Connected TV (CTV) is gathering steam - with the proliferation of CTV hardware at affordable price points and the corresponding increase of broadband users in the country this is a story that’s evolving at a rapid pace.

As brands race to catch up, broadcasters, agencies, and martech stack players will need to play the role of navigators to guide the evolution of this space.

Linear TV has traditionally played a pivotal role in terms of audience and reach aggregation for brands. However, as the lines between linear and digital increasingly blur we are seeing an evolution into Total TV planning. Simply put Total TV is about everything watched on the screen, regardless of whether it is viewed on linear TV or via a streaming service which could be AVOD or SVOD in nature.

Even as I write this linear and digital TV are becoming virtually indistinguishable for viewers and while that's a good thing for consumers, for advertisers it brings in a host of challenges across the areas of duplication, fragmentation, and measurement. This means that while it is much easier to now activate on the largest screen at home, we are also seeing a huge amount of wastage attributable to poor targeting, siloed planning across channels, and a lack of true cross-channel measurement which in turn creates a gap for deep campaign optimization.

A misconception I often hear is around plans built for traditional TV and programmatic video operating better as siloed plans layered over each other with independent budgets, teams, plans, and outcomes! Fortunately, I am in parallel seeing our agency partners nudge their clients towards considering a 'one audience' approach. Easier said than done, but as a wise man once said, 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step'.

Our consumers have already evolved in the way they consume content, and in order for our brands to continue reaching these consumers no matter what device they are using while keeping the context in mind, as brands we will need to move beyond the traditional TV planning framework - once we take that leap, the unification of TV and digital is guaranteed to bring in better-planning synergy, optimization benefits and far better viewing experiences for our consumers

The one big impediment to a far larger set of brands making this leap faster is the lack of a standardized measurement across linear and digital TV, but with the ecosystem working closely together I am sure success on this front is a matter of when and not if. In the interim, I recommend experimenting along with your agency partner to find the best synergy you can within the current set of limitations we operate with.

No matter where you lie on the continuum between linear and digital TV it is increasingly clear that consumer consumption of content across delivery platforms will continue to explode in the days to come and the unification of TV is all but a given. The question to ask is have you started working on a planning framework to truly harness its power yet?