Connected TV and Direct-To-Consumer Brands

May 30, 2019

About a month ago, Telaria, a video advertising software company, partnered with Hulu and published a study detailing how Connected TV (CTV) has become “a key channel for Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) brands to increase reach and drive brand awareness.”

This is a big deal.

As cord cutting becomes more prevalent, more and more people consume a majority of their television programming through streaming platforms. According to the study, DTC shoppers spend 70% more time streaming TV each week than using social media—that’s 13 hours per week on CTV platforms. The study also found that shoppers who utilize both CTV and traditional TV programming are twice as likely to make a purchase after being exposed to an ad compared to those who only watch traditional TV, which makes sense since Connected TV gives brands the ability to target their audience more meticulously, whether it be through a first-party retargeting list or third-party attributes.

This means a couple things… It does not mean that you should take your social media spend and redirect the budget to CTV, but you should certainly think about including it in your media strategy. Advertising on CTV combines the power of television advertising with the intricacies of a digital campaign, like audience segments, attribution, and programmatic buys.

In further support of CTV, Telaria and Hulu also found that 82% of active shoppers take some type of action after seeing a DTC brand’s ad on CTV. Among those, about half (51%) visited the website and just under half (48%) searched for the brand online. With this kind of performance from Connected TV, we can stop thinking of television advertising as strictly an awareness play and measuring success based off of ratings and views. We are now in the position to invoke immediate, measurable action as users are ready to jump on their smartphone and engage with the brand before the ad can even finish. 

If you are a direct-to-consumer brand, CTV is the place to be. It is more cost-effective than traditional TV, highly-targeted, and based on the above data, an extremely engaged channel. Want to know more about Connected TV? Give us a call.