Not only is addressable television advertising cheaper than direct mail, it enables smaller advertisers to harness the sight, sound and motion of TV and prepares them for a future in which all media will be addressable and programmatic. That’s the uptake from Tracey Scheppach, whose agency has done more than 200 addressable campaigns.

“What we have found over and over and over again is that TV works and addressable TV works harder,” Scheppach says in an interview with Beet.TV at the Chicago offices of Publicis Media Exchange, where she is EVP of Precision Video.

It’s not often that someone mentions addressable TV and old-fashioned direct mail in the same sentence, much less in a cost comparison scenario. Scheppach does so to provide both contrast and similarity.

“Direct mail advertisers, their average cost of a mail piece is about a dollar. In TV speak that’s a thousand dollar CPM,” Scheppach says of the expense to reach one thousand prospects. “The CPM’s of addressable advertising are significantly less than a thousand and they combine the ability of sight sound and motion with essentially the same delivery mechanism.”

What is that common delivery venue? “Sending a message to an individual street address, whether it be a mailbox or a set-top box,” Scheppach says.

The industry is only beginning to see the potential of addressable TV because the focus has mainly been on national advertisers. “It ushers in the opportunity for smaller marketers with a smaller budget to get on TV for the very first time,” she explains.

Two examples are Allstate promoting renters insurance and online prescription eyeglass and sunglass marketer Warby Parker. Not long ago, the rule of thumb was that having a presence on TV meant committing at least $20 million. “If you didn’t have $20 million, don’t bother getting on television,” was the thinking, according to Scheppach. “Allstate represents a very large advertiser, but they would never be able to advertise renters insurance because renters are a smaller population and therefore not a mass game, which is what television used to be.”

She believes that addressable TV “is being niched” and that it’s actually “a much bigger idea.” That’s because in the end, all media will be addressable in the end and eventually all media will be programmatic.

“That is the future state that we’re moving to,” Scheppach says. “The opportunity to do addressable television will teach marketers how to do the future of television and how it will be combined with other cross media as all media becomes digital.”

This video is part of a series presented by DISH Media Sales. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.

To learn more about addressable advertising and its benefits, download the Addressable Viewpoint Report:

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