TV advertising used to be a space where media buyers were in charge of securing ad spots and where large brands tended to dominate, but as technologies have developed and connected TV has gained popularity, television has become a performance marketing channel accessible to companies of all sizes.

MNTN, formerly SteelHouse, was the first to launch a platform that connected performance and direct-response advertising to streaming TV. The company’s CEO recently spoke with Ari Paparo, founder and CEO of Marketecture; they discussed the growth MNTN has achieved in the streaming TV space, the companies it has acquired to expand capabilities and how it’s helping advertisers now and in the future.

How MNTN opened up accessibility to CTV advertising

While MNTN started in the retargeting space when it was called SteelHouse, once the company realized that creating a self-serve platform for television would unlock the space for a massive influx of advertisers, it pivoted to focusing entirely on streaming TV and TV as a performance marketing channel.

Streaming TV, in this instance, encompasses smart TVs and any OTT devices used to access streaming content, such as a Roku, Amazon Firestick or Apple TV. These all have apps serving as what has been traditionally thought of as cable channels, as well as streaming-only services.

However, given the way streaming services are currently set up, the market is fragmented, making purchasing ad slots more challenging to navigate. To help advertisers, MNTN established relationships with virtually every TV network in the U.S. to give its platform access to all ad-supported premium content.

“We’ve seen from the data that consumers respond best to commercials when they’re really engaged in programming,” said Douglas in the interview. “So, we want the ads to run against episodic programming, and just like with linear TV; there are pods of ads as you’re watching streaming TV. There’s a whole layer of technology to decide what campaigns to serve when, where and to whom, but you have full control over targeting as a marketer. It’s all done programmatically in real-time.”

On top of offering a platform that takes the guesswork out of media placement, MNTN has further expanded access to streaming TV and shown it’s possible to create impactful ads for TV without spending a lot of money. Its acquisition of the creative agency Maximum Effort highlighted how impactful commercials achieve their goals by being culturally relevant and timely instead of relying on budget alone. And MNTN’s acquisition of QuickFrame has added creative as a subscription to its offerings; QuickFrame connects brands to freelance creators and agencies with extra bandwidth to develop video creative at …read more

Source:: Digiday

Author: Aaron