What is Sky Adsmart?
I recently added an agency day held at Sky HQ, where I was shown the power of AdSmart. Firstly, I have to say that the Sky offices are incredible. I’ve been to the home of all the big players – Facebook, Google, ITV to name a few and I have to say the Sky offices tick all the boxes for me. The campus is an experience and I love that – an immersive experience makes taking on board key information all the more easy for me.
In my current role – I dabbled in using AdSmart for a Christmas campaign back in 2018 which quite poor results. I think there were a few reasons for that – firstly, we had a limited budget and so only targeted London, secondly, on reflection, while our creative was good, I don’t think it sold our message very well and finally, we launched it during one of the most competitive trading periods. Ultimately, I couldn’t prove the ROI and so it was abandoned.
I’ve written about the need for brand awareness and conversion driving activity to go hand in hand but often when you can’t prove the value ‘right then’… it is natural to shift budget elsewhere; to an area that you know will bring short term growth. In the long term however, you’re not investing in ‘the consumer experience’ of your brand, so you’re going to be forgotten. So for me, testing this medium again is extremely important and tracking incremental growth over time so should be the focus of reporting.
TV Advertising – a new way
“Nothing lands a new idea with more power and impact than TV.” – this is the opening line, when Sky introduce you to the concept of AdSmart. I think they are right. There is a reason I say this…TV teaches you a lot, through documentaries, films and even trash TV. If I think about my own TV consumption – I learn about the world through a lot of documentaries, I was the news so that I know what is going on, I love films based on real life events or with a moral lesson in them and I love trashy reality shows because it reminds me that my family and life is normal. I must be sat in front of the TV for a least 1-3 hours a day AND what I love about AdSmart is that it is making it accessible for businesses of all shapes and sizes to access the TV market. AdSmart is making TV advertising a level playing field.
Sky state that when ‘your TV ad appears in world class shows, people will remember it and because of that it is typically twice as effective* as the next best performing medium’.
*Thinkbox/Ebiquity – Payback 4: Pathways to Profit, 2014
So how does it work?
With AdSmart, different ads can be shown to different households watching the same programme. This the part that I love, it means brands and businesses can now advertise on some of the nation’s favourite channels, but only to households and audiences relevant to your business audience..
According to Sky ‘Before AdSmart, TV advertising was mostly mass market and usually required a big investment. AdSmart’s controllability and precision radically reduces the outlay required, making TV advertising possible for almost any business. In fact, more than 70% of advertisers using AdSmart are new to TV or Sky.‘
What’s great is that, AdSmart allows you to pick your ideal audience from hundreds of segments so you can be sure only the right households are seeing your ad at the right cost for you. As long as you truly understand your audience and can pinpoint the type of people that you want to target then this channel is an ideal option when looking at TV advertising. Not just that AdSmart also offers location based targeting options which means that if you’re a local business, you can access your local market.
You can also target based on affluence, beauty products (data gathered via sales through boots card), lifestyle, early tech-adopters, home movers and so much more.
Find out more about AdSmart by watching the Sky AdSmart video or downloading their white paper here: AdSmart from Sky White paper