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The cool kids are taking the stage. Today marks the start of the four-day Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) NewFronts, where platforms like Roku, Amazon, and YouTube try to convince media buyers why marketers should throw ad $$ their way. Later this month, the big TV networks will do the same dance at the upfronts.
It shouldn’t be too hard a sell. Even though it still reaches millions of people, linear TV viewership slips every year. And TV ratings have been particularly bad over the past year, partly due to the pandemic and its effects on things like production. Streamers, on the other hand, did well in 2020.
So who will be at the NewFronts?
- It’s Amazon’s first time at the rodeo. So far, it’s announced more inventory for its Fire TV, including “sponsored content rows.”
- Snapchat’s looking to drum up interest for its Snapchat Originals content.
- And NBCUniversal’s going too, pitching its Peacock platform, which just announced it hit 42 million subscribers in the US—even if we don’t know how many are paying.
Slice and dice
What’s slowing the great migration to streaming? Well, cost is one hurdle.
“Streaming inventory is still more expensive than linear inventory,” Group M’s Bharad Ramesh, who does research and analytics for the media agency, told Marketing Brew. “It’s like going from gasoline to solar.”
Plus, it’s complicated. Asking a brand to spend money across 10-12 different platforms (as opposed to a handful of big TV networks) comes with its own issues. As marketers aim to be more data-driven, they want to know the impact of each dollar across different platforms, and that can be hard to measure.
“I’m looking for data and measurement models that’ll allow me to move to non-TV options with more confidence. Otherwise, each of them is a walled garden,” Ramesh said.
Zoom out: For now, the traditional upfronts are still the big game in town for advertisers. But marketers are increasingly eyeballing NewFronts inventory. — RB