The global OTT market’s revenue is poised to surpass $150 billion by 2024. Backed by brisk growth in emerging markets, the OTT industry has got great potential in the coming years. From Disney and Apple to AT&T and Amazon, all big players have entered the market and pledged massive investments for their OTT offerings.
Intensifying competition among global players has only benefited the viewers. In a bid to attract viewers, OTT players are offering services at lucrative prices. And to position themselves with a unique selling product, they are investing generously in producing world-class content. In the last few years, several TV shows and movies that were exclusively launched in OTT platforms were nominated for Emmy and Oscars.
Hence, that debate is also over that OTT platforms have only recycled or low-quality content. In fact, people are now glued to OTT services because they offer a lot of binge-worthy TV shows. And latest movies are releasing on OTT within a very shorter span of time. So now there is no dearth of quality and fresh content on OTT platforms.
Why OTT has become crucial for advanced marketers?
OTT media has brought the third revolution in the television industry. People are shunning traditional broadcasters over OTT platforms because it is more convenient and flexible. It allows users to watch anything of their choice from anywhere at any point in time.
The decisive shift in content creation, distribution models, and viewing habits has captured the imagination of advertisers and marketers. For instance, 8 in 10 US homes are now spending on OTT subscriptions and emerging markets are witnessing a brisk growth. A report by Ericsson has projected that by 2023, 75 percent of mobile traffic will be of video streaming only.
The popularity of OTT video streaming services is more among the younger generation that is tech-savvy and willing to spend extra bucks for flexibility and quality content. This generation is also open to trying new products and ideas floating in the market. To lure this growing segment of users, advanced marketers are trying to leverage OTT platforms.
For long, marketers were stuck between expensive ad slots on satellite television and unpredictable results on social media. OTT platforms have given a more precise and effective way to target potential customers and increase RoI. OTT media platforms leverage data analytics and actionable insights gauge viewers’ interests to curate video content that is focussed for niche audiences across geographies.
Because the content is precisely targeted, viewers are completely immersed in the content; hence marketers can create a greater impact on these users. The OTT model has also given the flexibility to control the location of ads, rules of the trigger, and more efficient RoI tracking.
Multi-Platform Campaigns on OTT Media
Multi-platform ad campaigns on OTT platforms are found to be more effective. As per the study conducted by Kantar Millward Brown and Hulu, OTT and mobile are more successful in cross-platform testing. In fact, OTT’s rank is the highest in brand favorability and aided awareness. OTT is enabling advertisers to prevent ad fatigue that could happen through a multi-platform campaign with high-frequency ads. Ads are more effective on the OTT ad platform even after multiple exposures.
With OTT becoming a household norm, advertisers can easily reach their potential customers in every nook and corner. Millions of subscribers are now abandoning traditional TV for OTT, the number is poised to grow in the coming years. The availability of more refined and sophisticated marketing tools has enabled marketers to chalk out more effective strategies and measure the efficiency in real-time.
Marketers can easily target campaigns on the basis of demographics, geographies, and user interests. The effectiveness of ads can be measured by leveraging measurement tools that reflect the performance of OTT with respect to multiple platforms.
When all these features are combined, they become an advanced tool for marketers to run highly optimized and user-centric campaigns.
Conclusion
This decade will witness the complete transformation of how we consume entertainment and information. OTT platforms will expedite the rollout video of demand (VOD), live streaming, and VR among others. Users will prefer more engaging and immersive content over traditional means of entertainment. This means, lesser number of audiences will go for traditional television or spend big bucks on popcorn while watching a generic rom-com in a movie theater.
This gives a massive opportunity for marketers to make advertising more engaging and intuitive. Hard selling is not going to work anymore. Brands need to have a story to tell. And that can be done most efficiently on OTT platforms.
