To effectively capture consumer attention, marketers must understand the ever-changing media landscape. Leverage these insights to optimize your ads for the modern TV consumer.
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As internet speed and viewing options continue to increase, more consumers are opting for online over-the-top (OTT) streaming services. One result of this is that viewers are consuming media in more contexts: on the-go, at home, alone, with company, and at all hours of the day. These different contexts directly affect how, where, and whether viewers see ads. Smart brands see this shift in how viewers consume media as an opportunity to tailor their marketing campaigns to optimize viewer impact.
The first step in this process is to recognize and activate on the crucial role cultural background plays when it comes to online streaming. We’ve identified six places where culture shows up that brands can leverage: content, consumer behavior, devices, advertising, language, and price.
One of the key ways that consumers are looking to customize their experience—especially Hispanic and Black viewers—is by opting out of ads, even if this requires payment! Given consumer interest and the increasingly available option for consumers to opt out of ads, brands need to understand what sort of advertising consumers find engaging and are willing to watch.
So, what type of ads do people prefer?
In addition to the content of the ads themselves, we see from the data below that almost half of all consumers, especially Black and Hispanic viewers, simply want the option to choose which ads they watch. Consumers have control over so many other aspects of their media-streaming experience that now active ad choice is becoming a desire and even an expectation.
Not only do consumers want to choose the ads they watch, they also have strong preferences around how they experience ads. When choosing their optimal ad breaks, most consumers prefer fewer but longer breaks so that their viewing is interrupted less often.
Within those longer breaks, Black and White consumers lean towards fewer and longer ad spots which indicates a desire for deeper narratives. On the other hand, Asian and Bicultural Hispanic viewers more heavily favor a host of shorter ads that take place consecutively during longer breaks. This may reflect a preference for fresh, eye-catching visuals over ad plot development.
The outlier here is Unacculturated Hispanic viewers, who prefer many short ads that happen during shorter, more frequent breaks. This group’s strikingly different preference merits a targeted advertising approach to keep them engaged.
Executional Strategies
In order to excel in this competitive advertising space, brands need to take notice of consumer demands and rise to the occasion! The following executional strategies illustrate emerging ad trends in digital media that align with consumer interests.
The first is a direction towards non-disruptive advertising formats that don’t distract the viewer from the content they’re enjoying. The underlying motivation here is to improve the advertising experience for viewers. Recent developments in this area include “pause ads” and “binge ads.”
Binge ads work well across the market by playing into consumer behavior trends that already exist. As you might expect, binge watching is popular for pretty much everyone. More than two-thirds of each segment—except for Asian consumers—tune in for long spans at a time and will likely appreciate these relevant binge ads.
Secondly, a push towards interactive user experiences is bringing innovations like choice-based ads and shoppable ads.
As you can see, there are many distinct nuances in media preferences and behaviors across cultural segments. Knowing your audience will help you meet them where they’re at. When you’re strategizing for your next media advertising campaign, keep these key takeaways in mind:
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