Jay Ganesan of Amagi pushes for CTV advertising

New Delhi: Connected TV (CTV) usage in households has increased in recent years. Consumers have been making the transition to CTV from traditional linear TV. Approximately, there were 32 million CTV users in India in 2023 and the number is expected to reach 40 million by 2025, according to a report by VDO.AI. 

The shift has not only transformed how consumers consume content but has also opened up new avenues for brands to engage with their audiences. Jay Ganesan, SVP-APAC, Amagi Corporation, highlighted the evolving landscape of advertising, noting that CTV provides advertisers with enhanced targeting capabilities compared to traditional linear TV. 

“CTV provides better ROI because you can divide your viewers into cohorts based on product viewership. It also collects opt-in data every time a subscriber downloads the app, which makes the advertisements targeted and effective. Different profiles on the app also help advertisers reach a particular audience that they intend to reach,” Ganesan stated. 

Ganesan emphasised the technological advantages of CTV, such as its ability to collect opt-in viewer data, which enables advertisers to tailor ads more effectively. He contrasted this with platforms like YouTube, where ad placement can be in the middle of objectionable content, which makes it unpredictable, potentially compromising brand safety. 

Linear TV usually gets ad revenue before a match is played, irrespective of the sports tournament. However, CTV allows advertisers to fill in slots programmatically or through an auction, which makes it scalable for advertisers. As per Ganesan, it helps advertisers plan their dollars better compared to traditional TV. 

Sports advertising, being popular in India, has made the phenomenon popular. Ganesan stated that while traditional TV advertising works well for some sports due to their structuring, other sports have to get creative, like branded scorecards or branded graphics, among other things. He further added that other advertising offerings are targetable since consumers have individual streams, unlike broadcast streams, which will play one advertisement for all consumers.

However, there are several challenges for CTV advertising. One of the challenges is that ad budgets have still not been optimised for CTV advertising. Advertisers invest the majority of their ad budgets in linear TV, whereas they invest 8–10% in digital platforms such as YouTube or other platforms.  

“A lot of publishers are figuring out CTV advertising as they move from linear to digital since they do not have the right technology, people, or processes in place to benefit from the new monetisation mechanism,” Ganesan added. 

There is a stark difference between how CTV and broadcast operate in terms of programming. CTV requires shorter but more frequent advertising compared to linear TV, which can have 45 minutes of broadcast time and 15 minutes of advertising time. 

Advertisers are still getting used to the newer metrics that are available on CTV since the older metrics of linear TV have been more prominent in the last 15–30 years. While it is getting better, there is a long way to go, opines Ganesan. 

“I expect there is going to be more programming made available for CTV. The content that is being produced today is for broadcast. There are more choices to offer in CTV in terms of camera angles since all consumers have a stream of their own. This gives advertisers more options based on people’s user behaviour patterns,” Ganesan said when asked about CTV advertising’s evolution. 

He further said there is immense potential for personalisation in CTV as the consumer can not only choose what video angle they want to watch from but also what statistics they want to overlay, which can be another avenue for brands to advertise on.