LONDON — Connected TV home screens function as digital billboards that capture viewer attention before content consumption begins, offering targeting capabilities unavailable in traditional out-of-home advertising.
“It is very similar to out of home in the sense that it is a billboard. For lack of a better word, it is a billboard on the homepage of the screen itself, but obviously being a smart TV, it’s digital,” Chris Kleinschmidt, VP, EMEA Advertising Sales at TiVo Ads, told Beet.TV contributor Robert Andrews at the Beet.TV and WPP Media Leadership Summit. “There’s elements of targeting that are enabled and then there’s targeting capabilities.”
The home screen represents the first thing consumers see when turning on television sets, creating a gateway moment as viewers search for content to watch during their lean-back experience.
Non-endemic approaches
Entertainment advertisers treat home screens as lower-funnel conversion opportunities because viewers can click directly into apps to watch promoted content, making it the last chance to capture attention before viewing begins.
“They’re kind of seeing this as that last option to get a user basically straight to their piece of content to watch,” Kleinschmidt said.
Non-entertainment brands use home screens for upper and middle funnel objectives, driving awareness and brand recall by placing messages in environments where consumers will watch content, often tying campaigns to live sporting events or TV programming they sponsor.
Home screen success
Scotland TV player used TiVo’s home screen placement to drive app usage and new customer acquisition, achieving approximately 20% performance increase in clicks and first-time customers.
The campaign targeted audiences who hadn’t used the app in 30-, 60-, or 90 days, then measured post-campaign quality time spent in the app to demonstrate conversion effectiveness.
“There’s a number of use cases for the entertainment side that are proving that value,” Kleinschmidt said.
Standardization progressing slowly
Home screen experiences vary by TV manufacturer and original equipment maker, with differences across models and production years creating complexity, though standardization is increasing.
“Not all of their TVs are actually the same UX,” Kleinschmidt said. “It depends on the model of those TVs, the year of those TVs. I do think within the next couple of years, it will be a lot more synonymous across all of the platforms, but you do see some fragmentation as it relates to the TV manufacturer.”
Linear still leads (barely)
After a decade selling connected TV campaigns since 2015, Kleinschmidt sees the industry still purchasing linear television first while supplementing with CTV, though the balance is shifting.
“I would love to sit here and say that ‘Yes, we are in a CTV first environment.’ I think the honest reality is we’re not there yet,” Kleinschmidt said. “Right now we’re just a little bit leaning towards linear TV. I do think in the next one to two years, it will shift to connected TV first and then complement with linear TV… I do think it is incredibly close.”
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