In just the last few decades, the world of TV advertising has grown and evolved at an unprecedented rate. Marketers are no longer limited to pushing their brands and products on linear television channels via blanket ads. All sorts of options are available for targeting consumers and increasing brand awareness these days, and one of the most powerful is addressable TV.
What Is Addressable TV?
Addressable TV advertising allows brands to target specific households of viewers with tailored messages, even if they are watching the same programming, typically through traditional cable or satellite TV systems.
Addressable – Tapping live, local inventory from cable operators and other distributors, marketers can deliver specific ads reaching targeted households based on income, ethnicity and progeny, rooted in set-top-box data. This market encompasses about 50 million homes, with DirecTV, Dish, Cablevision, Comcast, AT&T U-verse and Verizon FiOS participating to varying degrees. Typically the set-top-box owners do not allow for the reselling of their addressable inventory.
How Addressable TV Advertising Works
Addressable TV advertising works by leveraging data analytics and ad delivery software to deliver targeted ads to specific households or individuals. Unlike traditional TV ads, which broadcast the same content to all viewers watching a particular program, addressable TV allows you to segment audiences based on various factors, such as their behavior, geographical location, and demographics.
Using data from set-top boxes, smart TVs, or streaming devices, marketers can identify the households they want to target and deliver relevant content to them. This kind of precision allows brands to connect with consumers who have a strong likelihood of converting into customers
What Is Linear TV?
Linear TV refers to the traditional model of television broadcasting, by which programs are aired in real-time according to a fixed schedule. Linear TV channels, such as network or cable stations, broadcast the same content to all viewers simultaneously, including commercials during breaks.
Linear - A form of television programming distributed according to pre-set schedules via persistent channels and accessed by activating receivers on qualified devices (most commonly TV sets). The most common forms of distribution are:
- broadcast: analog and/or digital signals sent from stations and received directly via antennas on TV sets.
- satellite: analog and/or digital signals are relayed via satellite to individual consumer receiving dishes and decoded for connected TV sets (sometimes by external set-top boxes).
- cable: wired terrestrial lines, such as fiber optic cables that carry digital signals to digital box receivers connected to TV sets (known as set-top boxes).
Traditionally, linear programming schedules required consumers to be available during certain time slots to catch particular programs as they aired (known as appointment viewing). Today, linear programming is inclusive of programming recorded via DVR and viewed at consumers’ leisure, plus the owned and operated on-demand apps of MVPDs.