Inside The Agency Turf War Over Connected TV

Years ago, TV buyers didn’t bother with connected TV (CTV) because it offered little benefit for a lot of hassle.

“Digital players were the earliest adopters. Because it was TV-like, everyone wanted to get into the video game.” said Gibbs Haljun, total US investment lead at Mindshare.

But young viewers leaving linear TV changes that calculus, and today, TV buyers are rebranding as “video investment” teams and swooping in to control CTV.

Digital buyers – who successfully laid claim to the “digital video” category that included desktop and mobile video – aren’t giving up CTV easily.

Both groups are showing off their expertise – the economic prowess of TV buyers and the sophistication in targeting, measurement and attribution of digital buyers – to claim the rapidly growing CTV market.

At stake is access to CTV inventory. While CTV only makes up about $2 billion of the $70 billion TV market, according to GroupM’s global president of business intelligence Brian Wieser, it’s growing fast. If digital buyers can’t purchase CTV now, they’ll lose the potential to control billions of dollars of advertising spending…

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