DRTV: Microtargeted TV

One example was reported in the September 2012 issue of Ad Age. Allstate ran a TV ad campaign for its renters insurance products on both Dish Network and DirecTV that only appeared in households that rented their homes. In fact, it was the first time Allstate had advertised renters insurance on TV, and it reached 15 million renters in the viewing area (homeowner households in the area mostly saw direct response ads, instead).

This evolution of a digital advertising channel from "contextual" to "addressable" has already been successfully demonstrated in the online display space. In order to help differentiate their inventory and capabilities from others, large online display ad publishers adopted addressable techniques to allow advertisers to segment and measure display ads using robust data against their known user/subscriber bases with the same degree of accuracy as traditional addressable marketing channels. It works, has been embraced by advertisers and is growing rapidly.

Cable and satellite companies have their own subscriber bases that can be further enhanced, segmented, shown more relevant ads and measured using the same techniques and leveraging highly accurate, validated offline data. This enables advertisers to make consistent ad buys across digital and non-digital channels, using consistent targeting models and consistent ROI-based metrics.

The new measurability of digital allows advertisers to make more efficient buys and more effective post-campaign decisions, given the consistency and accuracy of the data used to target and measure.

Today, most marketers still buy TV ads in programs that best fit their target audience based on their core demographics—very much like contextual display ad buys or print publication buys. For example, Cadillac might buy ads on Monday Night Football because the overall viewership of that program generally fits the audience profile it is trying to hit.