Television: 5 Things To Know About Targeted Advertising

After a stuttering start in 2021, targeted advertising continues to grow on French television, and the TF1 group is establishing itself as the leader in this field. According to the figures revealed by the channel, 5.5 million French households can already receive targeted advertising campaigns. Here are 5 things to know about this new form of TV advertising.

1- It uses the principle of targeted advertising on the Internet

As the name implies, targeted advertising involves targeting viewers based on various criteria such as age, zip code, interests or media habits.

The goal of this form of advertising is to provide differentiated advertising campaigns tailored to each household.

In this area, TV channels aim to rival with digital giants to offer ads that are ever more tailored to viewers.

In the words of advertising agency TF1 Pub, targeting makes it possible to deliver 'the right message, to the right people, in the right context'.

In practice, local companies can, for example, target viewers who live in a specific city or region.

2- It develops thanks to agreements with telecom operators

Targeted advertising is starting to develop and become more democratic in the French audiovisual landscape.

This type of advertising has already arrived on TF1 for Orange customers from the beginning of 2021.

After entering into partnerships with Orange and Bouygues Telecom, the TF1 group also signed an agreement with SFR in December 2021.

Through agreements with these three operators, TF1 claims to be able to reach 18% of French households, or over 11 million people.

Only Free has not yet announced any such agreement with an advertising network. However, TF1 said it was 'confident' in its ability to sign with that operator by the end of 2022.

Indeed, it should be noted that telecom operators are key partners to segmented advertising.

They are the ones who ensure the proper technical operation of this type of ads and who sell access to their subscribers' data to advertising agencies, after having asked for their consent.

In other words, it is thanks to telecom operators that advertisers can target households according to their geographical location or according to socio-demographic criteria, such as housing type or channel viewing habits.

3- Viewers must give their consent

On the viewer's side, to access targeted ads like they already exist on the web, you need to receive television via an Internet box or a connected TV.

In addition, operators like Orange or SFR must collect consent from users before proceeding with targeting by geolocation, TV usage and household type, for example.

4- The TF1 group is the French leader in this field

Since August 2021, targeted or segmented advertising has almost doubled its coverage in France.

Over the course of 2021, TF1 set up more than 150 segmented advertising campaigns, primarily for small and medium-sized businesses looking to communicate and publicize their business on a local scale.

This innovative form of advertising has enabled TF1 to attract 92 new advertisers.

5- This technology should take off in 2022

According to Sylvia Tassan Toffola, the CEO of TF1's advertising sales house, '2022 is going to be a truly pivotal year' in the field of targeted advertising.

The TF1 group is banking on an acceleration of this technology in 2022 thanks to the lifting of certain restrictions in the second half of the year.

For now, these restrictions limit the number of targeted spots per ad screen and access to certain time slots. But soon, this type of advertising will be able to be used in all time slots, including prime time.

Viewer targeting technology is expected to continue to grow in 2022, driven by the success of fiber offerings that are leading to accelerated TV box renewal.

According to TF1 Pub forecasts, segmented advertising could reach 7.5 million households by the end of 2022 and 9 million households by the end of 2023, or one-third of the total number of TV boxes in France.