Streaming TV is an advertising essential. Global impression volume grows every year, as brands aim to reach engaged audiences for measurable campaign performance at scale.
Despite its appeal, however, the streaming TV industry has evolved with challenges that keep advertisers from taking full advantage of its potential. DV’s groundbreaking new Authentic Streaming TV™ solution is designed to address these challenges.
With the annual negotiation season upon us, here’s a closer look at how we’re solving a major obstacle to media planning: The lack of control over which specific shows and movies run your ads.
It’s Marketing 101: To reach the audiences a brand hopes for, ads must appear in content those audiences find relevant. This is not an easy goal to accomplish in streaming TV. Platforms tightly guard their content catalogs and upcoming releases as competitive intelligence. Content libraries are constantly in flux as new content is added and old licenses expire. In addition, genre taxonomies can differ by platform; what one calls “Horror,” another might call “Slasher.”
That leaves advertisers with limited ways to find the content they’re looking for: broad demographic information; the choice of general content types, such as comedies or dramas; and “Do Not Air” lists of content to be avoided.
The rest is an expensive guessing game. Planners can’t always see specific genres, maturity ratings, premiere dates or viewer approval scores. “Drama” might mean a buzzy new prestige series or a catalog classic from 10 years ago. “Parents aged 25-45” could be watching a wholesome sitcom with the family, or an edgy thriller once the kids are in bed.
Multimillion-dollar Upfront deals offer more control, but even then, some ads might not appear in the exact inventory planners asked for. Planners commit budget months in advance and can’t optimize their campaigns later.
In January, we launched a unique tool to address the content transparency challenge: DV's content discovery dashboard. Accessible via our first-of-its-kind DV Authentic Streaming TV™ solution, the dashboard includes comprehensive program-level intelligence delivered through DV’s licensing of IMDb data.
Planners can use the dashboard’s AI assistant to generate lists of streaming content based on prompts such as, “I want to avoid violent content and gore, unless it appears in tasteful or historic contexts.” They can then negotiate for or apply avoidance settings to specific shows and movies based on information including:
Granular genres, such as “crime drama” and “romantic comedy”
Premiere date
Maturity rating
Viewer approval score
The information gleaned from DV’s content discovery dashboard is ideal for use in Upfront negotiations and PMP (private marketplace) deal evaluation.
The benefits of program-level transparency extend well beyond pre-bid avoidance and alignment. Last month, Spectrum Reach®, the advertising sales business of Charter Communications, Inc., became the first DV partner to commit to providing show-level transparency for post-bid reporting. We’ll blog on this subject in the coming weeks.
Download the DV Authentic Streaming TV fact sheet for advertisers.
Learn about DV’s Certified Transparent Streaming program for streaming TV platforms.
Contact a DV representative.