Media Tech Update: Predictions for 2020

“The future of television will be driven by addressability – which is the ability to show specific ads to specific households. New approaches and consortium efforts are emerging (such as Project OAR) with the goal of enabling TV programmers and platforms to deliver more relevant ad experiences within linear and on-demand formats on smart TVs. While it sounds simple enough, the devil’s in the details and challenges of inventory allocation and measurement will need to be figured out. But there is no doubt that advertisers are extremely excited with the possibility of showing different creatives (or brands) based with more precise targeting to connected TV audiences.”

“The focus for 2020 will surround convergence for TV and digital, more specifically, the implementation of true converged measurement, planning and execution across all four screens: linear TV, connected TV, digital video and social video. This will be a huge opportunity for advertisers and broadcasters to bridge the gap between TV and digital that will inevitably lead to increased TV budgets from advertisers across verticals. It also marks an inflection point for agency TV investment and trade desk teams to implement organizational change to break down traditional silos and begin effectively planning for the converged future.”

“2020 is going to be an important year for the TV ecosystem to figure out the way forward to execute the future of TV data platforms for planning, buying and measurement. Formalizing a standardized approach will be the big first step, but defining roles, setting pricing and solidifying contractual agreements between TV platforms, networks and manufacturers will need to be a priority as we scale addressable TV and audience-based and inch closer to the reality of cross-platform TV/video measurement.”

“The direct to consumer (DTC) market is exploding. As rights-holders look to monetize their own content, and consumers move further away from going directly to broadcasters, we’ll see increased investment in direct to consumer platforms in 2020. The cost of launching a platform is a fraction of what it used to be, also prompting this move. As consumers expect video content to be delivered immediately with the rise in ultra-fast internet and high-definition devices that can produce high quality content, the DTC model will continue to gain popularity as demand for content soars. Today, every sector has examples of DTC content. Take the sports industry for example – in a recent survey we did, nearly half of sports industry executives said they have launched or will launch a DTC streaming platform.”

“In the current era of peak TV, with major platforms offering a glut of content to navigate through, a change in consumption patterns is gaining momentum.  I believe we’ll see more and more millennials and post-millennials gravitate towards and embrace niche content services with which they more easily identify – especially those that cater more directly to their personal passions.”

– David L. Chu , President, Digital Media Rights

“One of the biggest challenges that the OTT market faces, which will continue to intensify into next year, is inventory fragmentation. The continued proliferation of new ad-supported streaming services, including the growth of entirely new cohorts of market participants, creates a challenging environment for buyers, particularly around managing key areas like measurement, frequency, unified reporting, inventory rights, and a scalable workflow.”

“The expansion of the streaming ecosystem will drive significantly increased consumption by ‘Power Users,’ putting more and more pressure on broadband infrastructures. Based on the data generated by our solutions, we expect more than 8% of all broadband subscribers to be 1TB power users by the end of 2020, and that the percentage of subscribers consuming more than 2TB of data will exceed 1% for the first time.”

– Mark Trudeau, CEO and Founder, OpenVault

“ AR capabilities are expanding to many new platforms, and I expect that they will proliferate further with mass 5G adoption. As AR becomes mainstream, it will continue to evolve how we shop. If I see a dress I like on a red carpet on my favorite celebrity, I will be able to try it on virtually at my home immediately and then buy it or another like it at a lower price point with a single click. AR is well suited to amplify shoppable video content, which in turn is poised to change the way we experience both content and advertising. By continuing to expand the ways that content can be monetized beyond ads, OTT services will now have new, diversified sources of revenue. “

“The top reasons buyers look to advanced TV are delivering hard-to-reach audiences, reducing wasted impressions and improving cost efficiency. But for 2020, one of the most important benefits will be the ability to capture the ever-growing cable-cutters and millennials through premium supply with the precision of digital. With automatic content recognition (ACR) and retargeting capabilities, advanced TV offers a wealth of advantages never before available through linear — such as custom creative, precision targeting, attribution and measurement. Advertisers will have to master connected TV to stay afloat, and we’ll see more and more adopting a strategy for the medium next year.” – Devin Fallon, VP, Media Insights & Analytics, Tremor Video

“2020 will be all about audience reaggregation. Networks have watched as their viewers have splintered across various services and devices, which has frankly made multiscreen monetization a struggle for everyone. As more technical and backend operations move to the cloud next year, we’ll finally see these audience walls start to really break down, revealing a more consolidated view that supports more effective decision making that will ultimately drive new revenues.”

