RANCHO PALOS VERDES, CA – For all the talk about artificial intelligence impact on creativity, the data use cases are quickly coming into view among various parts of the ad industry. For example, the ability to autonomously generate audience segments in real time rather, than relying on predefined demographic or behavioral categories, could fundamentally change how connected TV advertising targets viewers.
“We think about audience segments as something that we define as human beings. But in reality, when you are watching TV or I’m watching TV, AI can actually start creating audience segments on their own,” Craig Chinn, SVP of advertising sales at TiVo, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan. “I’m really excited about how we think about custom segments that can be created on-the-fly for personalization for every single user.”
This shift would enable mid-campaign optimization based on real-time metrics rather than post-campaign analysis and inference, Chinn said.
Homepage hero drives engagement
TiVo’s operating system control enables what the company calls “homepage hero” advertising units. They occupy 60% of the screen initially and expand to 90% as users interact, generating 15-to-30 seconds of dwell time.
“Consumers understand that it is an advertisement — it does say ‘sponsored,’ but they’re not treating it that way,” Chinn said. “Because they’re actually interacting with these units, we have a 98% video completion rate.And we have 2- to 3% clicking for more info.”
The format works particularly well for tune-in advertisers promoting new shows to families deciding what to watch together, Chinn added.
Operating system visibility
TiVo’s position as operating system provider enables measurement beyond advertiser-provided tracking pixels. The company focuses on app downloads, tuning behavior, and incremental reach analysis through A/B testing of exposed versus unexposed audiences.
“What they can’t track is what actually leads to different behaviors on our operating system,” Chinn said. “We can A/B test app downloads as opposed to ‘exposed versus unexposed.’ Only we can see what happens within our system beyond what the advertisers’ top line metrics are.”
This deterministic data reveals actual consumer actions following ad exposure rather than relying on probabilistic modeling.
Non-endemic expansion
Beyond entertainment advertisers, TiVo sees opportunities for travel, automotive, and luxury goods brands that complement the viewing experience rather than disrupting it.
“The North Star is always our customer, our families who are actually tuning into our TiVo products. That’s the first most important thing,” Chinn said. “If we’re going to have that relationship with the advertiser, it has to make sense that they’re going to do something that’s consistent with that viewing experience.”
CTV opportunity pillars
The next wave of connected TV opportunities centers on unduplicated reach, premium safe inventory environments, and deterministic consumer data that enables relevant advertising, Chinn said.
“It’s always going to be some kind of unduplicated reach, premium inventory that’s going to be in safe environments and then deterministic or some kind of data that says, what do we know about that consumer to give them relevant ads,” Chinn said. “We’re going back to our DNA and our history of changing the way people watch TV,” Chinn said. “Now we think about it as the entryway into a viewer’s gateway into their entertainment world.”
