By: Brandon Guarro, Strategy & Innovation Specialist

With the introduction of so many new streaming services, many traditional TV ad buyers believe that the definition of “TV” has fundamentally changed. However, as advertisers transition to this new way of buying media there have been some notable shortcomings from the streaming companies.

According to a recent eMarketer study, one of the most sited issues from advertisers is the lack of consistent measurement across their linear and streaming service offerings. Since a large portion of the U.S. population continues to use a blend of both linear and Connected TV (CTV), streaming services offering both need to do a better job at compiling accurate data that shows consumer trends across all platforms. Another key issue has been how difficult it has become to buy ad space with the introduction of these new streaming services. Despite a streaming service and traditional TV network being owned by the same parent company, media placement requires two separate buys often with varying reach and rates. Marketers and agencies are hoping that the future brings integrated cross platform ad buys and measurement across the entire video landscape.

The process of merging linear and CTV ads onto a single viewing experience still has a long journey to reach standardization. However, ongoing industry efforts to pool all the addressable inventory and create universal platforms that buyers and sellers can use for enhanced audience targeting and measurement are a good start. With the release of ViacomCBS’ EyeQ platform in March 2021 buyers are finally getting a glimpse at the future, with the ability to buy across all ViacomCBS’ available linear TV channels and streaming services in a single platform.

&Barr is constantly monitoring industry trends and the ever-evolving media landscape so we can keep our clients educated and ensure they are leveraging best practices to maximize results. The topic of cross platform video tracking and buying has been a topic we’ve discussed in our client quarterly business reviews for the past several years, and we’re constantly working with our media partners to keep ourselves and our clients educated, current and ahead of the competition.