TV and entertainment viewing patterns changed dramatically in 2020, accelerating numerous evolutions already afoot in TV targeting, reporting, data, measurement and more. What’s around the bend in media buying? Here are a few key areas of industry focus to keep on your radar.

More Is More in Streaming
The appetite for streaming content has skyrocketed and shows no signs of slowing down. Global viewing grew 44 percent during the last three months of 2020, according to research firm Convivia, which tracks 500 million unique viewers and 180 billion streams annually. In fact, within this streaming surge, ad-based video on demand (VOD) is projected to experience 22 percent compound annual growth and become a $20 billion segment by 2024, according to the VAB. If your TV ad strategy hasn’t pivoted to align with this surge, it’s in urgent need of a refresh. It’s also worth noting that this surge in streaming is on top of existing cable viewership, not in place of it.

Granularity in Addressable Measurement
Addressable advertising, the ability to show different ads to different households while they’re watching the same program, is a game changer. It enables advertisers to home in on the relevance and impact of a spot, and it’s being swiftly adopted across the industry as media buyers seek to engage with viewers across live TV, on-demand and streaming environments. eMarketer estimates the addressable TV advertising spend will reach $3.6 billion by 2022—up 75 percent from August 2020.

As addressability rises, measurement consequently is getting more and more granular. This year, Nielsen is bringing addressable advertising measurement to market, marking one of the most significant evolutions in reporting. Beyond national trends, this new metric will no doubt shine light on the importance of addressable advertising in a single-market spend as well.

Tackling Deduplication
Audience targeting opens all sorts of opportunities to connect with consumers, but it needs to be managed. Duplication has been a big challenge for advertisers to date, but the right partnerships can eliminate these concerns, particularly at the local level. For streaming campaigns, advertisers should work with partners to identify a frequency cap, limiting the number of times that an audience target will see a commercial. With linear addressable, advertisers can estimate the frequency a campaign will deliver to the targeted audience. Then, they can identify the reached TV or streaming audience and either avoid the segment to prevent duplication or include the segment to hit the target audience with more creative.

Traditional GRPs Finally Fade
The transition to buying audiences over demographics in TV means that traditional gross ratings points may finally be fading from prominence. Going forward, as in the digital space, TV advertisers are going to start speaking and thinking in the language of impressions.  The focus is going to shift to who advertisers are really looking to reach—and not just within generic groups like adults 25-54.

These days, the quality of data that can be leveraged to guide a TV buy is improving on a daily basis. As advertisers and their partners become more adept at transforming that data into insights, a whole new world of opportunities and understanding are going to open up within the realm of TV advertising. Those that put these opportunities to use first will emerge with a notable competitive advantage in the media landscape of the future.