On the second episode of AlikeAudience’s Adtech podcast, James Parker, Derek Fan, and Elice Lau discuss the potential of the CTV space with particular attention to the Asia Pacific region.
Tune in below to listen to them brainstorm about:
- • Increasing penetration of smart TVs into the Asian markets;
- • More number of audiences developing subscription fatigue;
- • Increasing preference for AVOD over multiple subscriptions to OTT platforms;
- • Specific strategies to be adopted by marketers in the APAC region; and
- • How Amobee can help devise CTV strategies for advertisers and marketers.
Meet your host: Elice Lau
Elice Lau: Welcome to the second episode of AlikeAudience’s AdTech podcast, where we discuss the latest trends and industry insights in a series of interviews with industry leaders. I’m Elice, Chief Strategy Officer of AlikeAudience.
Guests for the episode: James Parker and Derek Fan
Elice Lau: It’s a great pleasure to have our guests James Parker, Vice President, Platform and Agency growth at Amobee, and Derek Fan, Director of Business Development and Partnerships at AlikeAudience.
Today’s topic – CTV growth, markets, and strategies for APAC Advertisers
Elice Lau: Today, our honorable guests will share their perspectives on CTV growth, markets, and strategies for APAC advertisers. So first, let’s talk briefly about your background in ad tech and talk about your expertise and role. Maybe we could start with James first
James Parker – Experience and Expertise in Ad Tech
James Parker: Hello and Happy New Year to everyone. And thank you for the invite to this podcast. So a little bit about me. I’ve been in Singapore now for coming to 10 years and during this time have held senior data and technology roles at Omnicom GroupM and Xaxis. For the past two and a half years I’ve been at Amboee where I’m responsible for the platform and agency growth in SEA.
About Amobee
James Parker: For the listeners that aren’t familiar with Amobee, Amobee is an advertising solutions company with fore demand at tech stack. We have all the acronyms to be aware of DSP, DMP, we have identity infrastructure, advanced analytics, and proprietary cookieless contextual insights tool. Amobee DSP is an omni channel DSP. And we’re super laser-focused on advancing our customers’ video buying and investment management strategies. And this is a big product development focus for us. We are prepared for the cookieless future when that happens; we have a proprietary smart contextual analytics capability that allows you to activate contextual targets in real-time in our DSP platform. And advanced analytics has a very comprehensive view of the consumers. We’re backed by telco. And we also have panel-based datasets to further data enrichment and enrich the measurement capabilities.
Amobee’s accolades as a Market Leader
James Parker: And I guess the last thing to note as well as we are a leader in video, we’ve been third party endorsed by both Gartner and Forrester. And that’s a leader in their most recent studies.
Elice Lau: Thanks, James. And, Derek, would you like also to introduce yourself?
Derek Fan- Experience and Expertise in Ad tech
Derek Fan: Happy New Year to everyone. And thank you for allowing me to participate again. So my career is nowhere near as lucrative as James’s just to start off but I started my career in programmatic at an independent, China-focused ad tech provider called iClick, where I was part of the product team and helped develop some of their platform products. After that, I moved on to a role that was more data-focused, which was Nielsen marketing cloud, where I helped establish their Hong Kong office at the time and also build out their data as a service strategy across multiple countries in APAC.
Role in AlikeAudience
Derek Fan: And then that was when I actually got to know AlikeAudience, one of the data providers that we were working with at the time. And here I am now. And I look after our partnerships and sales efforts globally and I was also lucky enough from this position to actually witness a lot of our agency partners around the world making that shift from linear TV to connected TV, especially during the pandemic and activating audiences against this new channel. So I’m very excited to see how this momentum will continue to pan out in this region in the next couple of years.
Growth of CTV within the APAC region
Elice Lau: Thank you, Derek. Well, I’m very excited to begin the year of 2022, by interviewing the two of you and talking about a talk of the town topic CTV. So James, as an industry-leading ad tech leader, what do you see as the potential of CTV growth within the APAC region?
James Parker – CTV- Potential Linear Scale in APAC
James Parker: I think it’s a really exciting new channel and an opportunity for all of us to reach and engage with households. I think it is especially interesting for those advertisers that cannot necessarily afford those linear TV budgets. The excitement with CTV is that it has the potential scale and reach of linear, but with all the capabilities that we love within programmatic, like the ability to use granular targeting and optimization flexibility.
Covid accelerating the growth of CTV space
James Parker: The adoption of CTV has been accelerated over the last couple of years with the pandemic. Consumers are now viewing more OTT on CTV devices, as they’ve been forced to spend more time at home during these lockdown periods.
