Why Are Advertisers Missing 70% of Where Their Audience Actually Spends Time?

Is Your Video Ad Strategy Failing Because of Outdated “Premium” Content Definitions?

Discover the “Unified Video” framework from Boston Consulting Group, Google, and Omnicom. Learn why traditional ad spend isn’t matching viewer behavior and get a 6-step guide to aligning your budget with the cross-channel reality of modern streaming.

Read the full breakdown below to implement the “Unified Audience Planning” method and stop wasting budget on channels your customers aren’t watching.

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For those in the advertising industry, staying relevant requires connecting with viewers across channels and screens. But despite the fact that people spend much of their day streaming video content, many advertisers are failing to target audiences on the channels they’re actually engaging with. Fortunately, BCG has partnered with Google and Omnicom Media Group (OMG) to help you better engage viewers across channels with a new holistic approach: “unified video.” Learn why you might be struggling to connect to viewers on the right platforms and gain a concise, step-by-step approach to rethinking your strategy and collaborations to change that.

Take-Aways

• Advertisers must engage viewers across channels if they want to remain competitive.
• Boston Consulting Group, Google, and Omnicom Media Group’s six-step approach can help you embrace unified video.
• Kick off your new approach with quick wins and “big priorities,” while keeping an eye on the future.

Summary

Advertisers must engage viewers across channels if they want to remain competitive.

Despite the fact that consumers spend 70% of their screen time streaming digital video, under 50% of advertising spend is going to the channels they actually watch. Boston Consulting Group analytics reveal two main reasons why advertisers are struggling to reach audiences. Firstly, they lack a standardized way, at a granular level, of defining their target audience across channels, and rely only on broad labels, such as age, household income, and gender. Secondly, advertisers make channel decisions relying on subjective definitions of “premium” content environments, which prevents them from connecting to the right audiences.

“The advertising industry faces a challenging imperative: to adapt swiftly as consumers increasingly embrace diverse viewing experiences across multiple screens.”

Boston Consulting Group, Google, and the global agency Omnicom Media Group (OMG) partnered to develop a holistic approach to “unified video,” helping organizations better connect advertising spend to the channels their target audience actually watches, while simplifying decision-making. They identified three imperatives for advertisers hoping to adopt unified video: 1) Advertisers must embrace “unified audience planning,” which requires creating consistent definitions of audiences across channels; 2) They must employ an iterative cycle of experimentation, as they test the effectiveness of their video mix against sales and brand outcomes, ensuring unified measurement and optimization; and 3) They must redefine workflows and processes across the organization.

Boston Consulting Group, Google, and Omnicom Media Group’s six-step approach can help you embrace unified video.

Drawing from interviews of over 90 agency practitioners and 190 advertisers, Boston Consulting Group, Google, and OMG created the following step-by-step approach for advertisers hoping to adopt the unified video approach:

1. Identify one strategic audience — Simplify your planning process and clarify your priorities by focusing on a single strategic audience across all platforms.
2. Choose channels based on standardized qualities — Define inventory guidelines, such as “viewability,” helping you choose channels based on quality, influence, and reach.
3. Connect video to sales and brand outcomes — Don’t just focus on expanding your reach and brand awareness, but rather, optimize your video mix to achieve your desired sales and brand goals, such as creating repeat customers.
4. Experiment at a small scale — Get insights into the potential impact of changes on a broader scale by running in-market tests.
5. Align measured results with planning tools — Use the data insights you receive from publishers, such as Amazon Prime or YouTube, to support you in achieving your targets as you plan content.
6. Redefine ways of working together — Marketers and agency buying teams must rethink their collaboration approaches, establishing clear process guidelines and rethinking roles.

Kick off your new approach with quick wins and “big priorities,” while keeping an eye on the future.

The advertising industry won’t switch to a unified video model overnight, as sustainable change requires aligned collective action from agencies, advertisers, and media partners over time. Pursue the following priorities:

• “No regret actions” — These moves can serve as your starting point, and include: planning campaigns using a singular audience across channels and using standardized criteria to unify audience planning; running tests on upcoming campaigns and identifying the mix shifts you want to test over the next six months to a year to unify optimization and measurement; and ensuring organizational collaboration by identifying an “integrated investment” lead at your agency.
• “Big priorities to take on” — These moves can further help you kick off your new unified approach, and include: conducting research on channel influence; improving the quality of the planning tool inputs and integration of your publisher data; introducing broad cross-channel measurement tools; redefining workflows; and redefining your end-to-end processes to prevent channel silos from emerging when possible.
• “Set course for next frontier” — As you plan your future, consider steps such as testing next-gen attention metrics, such as eye tracking, to boost engagement, and working toward more consistent approaches to collaboration within the industry.

About the Authors

Henry Leon, Trevor Sponseller, and Katie Sinyard are professionals with Boston Consulting Group.