Rick Welday, President, AT&T AdWorks
There are a few certainties in life: such as taxes and reading about the 4 P’s of Marketing in every business textbook. Since the majority of this readership is well-versed in those 4 P’s, I’d like to discuss a lesser-known topic: addressable advertising. This phrase has become commonplace in the trades over the last few years, but confusion remains about what it is and what it isn’t.
Inspired by those business textbooks, here are my 4 P’s of addressable advertising:
1. Precision
Zero waste. Efficient. However you want to define it, addressable advertising enables you to define a target audience and then reach only those households in your target audience! This is the TV advertising experience marketers have always wanted. Hasta la vista spray and pray. The era of define and reach (just as catchy) is here.
2. Programming-Agnostic
Your target audience doesn’t need to be sitting down at 9:43 pm watching channel XYZ on a Sunday night to see your ad. With addressable advertising, once your target audience is defined, your ad is served regardless of programming or time of day. And it is served to light TV viewers as well as heavy viewers with the same level of precision. The ad finds the audience, instead of the other way around.
3. Proves ROI
Part of the rising popularity of addressable advertising can be attributed to its ability to prove out ROI – from brand lift through to sales lift. Marketers are able to see a direct correlation between exposure to an addressable ad and impact to brand awareness and subsequent action or purchase. This is an incredibly valuable insight for marketers, who often have to make educated guesses on their TV advertising investments.
4. Practice makes perfect
We work closely with our clients to properly define their target audience and their KPI’s at the beginning of their campaigns. This is key to delivering post-campaign reports that are smart and actionable. We find clients want to dig into these results, refine their campaign inputs, and run another campaign.
About the Author
Rick Welday is President of AT&T AdWorks, the advertising sales division of AT&T Entertainment Group. Welday leads a team that works directly with national brand clients and media agencies to develop and execute advanced TV, digital, and cross-screen advertising campaigns that reach target audiences across TV, mobile and online.
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