The “Other Than Television” (OTT) concept has transformed traditional broadcast television and affected its viewership significantly. According to Kelley et al. (2015), “digital technology has reshaped how consumers use media” (p. 5). With the advent of free access to various online content, the vast majority of consumers have shifted their focus in this direction. Convenient portable devices allow watching almost any content at any time, making traditional broadcast television obsolete. Basically, people who rarely use the Internet, for instance, the older generation, continue to watch television, but many of them, nevertheless, are aware of the capabilities of modern media.
The OTT has played a special role in the advertising market, which makes this type of technology in demand among advertisers. Such services have “a younger, wealthier, more engaging audience,” and about 98% of the “complete the entire ad” (“What are the major benefits of OTT?,” 2021, para. 3). This means that there is much emphasis on the paying population, who is ready for new forms of digital content, while the TV audience is not such a resource. As a result, the viewership of traditional broadcast television cannot be referred to as the mainstream audience.
Despite the popularity of media content, many advertisers face the problem when consumers avoid advertising, and this is a general trend. This behavior can be explained by a large abundance of advertising materials, which may have lost their function of attracting attention and, conversely, have become associated with irritants. According to Kelley et al. (2015), the rapid evolution of media caused by the commercialization of the Internet has led to the fact that “new channels of communication from smartphones to iPods to video games and satellite radio have extended the rise” (p. 4). Users have begun to receive advertising from everywhere, and this, in turn, has caused the oversaturation of the media market with such a product.
To address this issue, advertisers can introduce new ways to serve ads. Instead of usual inserts into digital content, they can interact more directly with users by creating personalized offers. It is possible that forms of contextual advertising would become more effective if consumers saw not only targeted products but also platforms with reviews about them. Building collective brand trust is a valuable perspective, which is largely achieved through effective advertising and the trust of the customer base.
Today, social media is one of the simplest and most effective ways to deliver advertising messages to brand users. According to Gorman (2021), “49% of internet users say they’re likely to buy brands they see advertised” (para. 2). This means that consumers trust the products advertised on such platforms. Due to the function of tracking user activity, advertisers can get much valuable information about the preferences of the target audience and views of specific content.
As Kelley et al. (2015) note, calculating the share of the market, or SOM can help identify how interesting a particular brand is to the public. In addition, many social media platforms have subgroups, such as communities, in which users are grouped by interests. Conducting a trend line analysis may contribute to seeing “whether spending in the category is increasing or decreasing over time and at what rate” (Kelley et al., 2015, p. 80). Such assessments are powerful tools to help deliver advertising messages to brand users with maximum benefit and minimum cost to advertisers.
References
Gorman, D. (2021). How effective are ads on social media? GWI. Web.
Kelley, L. D., Jugenheimer, D. W., & Sheehan, K. B. (2015). Advertising media planning: A brand management approach (4th ed.). Routledge.
What are the major benefits of OTT? (2021). KOB Advertising. Web.