In conversation with Nikhil Kumar, Chief Growth Officer, mediasmart

In the dynamic landscape of digital media, the emergence of Connected TV (CTV) has transformed the advertising industry, offering unparalleled opportunities for brands to engage with their audiences. In this exclusive interaction, we delve into the future of CTV advertising with Nikhil Kumar, Chief Growth Officer at mediasmart. Nikhil shares insights on the impact of Generative AI on CTV advertising in Southeast Asia and explores its potential to revolutionize the way brands connect with consumers in this diverse and dynamic region.

Agency Reporter – Can you discuss the emergence of Generative AI and its potential impact on CTV advertising in Southeast Asia?

Nikhil – The rise of CTV in the Southeast Asian region has been nothing short of remarkable! South East Asia has a thriving OTT market, driven by the young demographic who is invested in consuming content online through OTTs on their CTV. Brands have also embraced CTV advertising in this region, benefiting from increased measurability and programmatic technology while enjoying the benefits of storytelling associated with television. GenAI’s potential transformative impact in the South East Asian market goes beyond enhancing efficiency, to deliver rich and personalized experiences. Its ability to analyze vast datasets and generate personalized insights ensures that CTV advertising becomes not only more efficient but also culturally resonant. In a market where various vernacular users coexist, GenAI has the potential to empower brands to tailor their messaging to specific languages, making vernacular advertising more accessible and automated.

Agency Reporter – Considering the diverse nature of Southeast Asia, how does Gen AI adapt to and leverage regional nuances in CTV advertising campaigns?

Nikhil – GenAI has the potential to play a pivotal role in addressing the complexities of the region, ensuring that advertising strategies resonate authentically with diverse audiences. Integrating GenAI for CTV advertising, advertisers can potentially benefit from the deep analysis of datasets and get insights into audience preferences. This can help to create advertising content that is targeted and culturally relevant. As mentioned earlier, the vernacular aspect is also one of the most powerful case cases of GenAI’s impact on CTV advertising. Using GenAI-based tools, more engaging, contextual and personalized creatives can be easily made and automated for dynamic placements and A/B testing for maximized engagement. This would make it easier for brands to connect with their audiences, no matter their demographics, location, household type. With the rich cultural fabric of South East Asian countries and diversity of languages, a brand can use GenAI to create several different types of creatives for the same ad unit and even personalize it according to the targeted location and season.

Another capability of GenAI is to make sense of unstructured language-based information. This could be helpful to analyze the transcript of shows and reduce dependency on predefined content categorization for targeting. This is particularly interesting as users consume content across borders. This can open up new avenues for personalization. While it is still a futuristic case, the possibilities are immense and we’re excited for how it would grow CTV in an already exciting market!

Agency Reporter – With the increasing shift towards measurable, outcome-driven advertising, how does GenAI contribute to optimizing ad campaigns in real time?

Nikhil – Any advertising that is done today, is done with the intent of getting measurable outcomes. Programmatic technology, which is also driven by AI, has played a key role in enabling advertisers to reach here. Now, with GenAI, we can expect campaign optimization and intelligence to get more advanced. GenAI has the potential to empower media traders to set up their campaigns for optimum performance as well as change how campaign intelligence is presented and analyzed. Presently, advertisers rely on deep data sets and multiple dashboards to gain insights into campaign performance. Rather than large reports, GenAI can present quick data insights at a glance in simple prompts, such as “how is the campaign performance for X city?” or “which audience engages most during a particular time of the day?” This can make campaigns more efficient, reduce man hours, and also help campaign managers focus on improving campaigns rather than reporting.

Agency Reporter – How does GenAI empower brands to protect their image and reputation by effectively managing content and ensuring brand safety in CTV advertising?

Nikhil – As a leader in CTV advertising, we have been at the forefront of innovations making CTV more exciting for brands and end consumers by making advertising that is more relevant, contextual and seamless. Whether it is through our proprietary Household Sync technology or through our integrated omnichannel offerings on DOOH, our commitment remains to harness the power of technological R&D to elevate CTV experience. As a step forward in this, we have recently introduced AI CTVSafe that uses the power of GenAI to improve brand safety in CTV advertising. This allows brands to automatically discard showing ads on content that may be deemed inappropriate. For example, on content intended for kids or shows that a brand would consider to be violent or not in line with their brand values. This feature helps to assess ad suitability of CTV traffic to automatically filter out risk categories, ensuring that advertisers benefit from a secure and brand-appropriate environment.

Agency Reporter – How can Gen AI be integrated across multiple advertising channels, and what benefits does this cross-channel integration bring to advertisers and brands?

Nikhil – We’re living in an increasingly hyper-connected world, where consumers are engaging with multiple devices and across touchpoints both online and offline. It’s important for advertisers to adopt a unified approach where they can integrate their messaging across connected devices and platforms to enhance overall brand experience, drive conversion, and improve ROAS. We’re already offering this to our clients through our multi-screen approach and Household Sync technology on CTV that can engage viewers on the big screen at their home and drive action on mobile or to the nearest store. With GenAI’s ability to analyze large data sets and learn from unstructured data, it can help marketers to drive more personalized experiences through content recommendations, drive localization, and target diverse audiences with personalized creatives to improve ad performance. Further, GenAI agents can also be trained to interact with each other making multi-screen interactions more seamless. By harnessing real-time data trends, we can also see GenAI making an impact into trends prediction across devices, optimized budget allocation, and increased value creation for brands.

Measuring what matters on Connected TV

Agency Reporter – How do you envision the role of Gen AI evolving in the future, and what opportunities do you foresee for further innovation and growth in this space?

Nikhil – There’s an exciting future for the growth of CTV and digital advertising with the potential benefits from GenAI to transform the ecosystem. As with any technology, the learning curve is huge and requires understanding of all stakeholders in the industry, as well as continuous adaptation to new possibilities. At Affle, for instance, we recently filed 15 patents in India that cover advanced AI subject areas, including automated AI agents, personalization & recommendation, predictive analysis, privacy management, enhanced fraud detection, and security. The transformative impact of GenAI is likely to be felt across verticals and areas, whether it is content creation, buying and selling of media, targeting and personalization, brand safety, or optimization. As GenAI propels towards new frontiers, its impact on industries, creativity, and daily life promises to be nothing short of revolutionary, marking a paradigm shift in the way we interact with technology and each other.

Agency Reporter – Can you elaborate on how GenAI leverages learned patterns to refine contextual targeting strategies in CTV advertising?

Nikhil – As mentioned earlier, GenAI’s advantage comes from its ability to leverage learned patterns and unstructured data. These algorithms analyze vast amounts of data, including user behavior, preferences, and content consumption patterns across CTV platforms. By understanding these patterns, GenAI can identify relevant contextual cues within the content being consumed by viewers. This enables more precise targeting of advertisements based on the context of the content being watched, ensuring that ads are delivered to the most relevant audience segments.

Disclaimer: Information mentioned here has not been verified or endorsed by Agency Reporter and is in accordance with the press release shared by the company or their appointed representatives.