The biggest screen in your customer’s home used to belong to whoever could afford broadcast television. That era is over. Your customer watches what she wants, when she wants, on an internet-connected TV, and your ad can be in the middle of it without a TV sized budget.
We are The Profound Agency, a visibility agency in Hillsborough, New Jersey. Connected TV is one of our 17 advertising channels: video ads running entirely on internet-connected televisions, embedded in the programming people stream.
Bought by audience, not by airtime
A traditional TV spot is bought against a daypart: Tuesday at 8pm, and you hope the right people are watching. Connected TV is bought against an audience instead, with household-level targeting. Your ad reaches the households that match your customer, whatever they happen to be streaming. The question changed from “when are they watching” to “who are they,” and the answer got much better.
And it is reported on by completion, so you know how many people actually watched the spot instead of guessing from ratings. That is the difference between buying attention and buying a time slot. Ratings estimate. Completion counts.
Creative that earns the big screen
The television is unforgiving of small thinking. A repurposed social clip looks lost at 55 inches. What works is built for the couch: a clear idea in the first three seconds, sound designed for living rooms, a single message instead of five. You do not need a broadcast budget to make it. You need one strong idea and the discipline to keep it simple. Some of the best performing CTV creative we see started life as a good phone video with a real script.
Who it is for
Anyone whose customer watches streaming television, which is to say almost everyone, but it shines brightest for considered purchases: home services, furniture, automotive, healthcare, education. The products people think about before buying are the products that benefit from thirty seconds of full attention. It is also the credibility channel: a brand on the big screen feels established in a way no banner ever will.
How you know it worked
Completion reporting tells you who watched and for how long. Household targeting tells you who saw it. And because CTV runs inside a digital plan, it does not have to work alone: the household that saw your spot can see your display ad tomorrow and your search ad when they finally Google. Television used to be the top of the funnel and nothing else. Now it is a measurable step in a sequence.
Picture it. A couple is deciding on a kitchen remodel. They are three episodes into a home renovation series, exactly the frame of mind you would pay anything to reach. Your ad appears: your showroom, your work, twenty minutes away. You did not buy a channel. You bought the moment.
Television was never the problem. Wasted reach was. Connected TV keeps the screen and fixes the targeting.
The one-two punch
CTV creates demand. Search captures it. The household that saw your spot on Tuesday Googles you on Thursday, and if your search campaign is there to catch them, the loop closes. Run separately, each channel is guessing about the other’s contribution. Run together, they are a system: the big screen plants the idea, the search box harvests it. This is the simplest multi-channel play in advertising, and most businesses still run the two in isolation.
Mistakes to avoid
Thinking in thirty-second broadcast blocks in a world where the first five seconds decide everything. Forgetting the call to action because “it’s a branding play”: the viewer has a phone in their hand, so give them a reason to pick it up. And buying audiences too broad for the message: household targeting is precise, so use it. A spot for everyone is a spot for no one, even on the biggest screen.
Getting started
Start narrow: one audience, one message, one flight. Learn what completion looks like, what the search lift looks like, what the household response looks like. Then scale what worked. CTV does not require a television budget anymore. It requires a test budget and the patience to read it honestly.
The second screen
The viewer is holding a phone. That is not a distraction to fight. It is the conversion path. The spot makes the case, the phone takes the action: the QR code, the memorable URL, the name they Google during the commercial break. CTV creative that ignores the second screen is advertising to 2010. Design for the hand holding the remote and the thumb on the glass.
Want the biggest screen in your media plan? Book a call and we will build it in.