The UK addressable TV market is growing, with 40% of homes now addressable, and a new report from Sky AdSmart claims this channel delivers higher engagement and clear business results for advertisers.

A white paper, AdSmart: Five Years and Forward, pulls together insights collated from five years of learnings into the UK addressable TV market through Sky’s AdSmart technology, with findings based on more than 130 campaign effectiveness projects, in which 300,000 Sky subscribers were interviewed.

The use of facial recognition analysis revealed that when addressable ads are on TV, viewers are on average 21% more engaged but attentiveness to the screen can be as much as a third higher (35%).

At the same time, channel switching halved (reducing by 48%) when addressable ads were in the first three positions of a break, compared to standard linear TV ads.

The report further found that viewers of addressable TV ads were 10% more likely to spontaneously recall an ad compared to linear TV advertising. And when linear and addressable TV are combined ad awareness increased by a quarter (22%) and ad recall by half (49%).

Crucially, the higher engagement and relevance lead to clear business results: the report notes purchase intent increased by 7% overall – and by as much as 20% for new-to-TV advertisers who benefit more from the exposure and credibility TV delivers.

More than 1,000 businesses have used TV for the first time via AdSmart, and Sky reports a 70% advertiser return rate. Tapi Carpets, for example, generated more than 7,000 orders, netting £3.4m in revenue, which were directly attributable to its AdSmart campaign.

The recent expansion of AdSmart into Virgin Media homes (from July 1) means that 40% homes will be addressable, giving brands the ability to reach 30 million individuals with relevant messaging – which will likely give added impetus to a shift away from non-addressable linear TV.  



“It makes perfect sense,” said Jamie West, Director of Strategy & Capability Planning at Sky Media. “If an ad is more relevant to you, then you are more likely to remember it and that translates in greater impact.”

Last month Sky Media launched Sky Analytics, a one-stop portal to plan, report, evaluate and optimise cross-platform Sky Media campaigns, starting with AdSmart and On Demand.

Sourced from Sky; additional content by WARC staff