In conversation with Siddharth Dabhade – MD, MiQ – India, SAARC, China
Siddharth Dabhade is the Managing Director at MIQ. His expertise lies in team building, customer success, revenue growth and P&L management. In his current role, Siddharth looks after India and SAARC (South Asia) countries’ business for MiQ.
Agency Reporter- Connected TV advertising is rapidly growing in adoption. How does CTV work and what are the factors responsible for its growth as an advertising medium?
Siddharth Dabhade– Connected TV (CTV), a TV that is connected to the internet, is growing very rapidly in India. Connected TV includes smart TVs and TVs that are connected to OTT devices like streaming sticks, game consoles, and new age DTH boxes. In India, 20 million households representing 80 million users have connected TVs at home, it is projected to grow 4x to reach approximately 80 million households (320 million users) by 2025, which makes advertising on Connected TV the next big opportunity for Indian brands and advertisers to reach a vast pool of young, urban audiences with high purchasing power.
CTV combines the power of traditional TV advertising with the precision of programmatic, making it a more viable option for advertisers. Advertising in CTVS provides more targeted reach and a better View Through Rate (VTR) and a 100% viewability rate. Unlike traditional television, it has a vast array of unique advertising options and offers the scope to experiment with the kind of advertising one wants to put out. The advertisers also get to backlink their products to these ads, which in the future could support content-commerce well.
Agency Reporter- India, with its vast population and increasing internet penetration, is a lucrative market for CTV. What is the current scenario surrounding CTVs in India and the scope of growth?
Siddharth Dabhade– India has about 200 million TV households representing 15 million users who have connected TVs at home. Smart TVs share in overall TV shipments in India reached 84% in 2021, compared to just 67% in 2020 which indicates that more people are cutting the cord in India.
There is also an explosion of OTT subscriptions (which saw the OTT subscriber base in India grow over 5 times in size over the 3 years from 14 million subscribers in 2018 to 80 million in 2021 points) to the emerging opportunity in the TV space as brands are looking to venture into the relatively unexplored territory.
A key growth driver is an explosion in the production and consumption of OTT content in all major languages and media markets in India:
- The shifting consumer preferences toward online content because of increasing internet penetration and lower cost of data in India is providing an impetus to the market growth.
- India has lower data/internet costs, increasing internet penetration and a boom in smart TV sales owing to competitive pricing which is fueling the CTV market.
- Top OTT content players, such as Disney Hotstar, Voot, Zee5, Sony Liv, and several other streaming services, are increasing their focus on creating local content in India
Agency Reporter- With premium content, and support from consumers and advertisers, CTVs are expected to witness exponential growth. However, there are a few challenges that are lingering in this area. Could you please shed some light on the key challenges that advertisers in the CTV space currently face?
Siddharth Dabhade– The OTT/CTV space is quickly evolving. It can be difficult for some companies to keep up at first with all the changes. For marketers, adopting a more omnichannel spend strategy that includes CTV (connected TV) and video placements are a fantastic way to reach a vast pool of young, urban audiences with high purchasing power.
Cost, measurement, and reach are the focus for CTV campaigns. But with growing competition in the space and not much to differentiate offerings, it makes sense that marketers might look for partners providing value-added services, like creative consultancy, analytics support, and help with campaign planning through pre-flight intelligence and competitor mapping. Folding CTV into already existing media plans is a priority for one in three marketers in 2022.
As the CTV tech stack improves, we would be able to measure cross-device conversions and apply very granular targeting criteria on CTV. With time, we also see publishers adopting IFA as an identifier which would improve the supply chain dramatically.
MiQ Advanced TV solution gives you single-point access to all your programmatic buys with a unified approach to frequency and reach management. Rather than running in silos, all programmatic activity is run from a single platform that allows for coherent activation
Agency Reporter- As consumer behavior and usage habits continue to evolve at lightning speed, what does the future of CTVs look like?
Siddharth Dabhade– The pandemic brought about significant changes in consumer habits in India. 4 in 10 consumers spent more time researching before making a purchase, brand loyalties were severely tested and consumers adopted hybrid shopping behaviors (online and offline journeys). Not only this, but the consumer journey online also became significantly more disparate compared to pre-pandemic behaviors. And while the financial effects of the pandemic are diminishing, some of the alternate consumer habits are here to stay. Data savvy marketers are looking at this as an opportunity to reach new audiences and maintain an existing loyal customer base by connecting the plethora of cross channels data signals at their disposal and developing a deeper understanding of their target audiences.
The roadmap for the future will have a mix of consumers with different habits, many consumers would be willing to pay monthly subscriptions for streaming services like Netflix, AppleTV+, Amazon Prime Video, etc., which we call SVOD (subscription video on demand). But many would be comfortable with ad-supported video on demand (AVOD), which are funded by advertising such as YouTube and Free ad-supported television (FAST) – streaming services that are free to the consumer and ad-supported. FAST platforms offer a combination of linear and on-demand programming such as Samsung TV Plus.
