Will attended the 2023 IAB NewFronts; we discussed his five key takeaways (hints: CTV dominates, Full-funnel ahead, FAST concerns, Platform/glass ownership advantages, and Shoutouts.)
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Top five takeaways from the IAB NewFronts (5:00)
Will attended many of the NewFronts in New York and summarized his top takeaways from the event.
Connected TV is the number 1 priority (8:00)
CTV transition to a full-funnel medium (9:30)
FASTs remain a focus (9:40)
Will is concerned that FASTs’ reliance on a single revenue stream could be a problem for the industry going forward.
Ownership of the platform and the glass critical (12:30)
With the deprecation of cookies and increasing privacy concerns, first-party data derived by platform and screen owners will become increasingly important.
Presentations were very high quality (13:30)
Will was especially impressed with the presentations from Revry, Amazon, and Roku.
CTV forecast for big growth in 2023 (20:00)
Just in time for the NewFronts, the IAB released its 2022 ad spend and 2023 outlook report this week. It made for very interesting reading, giving insight into not only where the market is but also into the industry sentiments that will drive it in 2023 and beyond. It all adds up to a strong year for connected TV advertising.
The IAB says that 2022 CTV ad spending was $18.6 billion and that it will increase by 21% in 2023 to $22.5 billion. eMarketer says the market is even bigger and will grow faster. It pegs 2022 CTV spending at $20.7 billion, growing to $25.1 billion in 2023, though the growth rate is the same as IAB: 21%.
AI was there too! (21:20)
Just as at NAB. AI was in plenty of presentations at the NewFronts. I mentioned one great example from Roku. But there were many more. The best examples today seem to be focused on the enhancement of metadata.
Plenty of innovation at the NewFronts (25:10)
I discuss ad innovations that Amazon is bringing to Thursday Night Football. But innovation was a theme of every presentation.
FASTs and their challenges (29:00)
There was lots of enthusiasm about FASTs at the NewFronts. But Will is concerned that too much ad-supported content is currently available in the market. Certainly, there are many platforms, which is overwhelming, but YouTube is the only service that seems to cut through the noise and consistently reach its audience. We discuss if UGC is a useful term anymore.
