A Marketer’s Dilemma, A FAST Solution, and a Media owner’s Profit

Marketers have always strived to put their dollars toward marketing activities where conversions, or sales, can be tracked, but this has been especially true over the last decade or two. Social media and online news advertisements are two prime examples of this. A marketer can see who saw an ad, how long they looked at it, if they clicked on it, whether that led to a purchase, and then retarget them on other platforms in the future. TV advertising, however, has long been a different story.

While cable TV networks could provide an advertiser with some demographic information, it has never come close to the level of information they receive from Meta for example, nor do they have the same retargeting power. FAST and the online-ification of TV could change that, which could mean more revenue for media owners.

Backstory: Why marketers are returning to branding

After over a decade of conversion-based advertising being the focus, the marketing world is seeing a resurgence of a branding first approach. The issue with putting marketing dollars toward branding is it becomes harder for executives to understand what is working and what is not. When a marketing professional tells their boss that the million-dollar social media campaign drove two million in sales, and their million-dollar TV commercial drove an unknown amount of revenue; it is easy to see why an executive would put a greater focus on social media campaigns going forward.

The issue with conversion-based advertising is consumers begin to lose sight of who or what a company is. Nike for example built an empire by being more than a shoe; they were a feeling, a champion mentality, and they stood for something. After their (now former) CEO, Mark Parker began placing a greater emphasis on conversion-based advertising, this feeling faded and revenues began to fall. Parker has now been replaced by a Nike employee since 1988, Elliot Hill, who seeks to reestablish who Nike is in the minds of consumers.

This is a trend being seen across the industry, but the lack of data found in a branding-first approach still leaves a sour taste in the mouth of marketers. FAST can change that.

FAST is perfectly positioned, Media owners can reap benefits

Why does all that matter to media owners? The platforms that distribute your content could be the key to these advertiser headaches, and they can charge them a premium for it.

FAST, AVOD and SVOD platforms (with ad-based tiers) have the potential to be both killer branding opportunities for marketers while providing all the same conversion tracking benefits of social media platforms, which have been robbing legacy media revenues for nearly two decades. Advertisers can put non-skippable 30 second to 1-minute ads in front of a highly targeted audience, retarget those exact viewers on other platforms, and track clicks & conversions the entire way.

This will be used by big and small companies alike. Small companies and startups can notably benefit from this by making themselves appear larger than they are. Consumers automatically associate a company that pushes TV commercials as being larger than a company that just does social media ads. FAST, AVOD and SVOD could, in a way, allow them to act like a puffer fish, appearing larger and more established to their target consumer without the same large budget requirements of traditional TV advertising.

The only missing piece is for FAST, AVOD and SVOD to catch up to the standard set by social media platform’s advertiser portals. With growing revenues, they are surely putting effort toward developing ad tools that will empower advertisers. Once complete, demand for ad space on these platforms will soar and media owners, specifically those with revenue share agreements, will be perfectly positioned to capitalize.