Now TV unveils addressable TV advertising to improve campaign targeting

Now TV has unveiled the city’s first addressable TV advertising service, applying the latest technology to enable more precise campaign targeting for enterprises.

Addressable TV combines TV’s power of persuasion with digital-style targeting and accountability, providing relevant messages to intended audiences. It has targeted advertising messages served directly to households. It also serves ad messages to the best-qualified audience across any screen or device, whenever they’re watching.

Leveraging the group’s large customer base, Now TV is able to categorise its users based on first-hand data such as programme preferences, interests, habits, and other authentic information. As consumption habits become increasingly sophisticated, it can be a vast challenge for advertisers to capture and hold their viewer's attention. Now TV’s addressable advertising combines the unparalleled scale of attention and emotional engagement of TV with precise targeting and advanced campaign measurement that focus on the audience, which is delivered at scale in a premium brand-safe environment.

This allows Now TV to provide a more personalised television viewing experience tailored to different user segments. The first in Hong Kong, this advertising deployment technology seamlessly integrates personalised commercials across more than 40 linear channels on Now TV spanning news, finance, sports, movies, drama and entertainment.

Advertisers have the flexibility to push different ads to specific customer segments based on the target of their advertising campaigns, heightening customer engagement and attention.

Now TV will make it easy for advertisers to reach the 1.43 million Hong Kong households across set-top-box, mobile live streaming and VOD in a single measurable campaign, allowing groups of people watching the same programme to see targeted TV ads. Among Now TV’s first addressable TV advertising clients are international luxury and automotive brands, including Bulgari.

Bruce Lam, CEO, consumer, HKT, said, "We are thrilled to introduce Hong Kong's first addressable TV advertising service, revolutionising Hong Kong’s TV commercial landscape. This innovative technology empowers us to precisely target campaigns for brand owners and agencies, leveraging our extensive customer base and first-hand data. The initial results of the launch have been satisfactory, and we look forward to further expanding our advertising capabilities to drive even greater revenue growth. This is a game-changing step forwards for the TV industry."

Derek Choi, managing director, consumer marketing and Pay TV, HKT, said, “Ushering in digital targeting to TV, our new offerings combine the strengths of traditional TV big screen commercials and state-of-the-art digital marketing. It improves consumer experience by delivering relevant ads, enhancing customer engagement, leading to higher conversion rates, and thus improving ROI for advertisers.”

Cathy Cheng, general manager, Mindshare Hong Kong, said: “Now TV's addressable TV advertising redefines marketing by merging TV's persuasion with digital targeting, revolutionising Hong Kong's commercial landscape. We're honoured as their inaugural advertising partner, utilising this cutting-edge offering. This achievement underscores the commitment to clients’ revenue growth, setting a new standard for advertising effectiveness."

In fact, similar services have been launched in different regions around the world with remarkable success. A 2019 study from Sky Media has shown that addressable TV advertising helps raise viewer attentiveness by 35% and ad engagement by over 20% while reducing channel switching by close to 50%.

Another Forrester report in 2021 revealed that over half of surveyed media buyers’ organisations are focused on improving the effectiveness of their TV campaign targeting through addressable TV advertising, in response to the ever-evolving media ecosystem and consumer behaviour.

This article is done in collaboration with HKT.