SpotX has released its “2019 Video Advertising Trends” report, highlighting 4 key trends:

1. New offerings will come into play for OTT video services.
2. Traditional TV will continue to transform for today’s digital landscape.
3. Shifting consumer expectations of ad experiences and personal data usage will drive innovations in ad transactions and delivery.
4. Industry-wide transparency efforts and regulation will spur larger investments in data management.

The report offers numerous insights about each of these 4 trends (and others). The report’s discussion of the latter two are especially relevant and thought-provoking.

As consumers and industry professionals, we’re all well aware how data has been misused and wrongfully accessed, breaching users’ privacy and expectations (Facebook’s travails illustrate the full spectrum). We also know that regulators are actively intervening, with GDPR and other initiatives. The days of willy-nilly use of customer data are mostly over.

Meanwhile, TV networks and video providers of all stripes are forging ahead in using viewer data more aggressively than ever. Doing so is an imperative, in order to both offer the targeting that advertisers crave and deliver viewers the ad-free or ad-light experiences they commonly enjoy.

But in this sensitive environment, the risks inherent in video providers’ data-centric strategies is enormous. This is where I found SpotX’s new report to be particularly valuable in diving deeply into data-related issues that all video ad buyers and sellers must understand.

The report addresses topics such as the tension between audience privacy and using data to increase the value of inventory, how new regulations at a country-specific level are affecting data transparency, how privacy sensitivity is shifting the burgeoning connected TV ad industry toward private marketplace transactions, how rampant video ad fraud is spurring investments in ads.txt, supply path optimization, header bidder and other data security technology, among others.

The start of a new year inevitably brings no shortage of predictions from all corners of the industry; my inbox since Thanksgiving attests to this. Finding the ones that are both well thought-out and central to the video industry’s ongoing health are rare. Data is a complicated and urgent topic I’ve written about often on VideoNuze and discussed on the podcast with Colin. SpotX’s new report does an excellent job of educating readers about data’s nuances and various roles. It helps set the stage for how 2019 will likely unfold.

The report is free and available here.