Data indicating massive growth of CTV
And I read a stat yesterday that 70% of people across APAC are now streaming TV content online. So that’s a really good indicator for us. And another really good indicator that we’ve seen over the past couple of years is that there’s no longer a shortage of connected TV devices. And a smart TV is now affordable for most household incomes.
Elice Lau: Thank you, James. That’s a very impressive information. And Derek, did you have anything that you would like to add on?
Increasing Market Penetration of CTV
Derek Fan: Yeah, of course, CTV as James mentioned, there’s a growing trend. Smart TV penetration rates are getting higher. I think China is one of the leading countries in Asia that has the highest Smart TV penetration rate of 76%. Again, it’s due to more affordable TV options over there.
Contribution of Mobiles and CTV to expansion of OTT
Derek Fan: But I think speaking about OTT as a whole, it’s also worth noting that because many countries in Asia, especially Southeast Asia, especially China, are mobile-first, and mobile will continue to be popular means to consume video content in these markets. OTT is expected to grow to continue to expand. And obviously, CTV is part of that key driver.
Increasing Subscription Fatigue among audiences
Derel Fan: And I think another point also worth mentioning is something that we can all relate to, which is subscription fatigue. There has been a number of studies lately that audiences around the world are getting tired of paying for multiple subscriptions and are unsubscribing and actually preferring to use AVOD, ad-supported video on demand, and that would give a lot more opportunities for AVOD to grow in the future, which is obviously the addressable market that we as CTV marketers are most concerned about.
Growth Trajectory of CTV in APAC
Elice Lau: Great, thanks. That’s very informative, and the new normal and a growing trend of the use of CTV should be under the spotlight for the upcoming two years, I believe. So would you say CTV is an important part of the strategy in the Asia Pacific? James, can you also share some specifically APAC-related trends and the growth trajectory of the CCTV market in APAC?
Regional Distribution of the CTV market in Asia
James Parker: From a regional landscape perspective, ANZ is a very mature market with very strong broadcaster participation in CTV. Singapore is a very saturated market when it comes to subscription services with the likes of Netflix, Disney plus, Prime, HBO GO. There’s very limited opportunity for CTV advertising. But really the growth market opportunities that we’re seeing for CTV are Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, India. There’s huge potential in these markets. And they really have a lot of AVOD platforms, the likes of Viki, AICHI, Max stream Hotstar, just to name a few.
Partnerships with Broadcasters and OTT partners
James Parker: And because of these reasons, CTV is definitely key to the Amobee strategy. And part of my team’s responsibility is to ensure we have all the right partnerships in place to enable this inventory. We’re working very closely with local broadcasters, OTT players, and SSP partners as well.
Interesting Data on the growth of OTT and AVOD
And I think just to add to Derek’s comment; more CTV is growing in this region; we are a mobile-first region, and mobile still dominates the OTT viewing. Only about 10 to 20% of OTT is being viewed on a CTV device at the moment. And also, from APAC perspective, AVOD does seem to be the popular form of OTT viewing. It represents about 50% of the OTT content that is viewed. So this is really good news for all of us marketers.
Specific CTV Strategies for Marketers
Elice Lau: Great, James, thank you. Is there any specific strategy that you would like to put in the pockets of the markets?
CTV as a part of the Omnichannel Vision
James Parker: From an Amobee strategy perspective, vision and product development are focused around converged. So CTV as a new channel is part of that converged video story. What really excites me is the inclusion of CTV in the omnichannel planning and buying strategy. And the new consideration marketers will have to consider, navigate all of these challenges, which we’re going to talk about a bit later. Converged video for us at Amobee is ensuring we can provide our ad agencies and advertisers with the ability to plan, buy, optimize a single audience across all video channels, you know, whether that be linear TV, digital video across your desktop, mobile, and now with the inclusion of CTV as well.
Elice Lau: Right. There is indeed an attractiveness on the potential of omnichannel video marketing, I believe. Derek, what’s your perspective on this?
Development of Cross-Channel Strategies
Derek Fan: Yeah, I just want to definitely add on to the cross channel bit, I think that’s one of the more interesting topics with CTV on the rise. I think as video consumption continues to grow, it will become more and more important for these marketers to really think through their cross-channel strategies alongside their display and social strategies. So how will platforms continue to evolve in the future to provide access to premium audiences in brand-safe video environments across desktop, mobile web, mobile in-app OTT, and CTV is something I’m excited to see.
Accessibility of the CTV Space
Derek Fan: And something we talked about in our last episode is how will platforms actually make it easy and accessible for marketers of all types, especially SMBs to repurpose their existing creatives from the display and social to formats that are compatible with the unique and fragmented nature of CTV will be something I’m interested to see in the future too.
