Tubi hopes emotional context can drive demand for streaming’s long tail

Tubi is working with IRIS.TV, a contextual targeting company acquired by Viant last November, to tag much of its on-demand content for emotional or thematic content, using categories like “joyful” or “travel.” The idea is that advertisers will be able to invest, at a more granular level, against inventory that is suitable for their brands and avoid TV that isn’t. 

“It gives our buyers a bit more precision in terms of targeting, and the ability to take advantage of a massive content library in a smarter way,” said Vijay Rao, svp of partnerships at Tubi, who didn’t detail the exact fine print of the agreement with IRIS.TV.

According to Mike Treon, head of connected TV strategy at PMG, tests using the feature suggest it can make programmatic CTV investments more effective. “In a fragmented CTV landscape, our clients want to ensure the intended target audience watches their ads. When our client’s campaigns target IRIS-enabled data, we have not only seen superior lifts in upper funnel KPIs like ad recall and brand favorability, but also in outcomes including visits, sales, and return-on-ad spend,” he said in an email, without providing specific figures. 

A campaign run by PMG client Carl’s Jr last year, monitored by measurement firm Upwave, showed the use of IRIS.TV’s contextual data led to ad recall increasing by five times, a 35% increase in restaurant visits and a 152% incremental sales increase.

In practice, a family-friendly brand could use the feature to run commercials during the ad break of a popular action movie — and avoid running commercials following a scenes featuring violence or sex.

“There could be content you want to be around,” explained Jon Schulz, chief marketing officer at Viant. “The hero saves the day… that’s content I want my ad to follow. Versus avoiding negative scenes where somebody gets killed or there’s a car accident… you just don’t want to be associated with that.”

Whether running a cosmetics ad midway through Reservoir Dogs (for example) would actually reflect negatively on an advertiser, Schulz said, wasn’t clear. But there’s clearly demand among buyers to cherry pick in accordance with brand suitability needs.

Richie Hyden, co-founder and chief operating officer of IRIS.TV, said the system incorporated GARM’s brand suitability framework (the Global Media Sustainability Framework still lives on for some, it seems). “This is particularly helpful when advertisers want to target news but want to avoid stories about terrorism or violence,” he said in an email.

A couple of subplots are worth noting here. The first is fierce competition between DSP providers as migrating ad spend gradually retoggles that market.

Companies like Viant need to stay sharp to keep up with rivals big (Amazon) and mid-sized (Yahoo), particularly for the growing CTV segment; CTV spend accounted for 45% of ad spend on Viant in the last quarter, according to the company’s most recent earnings figures.

The Tubi team-up follows a series of similar partnerships for Viant in recent months. It inked a deal with programmatic firm AdTegral directed at performance-minded SME advertisers, and a partnership with Applovin-owned Wurl added further contextual data to CTV supply. Subsidiary IRIS is now integrated with AMC, Walmart’s Vizio, Samsung TV and LG TV.

Another subplot is how CTV networks like Tubi stand out in the market. Marketers and media buyers each have a vast array of addressable TV against which to run ads.

Over half of the dollars on the table at this year’s upfront event went to streamers. But broadcasters and streamers reportedly had a hard time coaxing advertisers to spend on entertainment properties — and several resorted to bundling entertainment inventory with in-demand live sports as a means of shifting it.

So, anything CTV players can do to further enrich their long-tail streaming content will help. Tubi, with its large user base of cord-cutters and “cord nevers”, is already in a competitive spot. Chris Rigas, vp, media at agency Markacy said it’s considered a tier-one CTV buy for clients.

“There’s a ton of good content on there that we would view as more premium. It’s [often] going to get included in that first ring of a media plan,” he said. Further targeting options help bolster that position.  “Advertisers [want] more of that contextual targeting,” said Rigas.

The latest integration, said Rao, is intended to do just that, providing “scalpel level targeting… that allows them to fully take advantage of all the content that is available on TV, not just the high end stuff, but all of it.”