By all accounts, 2023 is shaping up to be a challenging one for local video advertisers, one fraught with fears of recession and corporate downsizing. That means now’s the time for advertisers to get smarter, be more efficient and spend their budgets even more carefully than before. 

Here are the top four trends we expect to see in the upcoming year that local video advertisers and agencies should be preparing for. 

Trend #1 – Connected TV Usage Will Continue To See Strong Growth

Connected TVs, which include any TV that streams content through a connected device such as a Roku, Amazon Fire Stick, or Cable TV box, are now used daily by 25 percent of all households in the United States and the amount of time those households are spending with them is only increasing.

The latest metrics indicate that broadcast and cable TV usage will fall 4% and 6% respectively every year through 2025. CTV/OTT, however, is expected to grow at a 22% compound annual growth rate, making it the fastest growing segment, beating out digital, social and even data-driven linear. 

We see CTV continuing to be an important part of the new local media landscape and, despite its fragmented nature, it should be an integral part of your local video 2023 campaigns. According to our own Industry Pulse Survey, 99% of buyers already plan to spend more on local CTV in 2023 and these buyers expect their CTV budgets to increase by an average of 55%, 

Trend #2 – Local Measurement Will Become Even More Crucial

After being the measurement bellwether for decades, Nielsen’s methodology has fallen under scrutiny as of late – particularly in local markets. With agencies and advertisers alike demanding more accurate measurement and accountability, alternative measurement currencies are growing in popularity. According to our survey, only 30% of buyers are confident that they truly know the total reach and frequency of their local campaigns.

We see measurement becoming an even more vital part of local video advertising in 2023. That’s why measurement that includes deduplicated reach and frequency across screens is such an integral part of ScreenLift, our activation solution.

Our ScreenLift team uses measurement in a variety of ways to help our customers’ campaigns succeed:

1. In-flight measurement allows us to make adjustments to live campaigns and optimize performance. 
2. Post-campaign measurement enables us to prove out the impact of each campaign.
3. Ongoing measurement creates a cycle of perpetual learning and improvement with every campaign we run, both for individual customers and across customers and industries. 

Trend #3 – Local Broadcast Advertising Will Soften As Marketers Skew Digital

According to Digital News Daily, local TV advertising is expected to decline by 15% in 2023, in part to recession fears and the lack of any major elections fueling political campaigns. Conversely,  digital TV and CTV/OTT advertising are forecast to grow 17.3% and 12.3% respectively in 2023.

These insights make sense with a recession looming. Agencies often take comfort in recommending digital advertising over traditional broadcast and cable because measurement is built-in and their decisions are easier to justify to clients. That comfort may be short-lived, however, because with digital video ads, there are no universal standards for what counts as an impression. Agencies can quickly find those partial views are not yielding the impactful outcomes their clients are expecting. 

That’s why leading agencies are turning to new technologies that more accurately measure their CTV campaigns and combine those results with their linear and broadcast results for a complete picture of how their campaigns are performing. Armed with this information, changes can be made and clients’ fears can be put at ease.  

Trend #4 – Live Sports Will Continue To Dominate Local Programming

Live sports look to continue to be the growth engine of local programming in 2023. In fact, if you remove sports from local programming, overall local viewership is down 33% since 2017. During that same period, however, viewership for NFL football has risen by 14%. This explains why the NFL now accounts for a whopping 90% of the Top 20 shows on broadcast!

Not all audiences are created equal, however. Advertisers will need to be even more vigilant with their planning in 2023 if they want to hyper-target their audiences for maximum results. Audience characteristics vary widely depending on the sport, time of year and geographic market.

Conclusions

While it looks like 2023 could be shaping up to be a challenging year for local video advertising, we must always remember that challenging times force us to push forward, innovate and become more efficient in everything we do. Challenging times are when the true winners in our industry truly shine. Cross Screen Media is working with advertisers across industries to help with planning, activation and measurement solutions to make local video campaigns even more successful in the new year.

Visit crossscreenmedia.com or request a demo of our solutions today.