Strategies for competitive separation in video broadcast ads
Modern media executives face a unique challenge: Differentiating themselves in an increasingly saturated market. Addressable advertising offers a unique opportunity to not only reach your perfect customer with the perfect message, but also maximize your budget and your impact. And thanks to competitive separation, you can differentiate yourself even more.
What is competitive separation in broadcasting?
Competitive separation is a strategy that prevents ads from competing brands from appearing together during a broadcast or streaming session. It’s typically used for dynamic ad insertion and on programmatic channels – and it’s so important for the effectiveness of advertising campaigns that most large advertisers won’t sign a deal without a competitive separation agreement.
Publishers typically determine who is a competitor by using standardized IAB categories or creating custom lists based on advertiser preferences. The level of separation is set depending on the needs of the advertiser and the capabilities of the ad serving platform.
For example, you might want to prevent ads from appearing immediately before or after those of competitors, or within the same ad pod. (What’s an ad pod? It’s just the group of advertisements that’s played during a single commercial break.) You can even make sure your ad is the only one from its category in an entire program.
Understanding IAB categories and their role in competitive separation
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has developed a standardized set of content and ad categories that play a big part in competitive separation. So what are the IAB categories? Tier 1 categories represent broad industry sectors such as Automotive or Food & Drink, while Tier 2 breaks it down into subcategories like Auto Parts or Alcoholic Beverages. An ad might also fall under multiple IAB content categories.
Ad serving platforms use IAB categories as a basis for implementing competitive separation. The platform typically converts IAB subcategories into ad server group identifiers, which are then used to manage ad placements and ensure that competing ads aren’t served together.
Importance of competitive separation advertising
While competitive separation isn’t offered by all ad servers and is often optional for advertisers, when it is used, it has plenty of benefits.
Bigger brand impact
It’s simple: When competitive ads are kept apart, each brand has a better chance of standing out in the viewer’s mind. That reduces the risk of brand confusion and increases the likelihood that viewers will remember and act on your ad. And that leads to increased ROI for advertisers.
Improved Viewer Experience
Competitive ad separation doesn’t just benefit advertisers – it also makes for a better viewing experience for the audience. Variety helps reduce ad fatigue, which is when viewers see so many similar ads, they stop paying attention. A more varied ad experience can increase engagement, which benefits everyone involved.
Maximize addressable advertising while maintaining competitive separation
The addressable advertising ecosystem is a complex network of ad insertion platforms, ad decisioning systems, broadcast scheduling tools, and traffic management systems. To effectively enforce competitive separation agreements within this intricate ecosystem, all these elements must work together seamlessly so that the right information is communicated at exactly the right time.
First, ad decisioning systems need to understand the category of each ad within an ad pod. Then the platform can make informed decisions about which ads to exclude in order to maintain competitive separation. However, the fragmented nature of many advertising ecosystems can make this level of coordination challenging, especially in fast-paced environments where the decision window can be as short as 30 seconds.
The solution is to implement competitive ad solutions that provide interoperability and automation at scale across all components of the advertising ecosystem. These universal ad signaling solutions act as a communication proxy, integrating with all parts of the advertising ecosystem so that information can flow smoothly. Centralizing the communication and decision-making process helps maintain competitive separation while maximizing efficiency and impact.
Choosing the best solution for addressable advertising
As more networks begin testing and launching addressable advertising campaigns, they’re quickly realizing these channels can offer new revenue streams. Yet many executives remain concerned about competitive separation. Partnering with an experienced solutions provider can help you future-proof your operations and position yourself to maintain competitive separation across national and global campaigns.
LTN has the automation and communication capabilities you need to navigate the complexities of modern ad tech stacks. Our platform allows for real-time decision-making and ad insertion, ensuring that competitive ads don’t appear together, even in fast-paced programmatic environments.
With LTN, you can maximize the potential of addressable advertising while maintaining strict competitive separation. And you’re not just investing in a technology solution – you're partnering with a leader who understands the unique challenges and opportunities facing today's media companies. If you’re ready for next-level competitive separation advertising, contact LTN today.