% of UK Brands Satisfied With Performance Of Their CTV Campaigns
We’ve all seen the headlines stating that CTV (Connected TV) viewership is on the rise. However, most of us knew that even before the trade press began reporting on it, just from the amount of time we’ve spent in front of our TV sets over the past year.
Many of us initially saw lockdown as an opportunity to read through all those books we’ve been putting off, to finally learn how to play an instrument, or to fix all those half-finished DIY projects around the house. However, for most of us, the reality was that rather than funnelling our spare time into new ventures, we sought comfort from things that had previously brought us joy. For many Brits, this was scrolling social media feeds, playing video games and binging TV shows and movies.
A survey we ran last year during the first lockdown in the UK showed that increased time in the home meant more time spent online across all devices. The results found that 54% of UK consumers spent more time watching CTV content since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Why CTV investment continues to grow
CTV viewership has been growing at a rapid rate and is predicted to continue throughout 2021. To understand how brands and agencies are capitalising on this trend, we conducted a study focussing on how CTV is being used today and key areas for development.
One of the most intriguing stats to come out of this research was that 98% of brands said they were satisfied with the performance of CTV campaigns. This is staggering and a massive win for both CTV publishers and the platforms and agencies working with this supply.
It’s no surprise then that 77% of brands also said they would continue to invest more in CTV advertising in the next 12 months. What was surprising, though, is that UK brands and agencies came back with a variety of reasons as to why they would continue to invest.
Agencies said they buy CTV because of its cost-efficiency (52%), the ability to measure and attribute performance (48%), and because it’s effective for brand campaigns and meets campaign goals (38%).
In contrast, more than half (52%) of brands cite audience targeting as a reason to invest. This is followed by effective branding (43%) and because CTV meets campaign goals (43%).
Shifting to a CTV-first world
Although there is still a place for linear TV in the UK, especially when it comes to sports games, weekly soaps, and live news broadcasts (Boris Johnson’s lockdown announcement was one of the most-watched TV events in the UK, amassing 27.1M views), more and more Brits are heading to streaming channels instead of their live TV guide.
According to The Guardian, the number of subscribers to streaming services in the UK is now double that of those signed up to traditional pay-TV providers such as Sky, BT and Virgin Media.
CTV is also quickly becoming a preference for UK brands. When asked, 67% of them said CTV is a more effective channel compared to linear TV, with one AV Product Director saying, “we can establish targeting mechanisms that weren’t available before… it’s also critical for incremental reach”.
The research also found that audience-based targeting is slightly more popular among UK brands and agencies than contextual targeting. This is because CTV is used to reach incremental audiences and closely mirrors digital video advertising, which is commonly activated using audience targeting. This legacy is being transferred to CTV.
To learn more about how UK brands and agencies are working with CTV, click here to download the findings from our latest survey, and if you’d like a more in-depth walk-through of the results, please email marketing@unrulygroup.com.
