Automotive Advertisers Set Sights on CTV

Fresh from releasing its H2 2024 H2 Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Market Report, Mediaocean, an omnichannel ad platform, is out with its H2 2024 Automotive report.

While linear TV remains a much cited choice for ad spend because of its ability to raise and spread product awareness, CTV has come on as the new darling channel for automotive. It’s all about performance in advertising, especially for big-ticket items, and cars are no exception.

Mediaocean conducted a survey via TechValidate in July 2024, and results reference data collected from a specific subset of 120 leading automotive advertising industry professionals. For the report, 1,231 marketers were surveyed worldwide.

Ahed Jendza, SVP Mediaocean, sat down with StreetFight to give more insights into the analysis of the responses.

Why do you think more respondents intend to increase their automotive spending in national TV but not local or CTV? Especially against the backdrop of declining linear TV viewership?

National TV is often used to promote awareness for new vehicle launches, and with many new electric vehicles coming to market, a higher level of broad awareness tactics may have been utilized. We also saw a return from multiple large automotive brands to the Super Bowl in 2024 that were missing in 2023, which may have also been a big reason for the increase.

Why is CTV suddenly the focus of so many media execs? It’s been around a while.

While CTV has been around a long time, it is still seen as a newer medium in the eyes of many brands. We’re seeing new publishers who were not available a year or two ago (Netflix, Max, etc.) create new inventory that needs to be tested. As marketers begin to see performance lifts across the entire funnel, CTV is becoming a much larger opportunity to not only grab attention or awareness, but also as a vehicle for brand experience. [That includes] second-screen/mobile engagement, QR enabled creative & AR opportunities. It’s easier for some more traditional marketers to keep their media on the same screen, shifting funds from Linear TV, than to fully transition to or only adopt OLV and social video

What are the top three most significant data points for you in this report, and especially as they relate to hyperlocal, multi-location marketing, i.e., car dealerships?

The top three data points as related to Dealers are as follows:

• Prioritizing the use of AI for market research – which could open the opportunity for dealers to better understand pricing strategies.
• The number of respondents identifying demand generation as a critical capability is up 90% — This opens the opportunity to better align creative strategies across tiers so dealers can better capture consumer demand created at the Tier 1/OEM level. An example is: better understanding which feature to highlight alongside price messaging.
• The top choice regarding verification was having  Media Rating Council (MRC) accreditation, and robust reporting – further showing the need for a more closely aligned funnel strategy from the top down, with an emphasis on partners/organizations that are highly credible.

To what extent, if any, are you or respondents seeing consumers using generative AI for car purchases? Is it a quick, easy way to compare models and pricing?

While not specifically asked in this Mediaocean survey, we are seeing the adoption of AI in day-to-day consumer support on the rise. For automotive specifically, the options are endless, but customers are starting to see it as a shopping tool both in the discovery phase of purchase, i.e., what are the best 3 row SUVs? and all the way through to pricing such as lowest price for 2024 x Brand Truck.

Why do you think respondents this year consider performance-driven media so important? (A jump to 73% versus 63% in November 2023.)

As we see more traditional media channel support such as radio [and] print shift toward digital channels, we begin to see more of an emphasis on performance – especially omnichannel performance – because digital channels offer the opportunity for gaining deeper insights and measurement.