Challenges that lay ahead
Derek Fan: Of course, the number of obstacles ahead of us are quite plenty. I think it will take some time for this channel to really reach a level of standard that’s in line with the tried and tested digital channels, especially in terms of viewability, brand safety, engagement, targeting measurement. As an example, mobile relies very heavily on VPAID, which is essentially an interface that dictates how a video should be displayed or video attribute played, how users can interact with it. So in the absence of VPAID in a CTV environment, this actually could pose some risks to CTV marketers in the short run. So how will advertisers adapt to this change in the environment where ad fraud is on the rise and there’s less protection from something like VPAID is still a question mark for us.
CTV Advertising Strategies for Marketers
Elice Lau: Well, there’s is definitely attractiveness on the potential of convergence in a marketing perspective, but it’s also beneficial to take note of the potential obstacles for forming an effective strategy, right? And so Derek, how should marketers prepare for CTV advertising strategies, and what should they be aware of when doing their CTV planning? Is there anything that you would like to share?
Importance of ID Resolution
Derek Fan: Sure. So as someone that works for a data company, I feel I should definitely comment on it from a data perspective. So I think for one, ID resolution is definitely something to take into consideration when planning your CTV strategy. In our first episode, we talked a lot about IP addresses and how it’s the main method to build household graphs to identify and target audiences. But there’s some level of speculation right now in the market, saying that it might go away because of the way that it could be reverse engineered, and there are potential risks to privacy. So marketers really need to take the time to prepare and think through their audience strategies specifically for CTV. For one, CTV IDs are going to be the most straightforward way for you to target and measure in a CTV environment. But the downside of that is that CTV IDs are typically unique to their own streaming platform. So you may run into some scale problems.
Need for testing different solutions with scale and regional coverage
Derek Fan: And this is where a lot of these ID resolution partners and providers in the market will play a large role in the future in connecting different data sets using different ID graphs. So it’s very important that marketers start looking into the different ID resolution providers that have a scale and decent coverage in your specific country and start testing immediately. And this is especially important in APAC because you need to take into account multiple devices. Like we mentioned earlier, mobile-first, so that’s going to definitely be the case in APAC, thinking about multiple devices when planning your digital video strategy.
Elice Lau: Thanks, Derek. Yeah, testing is definitely the key. And James, do you have any perspective that you’d like to share?
Importance of understanding New Data Assets
James Parker: I think Derek hit the nail on the head there. And definitely, ID resolution is top of mind for my team. And I think that the first thing that marketers should be aware of is that CTV, we’re going to be looking at household units. And planning in households is very different from what we’ve been used to with the likes of cookies and device IDs. So definitely, that is a bit of a step change. Also, third-party data as we know it today will change. CTV is not reliant on third-party cookies. So we need to make sure that we’re working with new data partners that can provide the right type of first-party data assets. And you know, this could include working more closely with the OTT partners.
Need to Standardize Measurement
James Parker: Derek also mentioned measurement. We know measurement is too advancing in the CTV arena. It needs to be standardized, it’s going to be increasingly important if we’re to include CTV and omnichannel strategy.
Nuances for Marketers in the APAC region
Elice Lau: Thank you very much, James. It’s very comprehensive and the fact that CTV targeting is largely unaffected by cookie deprecation is very promising. So are there any nuances that marketers in Asia should be really aware of? Is CTV advertising in the Asia Pacific different from anywhere else?
Features that distinguish the Asian Market from the rest of the world
James Parker: Yes, there are local market nuances as you would expect, Asia as a region does operate differently from other parts of the world. Some of the top of mind considerations would be language, market maturity, cultural kind of preferences. But these are all things that we need to bear in mind when we want to advertise on a new channel, such as CTV.
What’s different about the AVOD inventory?
James Parker: The other part that is quite key to CTV, that we’ve been noticing across some of our geos is that the AVOD type of inventory is constrained, meaning that there’s not enough supply to meet the demand. So this means that careful planning and reserving of your ad slots or impressions is key, very similar to how you would actually reserve your linear TV campaigns. And this is a little bit of an alien concept. Because we know with digital and programmatic, we like to do things very last minute, and you’ll get a briefing and within 24 hours, you’ve got to go live with your campaign. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to have that type of luxury when it comes to CTV as everybody wants a piece of it. So we need to really get ahead of the planning cycle
How Amobee helps advertisers and marketers achieve optimal results
James Parker: The good news is there’s Amobee, we already have a platform called Amobee TV, which allows you to exactly do that. And media management platform allows you to consolidate all of the video investments across your premium publishers. And then using our proprietary allocation, mathematics decide or reserve on the best performing video ad placements to drive an outcome for your campaign. And whilst we’re reserving all of these ad slots, and impressions, the platform also takes into consideration the whole portfolio of brands you are managing, and also the consideration of all your supplier relationships that you’re working with.
