Personalization and CTV: Advertisers Close in on the Holy Grail

In a perfect world, marketers would love to have one-to-one conversations with their customers and prospects. The problem, of course, is that we don’t live in a perfect world. It’s simply impossible to have these one-to-one interactions at scale. 

So historically, advertisers have used available media — print, radio, television — to mass market their messaging and have one-to-many conversations with consumers. The internet has made engaging in personalized, one-to-one conversations, or at least the ability to approximate them based on data, to be a real possibility.

Today, as TV hurtles toward its 100% digital and connected TV (CTV) future, the kind of personalized, one-to-one advertising that was pioneered on the internet is now migrating to television. Because of this shift, interactive, personalized ads are poised to transform TV advertising. 

Marketing's Holy Grail

Despite the rise of CTV, too many advertisers prioritize running their campaigns on traditional linear TV. These advertisers have not embraced CTV and the one-to-one conversations it can facilitate — which are advertising’s “Holy Grail,” according to Blair Robertson, Head of Product Strategy, Innovid. 

Interactive ads enabled by CTV allow advertisers to engage viewers in a range of different ways: surveys, trivia questions, even direct purchases. Ultimately, Innovid data shows that consumers spend an average of 92 extra seconds engaging with interactive video advertising.

Mazda Goes Interactive

A recent Mazda ad, created with Innovid technology and running on CTV, demonstrates how interactive advertising can generate one-to-one conversations with potential customers — at scale. Delivered via connected TV, this Mazda ad allows the viewer to stop the video from playing and explore a variety of vehicles in the auto makers’ lineup. Additionally, the viewer can convert directly within the ad by scheduling a test drive within the creative via a QR code. That’s as close to a one-to-one interaction as advertising can create. 

How Data Facilitates Personalized Advertising 

In this data-driven age, advertisers can deliver personalized experiences to their audiences, especially via CTV. Using data — such as weather, time of day, and geolocation — advertisers can make sure potential customers are seeing ads that are relevant to them. 

“We can vary (video advertisements) based on the weather, based on the time of day; increasingly based on first-party data, such as your existing catalog or CRM data; or third-party data, such as retail data,” Robertson said. 

This kind of data-driven advertising helps brands and potential customers; it also helps publishers. “Think about if you (as a publisher) are sending an ad for a minivan or ad for a pickup truck,” Matt Barnes, VP-Programmatic Sales, The Walt Disney Co., said. “That user deserves the right creative. And that’s the promise of our partnership with Innovid and the advancements in programmatic. It allows us to double-click into what is the right ad for the right person.” 

The Power of Dynamic Creative Optimization

To take full advantage of data, advertisers are using dynamic creative optimization (DCO) — which enables personalization at scale by allowing brands and agencies to create modular versions of their advertisements to ensure that the right message reaches the right prospect. “With DCO … most clients are starting with versioning, and the way we talk to them is, listen, if two ads are better than one, you keep building on that,” said Bryan Simkins, Global EVP-Creative Media Solutions, Publicis. 

Innovid Enables Personalization

The Innovid platform — which includes tools like our Composer Suite and features like Instant Optimization — enables advertisers to make data-driven personalization a reality. “We’re seeing platforms like Innovid become the decision engine,” said Bryan Simkins, Global EVP-Creative Media Solutions, Publicis.

Using Innovid’s platforms, advertisers can effortlessly create tens, hundreds, ane even thousands of variations of creative to permit personalization at scale. “We also automatically create and render out the data feeds that are connected to those creative frameworks to generate mass versions of creative,” said Innovid’s Mouradian. “And this is all happening in software. It’s all happening within the platform itself.” 

As advertisers continue their shift in spending from linear TV to CTV, expect ads to become increasingly more personalized — and increasingly more effective.  

Learn more about how Innovid can help you personalize your advertising.