CTV is Changing How We Think About Ad Creative

4 Min Read

While television advertising used to be focused on awareness, Connected TV (CTV) has upgraded the medium into a powerful, data-driven performance marketing channel. But with more targeting power also comes more responsibility. (We all remember that famous line from Spider-Man about performance marketing, right?) To effectively connect with their audience, brands need to prepare their creative with their specific customer segments and goals in mind. 

Alanna Roth, Senior Customer Success Manager at MNTN, recently joined Digiday to explore how CTV is changing how we think about video ad creative. Here are some of the big ideas she discussed. 

Redefining Television Advertising

Television advertising used to be solely focused on driving awareness, but CTV and Over-the-Top platforms have changed this. Today, TV is a performance channel that allows brands to connect with specific consumers through precision targeting, effective attribution, and practical measurement.  

Why Dive in Now? 

More viewers are shifting from linear TV to CTV and Over-the-Top (OTT) platforms—and advertisers need to follow them. But that’s not all; this strategic shift towards performance on the living room screen also means brands need to place greater importance on the creative they’re producing. 

Like we’ve said, TV advertising is a performance marketing channel. To fully take advantage of it, marketers need to use video ad creative tailored to their goals. If they don’t, they’re missing out on an opportunity to connect with their audience in a powerful way: on the largest screen in the house.

Getting Started with Purpose-Built Creative 

Purpose-built creative starts at the beginning of the video production process—if you want it to be effective, that is. Whether you’re building a campaign for a specific audience or to meet a specific goal, you’ll need to keep that north star in mind throughout the entire process. 

To get started, you’ll need to: 

Identify Your Goals 

Before you can make purpose-based content, you need to know what your purpose is. (Makes sense, right?) 

You’ll need to consider which marketing metrics matter most to your brand. Are you focused on reaching a specific audience segment? Or would you rather drive a goal, like more website traffic? 

Keep in mind: you can’t move forward here without defining your goal. The purpose of your campaign will inform different elements of your campaign, from the talent you hire to the CTA you use to entice viewers. 

Plan the Production Process 

After you’ve decided on your goal, it’s time to head into pre-production. 

In this phase, consider every creative variable and attribute you can isolate in your video content that can help you reach your goal. Once you’ve isolated these elements, you can create different variations of them during the video production process. You’ll be able to see which parts of your content—talent, CTA, value propositions, etc.—resonate with your audience the most. Having this list of variations ready will help inform how much footage you’ll need to shoot. (In other words, you’ll need this later.) 

Then, you’re ready to head to production, where the video team will capture all the footage you need and send it to post-production. 

Launch and Watch 

Once your video content is back and finalized by the production team, you’re ready to go live! 

Remember the elements you isolated in pre-production and how you made different versions during the production process? The ones you saved for later? Here’s where you’re going to use those (told ya) to measure the effectiveness of each element. This will allow you to understand what parts of the video are performing well for your audience—and which parts you need to revisit during the next production planning meeting. You’ll be able to continue optimizing your creative with every production, consistently creating high-quality video ads your audience is excited to watch. 

How Purpose-Built Ad Creative Amplifies Your Brand

Now, you have the opportunity to reach your target audience on the most impactful screen in the house. But you’ve got to utilize targeted video ads to make it happen. Without them, you’re missing out on critical connections that can help you reach your goals and drive your business forward. Watch the full webinar here to learn more about effectively utilizing purpose-built creative for CTV.