Elice Lau: So culture, language, technology, and availability of measurement tools, or matter. And I’m sure comprehensive and careful planning through good tools like Amobee would be really helpful for advertisers and marketers. And so Derek, do you have anything to share on this bit?
How content preference affects campaign effectiveness
Derek Fan: Yeah, I would just love to add to the cultural bit because I saw some interesting facts the other day. So content viewership, I think is going to be a little different in each country, throughout APAC. So it is important to understand what your target audience likes watching because specific CTV content where your ads are displayed, believe it or not, will play a role in the overall campaign performance.
Regional Difference in Content Viewership
Derek Fan: I read a report saying that Korean dramas surged in popularity ever since Squid Game came out and across Southeast Asia over the past year. So how do you leverage these eyeballs as part of your strategy? And not to mention there would be specific categories of content that would be specific to what would be unique to your specific country.
Examples of Regional Differences
Derek Fan: So for example, Australia is really into the National Rugby League, people tune in for that event. Japan is really into fitness and baseball, and India is really into comedy. Vietnam’s really into food shows. So again, how you actually balance that content strategy with your CTV strategy, taking that into consideration is pretty important.
Emergence of Media Platforms with hybrid strategies
Derek Fan: Another thing to be on the lookout for is the latest and most suitable media platforms you would want to work with. Earlier I mentioned subscription fatigue, people are preferring free content that’s ad-supported over subscription-based content now. So, we’re seeing new entrants in the streaming space that are actually adopting hybrid strategies, meaning they support both subscription-based and ad-supported content.
Example of platforms with Hybrid Strategies
Just to give an example in the US, BET networks has had a subscription service called BET + for quite a while now and it’s ad-free. But they’re now actually testing a new ad-supported tier and also launching a subscription bundle together with Paramount plus. So as the space becomes more competitive, the way that these content providers market their products and attract new customers will also play a role in how marketers should plan their CTV strategies.
Understanding Consumer behavioral trends
Derek Fan: And given the mobile-first concept that we talked about taking into consideration other consumer devices to shape your video strategy is quite key. So understanding APAC, consumer behavioral trends are going to be critical. And luckily, at AlikeAudience, we’re in a great position to observe these changes, especially from a consumer standpoint. And we can actually turn these into targetable audiences to activate on CTV and OTT.
Specific Reminders for Marketers in 2022
Elice Lau: Thank you, Derek. So balance, balance and balance. Targeting audiences on different themes and events based on what kind of devices they hold, and what kind of cultural background they are from, would be very helpful to be on top of the minds of marketers. Thank you. So last but not least, is there any specific reminder at the beginning of this year, that you guys would like to share with our partners and audiences?
CTV as a part of the omnichannel strategy
James Parker: Yes, I can go first. I’d like to reiterate that we’re excited about this new channel and the omnichannel converge bigger opportunities that it brings. The reminder would be that CTV is complementary to linear buys. And it should be seen as part of an omnichannel strategy. The challenge we face is that we need to break down the planning and binding silos that we’ve all been used to working in and really start thinking about what converged video looks like. The good news is that here in Singapore, the local broadcast and media Corp is making things a lot easier for marketers. And last year, they launched a platform called ad direct. And this platform, which leverages the Amobee technology allows a user to plan and buy a linear campaign against a target audience, which is very similar to what we would do in the programmatic world today. The next stage of that development will allow for the creation and execution of a digital campaign that takes into consideration the reach for a specific target audience that’s been on a linear schedule, and thus creating a converged media plan. So this is all very exciting that we’re going to have these capabilities very soon here in Singapore. So watch this space.
Elice Lau: And Derek, do you have the last word to share in regard to any reminders specifically for our partners and audiences?
The flexibility of the CTV channel
Derek Fan: Yeah, sure. I think this episode really focuses on APAC right? So I think if you’re a marketer in APAC right now and you’re trying to look into CTV as a complementary strategy, or as an alternative strategy, whatever it may be, you can bear in mind, I think one concept, as you’re navigating the nuances of CTV, is that CTV, in general, is going to be a much more flexible channel over something like pure linear TV with digital video, you can test and iterate continuously throughout the campaign and adjust your messages in a very quick and real-time way, especially in the unprecedented times that we’re living right now.
Subscribe and Stay tuned!
Elice Lau: Great, thank you, James and Derek, for the spot-on sharing of the latest trend of CTV in the Asia Pacific. I’m sure marketers and agencies know who to go to, on planning a comprehensive CTV targeting strategy.
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Happy New Year. We wish you again a wonderful and healthy year.
