TV ads targeted at individual households may be more expensive than those traditionally delivered through the medium – but advertisers should compare prices with digital, not with the box in the living room, says a TV ad exec.

The looming promise of addressable TV holds the potential to target ads at individual viewers or households. But advertisers are having to pay a premium for the new-found super-power.

“There is a sticker-shock aspect to it,” says DISH Media Sales media measurement GM Prasad Joglekar, describing buyers’ response. “You’re pricing on the scarcity of an audience.

“But that’s no different from digital – digital prices audience significantly higher than a mass-market audience. Once we get past that, the floodgates will open.”

In DISH’s own addressable TV advertising offering, ad buyers can buy from eight million households on a national scale, using DISH’s own customer data, advertisers’ own data or demographic data from agencies includin Epsilon, Experian, Polk and Dunnhumby.

DISH and DirecTV have jointly been selling addressable ads to political candidates.

So how sophisticated are buyers becoming? “Savvy advertisers have got busy,”Joglekar adds. “They’re hitting all the right notes. “Missed opportunities are the advertisers who think that addressable is too expensive.”

The panel was interviewed by MediaMath CMO Joanna O’Connell.

This video was produced at the Beet.TV leadership summit in New York on cross-platform addressability on July 26.  The event and the series is presented by DISH Media Sales and Experian Marketing Services.  Please visit this page to find addition videos from the summit.