“Marketers should be building not just great video stories, but great interactive experiences within video advertising units themselves in 2020. Companies should create customer journeys which move a prospective buyer through a series of storytelling videos, interactive questions and engaging experiences which invite a sense of play.”

“We expect to see continued growth as live TV streaming mutually benefits the consumer, the distributor and the advertiser. Consumers are no longer beholden to 2 year contracts and $150/month cable bills and advertisers can now address scaled audiences over the top.  Brands are becoming significantly more sophisticated with addressable, attribution and programmatic buying within Connected TV, which is a strong indicator of continuing and increasing adoption in 2020.”

“With 75% of consumers expecting companies to use new technologies to create better experiences, enterprises will use this opportunity to create interactive and immersive video content. In 2020, we will see companies enticing users with a complex video message that activates a user’s perception by engaging them to play an active role in their learning.”

“OTT/TV advertising is going to play a major role in the 2020 elections. From precision targeting to versioning and frequency management, OTT will allow candidates to reach targeted individuals versus the broader audience that only linear advertising provides.”

“The growing availability of traditional media in digital buying platforms, coupled with location-based attribution and geo-fencing, is emulsifying what once was the oil and water of traditional and digital media. The increased ability to collaborate across more interconnected teams and to plan, deploy and measure traditional and mixed media formats (DOOH, Audio and CTV/OTT) within the same platforms as video, display, search and social is allowing for a fresh wave of holistic thinking around media planning.”

“In 2020, you’ll likely see advertisers insourcing data-driven linear (DDL) TV analytics. With CCPA even more stringent than GDPR, it’s important to note what happened in Europe during the rollout of their consumer privacy regulations: third-party data dried up. Similarly, I expect that many U.S. publishers and brands will prefer to play it safe as California puts in motion privacy regulations that set the stage for similar policies nationwide. Both from a technical compliance and from a PR perspective, advertisers will find it easier to stop sharing high-quality audience and customer data with third-party licensing pools, opting to connect the dots themselves. And, in the process, they’ll find that they can do it even better.”

“While the short attention spans demanded in the mobile environment won’t go away, the growth of streaming television will create a welcomed new home to longer form ad content. The craft of television ads combined with the personalization of digital media will demand best-in-class creators fueled by best-in-class tech.”

“Match rates will continue to decrease, which will lead to an increased investment into the walled gardens instead of display and video across the web.”
– Adam Schenkel, SVP of Global Commercial Development. GumGum

“2020 is going to be an exciting year for consumers faced with a plethora of options for OTT streamed video content and price wars amongst the providers. Another beneficiary will be brands with the opening up of significant amounts of addressable online video inventory for data-driven advertising.”

“1: Apple will have growing pains as it builds both a high end TV distribution and TV content creation business simultaneously – expensive, deep stories are a risky hits business. 2: Comcast will make strong distribution and content moves and they will continue to impact OTT media players similar to their effect on Roku. And 3: The election will expose major issues with Facebook and micro targeted advertising in general.”

“2020 will see a continuation of the retail revolution. Smart brands can look outside of the retail sector for innovation – McDonalds, and automotive brands led the way in 2019 by creating personalized, omnichannel experiences that many traditional retail brands would be smart to emulate.”

– Oz Etzioni, CEO, Clinch 

“Consumers are once again shifting their media consumption to streaming audio and gaming as smart speakers, podcasts and gaming consoles are making it easier for consumers to access content. Streaming audio and gaming provide advertisers a huge opportunity to reach a wide audience of consumers including GenZ’ers, millennials and boomers to place targeted relevant ads as they begin to navigate the new digital audio world.”

–  Andre Swanson, CEO and Founder of Tru Optik 

“The sector is heading back to basics. Consolidation and M&A will continue to be big adtech trends in 2020. Advertisers and media companies are beginning to understand that they need a full stack solution to enable more efficient markets, combat ad fraud,  and clean up their supply path ad buying and selling process.”

