VOD TV Ads Enjoy Steady Growth
Author: Wayne Friedman. Source: MediaPost
Video-on-demand TV advertising through major cable TV providers continues its steady climb.
In the second quarter, total advertising impressions were 20% higher to 6.8 billion, with 80% coming from set-top boxes and 20% from other devices, per Canoe Ventures, the dynamic ad-insertion technology company.
There were 2,409 campaigns running in the second quarter -- 83% from paid TV advertising, 17% from network promotions. A total of 2,522 campaigns ran in the first quarter, with a total of 6.1 billion impressions.
Year-to-date there have been 13 billion advertising impressions. For all of 2017, there were 23.3 billion advertising impressions. In 2016, there were 17.9 billion; in 2015 there were 11.8 billion.
Ed Papazian, president of Media Dynamics, has said these impressions "mean set usage not viewing ‘impressions’ ... So the viewer impressions are probably about half the number cited.”
But Chris Pizzurro, head of sales- marketing for Canoe, counters: “Canoe numbers are ad impressions, not ad insertions. Since Canoe counts an ad impression only when the ad starts in play mode, these numbers should not be discounted. If anything they are actually understated because they do take into consideration co-viewing.”
Canoe has a national TV footprint of 36 million TV homes from three major cable operating companies: Comcast, Cox and Charter Spectrum.
A majority of Canoe’s ad insertion impressions come “mid-roll” -- during the episode, not before or after -- totaling 5.9 billion impressions. The average mid-roll ads per break were just under four commercials: 3.87, with mid-roll viewing completion at 99%. Pre-roll ads average to 1.1; post-roll 1.04.
In an average single episode, 57% of the time, consumers saw the same spot once. The average campaign was “capped” at two impressions per episode.
Highest average VOD activity -- in terms of Canoe’s advertising impressions -- occurs on the weekend -- 1.1 billion each for Saturday and Sunday.