As audiences shift consideration to ad-supported streaming services, brands will have to refine their strategies for fast-evolving opportunities to capitalize on the growth and evolution of CTV in India. We see different subscription models and growth across categories; thus we can expect many smaller brands to take advantage of the Connected TV advertising, which was once ruled by ‘tier one’ media and entertainment brands as new, innovative solutions continue to make the TV landscape less fragmented, making developing a TV app more affordable for smaller brands to break into the market and serve more niche interests.
Agency Reporter- Talking about the scope of CTV, MiQ has recently partnered with Samsung Ads’ DSP to strengthen the reach of its solutions and video campaigns across Samsung’s device ecosystem. How will the partnership benefit advertisers, especially at this time when the digital ecosystem is preparing for a cookieless world?
Siddharth Dabhade– MiQ has a wealth of experience in running global CTV campaigns and has all the capabilities brands need to widen their reach, build audiences, and manage frequency across devices. MiQ Advanced TV solution gives you single-point access to all your programmatic buys with a unified approach to frequency and reach management. Rather than running in silos, all programmatic activity is run from a single platform that allows for coherent activation
We have recently partnered with Samsung Ads DSP (demand-side platform) to bolster the reach of our solutions and video campaigns across Samsung’s device ecosystem. Through this partnership, brands and advertisers would have access to premium CTV inventory, as well as access to targeted audiences across Samsung TVs. The partnership is likely to help brands and marketers to increase their brand salience. In the coming days, MiQ will target more consumers with the content and device data of Samsung.
Advertisers working with MiQ can target audiences against more data-driven insights through programmatic channels. The partnership comes at a time when digital media prepares to move away from cookie-based targeting. Advertisers using digital media will have to make serious changes to their targeting strategies. With MiQ’s solutions, managing the reach and the right frequency range can be done seamlessly. Samsung can maximize its reach for a given target audience. This partnership allows MiQ to deterministically reach interest-based audiences as well as Premium video inventory on Samsung TV Plus. Advertisers can understand and manage the campaign reach and frequency across linear TV and connected TV (CTV).
The power of the Samsung Ads platform is available hands-on to programmatic traders, with direct access to Samsung Ads proprietary data, audiences, and inventory across 4.6MM households. Programmatic traders can now holistically manage the reach and frequency of their video campaigns across linear TV, CTV, and mobile/desktop, all in one platform.
Agency Reporter- What are the most effective CTV ad formats that publishers and marketers can experiment with to build more engaging connections with their consumers?
Siddharth Dabhade– Connected TV advertising is an effective way to reach your audience. These are more targeted, measurable, cost-friendly, and on-trend with consumer behavior than linear TV advertisements.
There are four main types of connected TV ads.
- Instream Video: In-stream video ads are unskippable ads usually a duration of 15- to 30-second that play before or during the program. These are smart and cost-effective ways of advertising.
- Display/ Native Inventory – The Display/Native inventory is a homepage and banner inventory. MiQ has some exclusive access to these premium inventories and is constantly curating first and third-party deals for CTV inventory to give brands the best flexibility in terms of reach, quality, brand safety, context and price depending on your campaign goals.
- Another popular choice is Interactive Pre-Roll ads, they are like in-stream video ads, and they allow the viewer to click through to the brand’s landing page. Suppose if you want to advertise a movie’s ticket, through this kind of ad, one can bring the viewer to a page where they could book a ticket.
- Lastly, another type of advertising is Home Screen Placement ads, these are motionless ads that can be seen on the home screen. They’re typical with a short image and a button with ‘learn more
Ad technology and format innovations will drive momentum for CTV. Interactive/ actionable ads will be useful to drive conversions and unlock opportunities for sponsorships by brands, which can creatively leverage interactivity for higher engagement. In India, OTT players are already exploring new use cases in this direction, amping up interactivity with polls and live voting, for instance.
Agency Reporter- CTVs provide an entirely new canvas for marketers with new content capabilities. What are some best practices that marketers can employ to optimize their CTV campaigns?
Siddharth Dabhade– In today’s privacy-first advertising landscape, CTV creates a path for advertisers to find the right audience through targeting options using trusted first-party data with the same granularity as digital advertising, which leads to benefits like targeting of precise high-value audiences, omnichannel planning, and measurement. Here are some of the best practices marketers can employ to optimize their CTV campaigns:
- Format your ad for the best viewing experience -consider the nuances of the medium and the context of the viewer. While CTV ad viewers will be viewing your ad on their TV at home, streaming devices can also include laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. It’s generally advised to keep your CTV ads short and to the point — between 15 and 30 seconds.
- Get the creatives right -CTV is a visual medium, so try to grab your viewer’s attention with eye-catching visuals and a rich color palette. Once you have the viewer’s attention, clearly show them where to go for more information by displaying your logo and URL, as well as the logo of the app stores where they can download your app.
- Test and target – CTV is interactive, testable, and real-time, with the ability to iterate, segment audiences, and retarget viewers. Everything about the ad can be tracked, measured, and improved. Plan multiple versions of your creative so you can run A/B tests and generate learnings about what resonates with your targets.
- Avoid oversaturation by setting a frequency cap on your supply-side platform (SSP)
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