– Peter Bordes, CEO, Kubient

“Brands can expect to be held accountable in the same way they were in 2019. The next generation of buyers – Gen Z – is more creative, and mobile-driven than any other generation- brands can harness their loyalty, or lose it if they don’t have the values to back up their messaging.”

– Bill Drolet, VP of Sales, Brainly 

“As Traditional/Linear TV continues to adopt digital video capabilities (e.g., targeting and measurement), and as video streaming services grow rapidly, we predict that OTT/CTV will be the destination where digital and linear TV meet. IAB Tech Lab has been working on standards (VAST4, OpenRTB, taxonomies, OTT IFA guidelines) that can support a smooth transition to OTT/CTV. In addition, Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) is becoming the technology of choice for advertising on OTT/CTV platforms. We predict  that SSAI will expand to the rest of video advertising over the next few years because of its benefits – better UX, better privacy controls, ad blocker safe – which are already available on OTT/CTV. Again, standards such as VAST4 have been built with this future in mind.”

“The most used word in 2020 will be ‘partnership.’ Brands and publishers are starting to come around to the notion that no one can afford to be an island and expect to compete. Publishers will begin to see each other as collaborators, whose connected and combined datasets can generate a greater return for their clients and themselves. The same will be true of brands and a growing openness to not just one partner but a range of partners who can collaborate and connect easily. One real example of this partnership-palooza will be around the notion of a 360 view of the consumer. In order to achieve that holistic view, you need to work with others who can round out what you know about your customers and fill in the gaps of what you don’t know because of business limitations or consumer relationships.”

“We tend to think of video in terms of entertainment, but what’s tantalizing to me is how cable can harness video for life-enhancing and life-saving services. In 2020 you’ll see the industry launch initiatives that use video to support TeleHealth and Aging in Place capabilities that enable consumers to stay in their homes longer, as well as breakthrough areas like real-time gaming and eSports – all using the 10G platform.”

– Mark Dzuban, President and CEO, SCTE•ISBE

“ Consumers have seemingly limitless options when it comes to video content and it’s only getting more competitive. In order to break through the noise and deliver better value to audiences, media brands must adapt to deliver personalized coverage in real-time. Deeper integrations that lead to curated and customized watchlists, notifications, and polling all while watching live content will create stronger participation and thus brand loyalty. The time is right for content creators to embrace more personalized and engaging TV/OTT formats to foster deeper connections with audiences.”

“A ton has been written this past year about how DTCs were leaving Facebook because of rising prices to advertise on the platform. However, DTCs are famous for being on the cutting edge of marketing. Soon, more traditional and less flexible marketers will soon see that DTCs were the canary in the coal mine. Expect budgets from Automotive, CPGs, political advertising, etc.  to shift more and more from Facebook which will, ironically, drive down the cost of advertising on Facebook.”

“Because of the streaming revolution, expect streaming TV ad inventory to become an advertiser’s best friend – finally true addressability, accurate targeting, and exact understanding of who is watching, what exactly is being watched, and what ads are actually being viewed (although expect many technology snafus along the way). The winners here will be the media companies who know how to sell this new world and the advertisers and agencies who can embrace deals that aren’t simply Nielsen rating-based transactions.”

“With advertising channels increasingly going digital and investments in video and social on the rise, in 2020 programmatic spending will inevitably increase. The vast majority of display dollars will be transacted programmatically and time consuming manual tasks such as insertion orders will continue to improve and be more automated. Agencies too, looking to increase efficiency, will continue to favor programmatic-based buying.”

“The digital transformation of traditional local media and advertising will accelerate in 2020, especially as consumers continue the shift to OTT. Local advertising line item budgets are often smaller, consequently local advertisers are more sensitive to waste, whether that be frequency of the same ad, reaching the wrong audience, or reaching people too far away from their desired location. Local advertisers are often not as digitally sophisticated as national brands and therefore require automated optimization and real-time reporting as well as better measurement and attribution of desired outcomes such as how many people visited my location after seeing the ad. In 2020 we will see more people watching ad-supported OTT and a consequent increase in local ad dollars flowing to OTT publishers!”