Adtech made in Europe

Thomas: Until now, online video and linear TV operated as two separate worlds, with very different advertising strategies. Although linear TV viewership is still substantial, we are witnessing a steady decline, particularly among younger target groups. At the same time, non-linear streaming services for TV consumption are on the rise.

This creates a number of obstacles for European broadcasters, advertisers, and media agencies but it also creates new opportunities. For example, Total Video consumption – engagement with video content across all platforms, devices, and formats – is increasing in Europe. In Germany, for example, Total Video consumption has grown exponentially since 2012. Streaming services, in particular, have also opened new avenues for reaching younger audiences on the big screen.

However, the fragmentation that comes with this shift makes it more difficult for advertisers and media agencies to effectively plan and optimise their video advertising budgets across various platforms. This is largely due to a lack of technical solutions that unify the different consumption channels.

We saw this as a unique opportunity to provide a holistic Adtech offering that unifies programmatic ad buying and selling across both traditional linear TV and digital TV

 

Tom: TV usage is becoming more fragmented and is increasingly shifting to digital channels, such as Connected TV (CTV), especially with the rise of streaming services and global video platforms. At the same time, digital decision-making logic and campaign mechanics have become the standard for media planning, control, reporting, and optimisation. To remain competitive, traditional media, especially classic linear TV, must adapt to these changes. TV houses need strong solutions to these challenges, and our collaboration with smartclip specifically provides the technological base for this: a future-proof solution, dedicated to the special needs of the TV medium. Our innovative joint Adtech offering will enable TV houses to counterbalance global video players and keep up with digitalisation while preserving the USP and original business models of traditional TV advertising.
 

Thomas: As RTL Group’s Adtech development unit, we focus on developing advanced technology solutions for digital TV, particularly for Addressable TV (ATV), online video, and CTV. Virtual Minds, on the other hand, has developed innovative approaches for the digitisation of linear TV advertising. Now, we are bringing these complementary strengths together to develop a solution that harmoniously integrates digital and linear TV advertising in an orchestrated way.

Our approach combines panel data – the standard for traditional TV – with anonymised behavioural data from millions of smart TVs in Germany, as well as attribution data from advertisers. With the BEE technology from Realytics, we can measure ad exposure across various TV distribution channels and use this data to identify audience overlaps and opportunities to increase reach. We will leverage these data points from BEE in an orchestration layer within Virtual Minds’ Media Manager to enhance ad decisioning, enabling the real-time optimisation of digital and linear ad placements up to the final seconds before delivery.

In addition, our solution introduces an auction-based model that spans the entire TV ecosystem.
 

Tom: Broadcasters will profit from a careful, yet powerful transformation of TV advertising. Our integrated tech stack creates the preconditions for making traditional, linear TV advertising comparable with digital advertising, providing ad booking and buying methods which advertisers are already used to (such as programmatic). It will also enable convergent, holistic Total Video advertising (one-to-one and one-to-many) across all video channels on the basis of digital metrics and leveraged by data. We enable broadcasters to preserve their proven business models and the strengths of traditional TV advertising, such as lean-back and brand safety, while increasing inventory efficiency, yield, and cross-channel ability.

At the same time, advertisers will get one of the best campaign experiences and results in the world of video advertising, without relying on third-party cookies. They will benefit from high reach and strong impact, as well as the ability to easily and consistently address specific target groups across all video channels by making use of data for any kind of big-screen advertisement – one-to-one (linear TV) and one-to-many (CTV, ATV, and online video). Through a single booking, they can have campaigns delivered to the best audiences across those channels in a single logic and reporting structure based on digital principles and measurements.
 

Thomas: We will leverage real-time data from smart TVs to monitor the actual target group coverage, seconds before a linear TV ad break is broadcast. This way, we can compare the real-time TV audience with the anticipated viewership at the time the ad break was initially planned. If the anticipated audience differs significantly from the actual audience, we can adjust the ads shown during that break to better match the actual viewer demographics. All this happens just a few seconds before the ad break is played out, making it possible to optimise the linear TV target group matching.

We will also enable real-time budget optimisation across screens through our measurement technologies. If the technology determines that it would be more effective to reach an advertiser’s audience on digital platforms, rather than through linear TV, for example, budgets will be shifted there. This allows us to optimise incremental reach for advertisers and avoid reach duplication on different consumption channels. By offering this level of precision and adaptability, we will bring more ad spend to TV.

Tom: As planned, we took the first big step for our collaboration this autumn. With the server-to-server integration of the Adex DMP into smartx (smartclip’s SSP and ad server), we have created the basis for the comprehensive use of data to control Total Video campaigns across all video channels. With this unique “one DMP” approach, broadcasters that use the combined technology offering can now offer convergent video campaigns that are played out precisely and efficiently to target groups in brand-safe TV environments according to digital logic. RTL Deutschland and ProSiebenSat.1 have already started to implement our integrated tech offering in their respective TV system landscapes.

The international roll-out has also kicked off and thanks to smartclip and its European orientation and presence, we are in very promising talks with TV houses in France and the UK. Our goal is to conduct pre-tests with them to obtain further feedback on relevant features that precisely meet the needs of the broadcasters.