Watching together: how communities are united through live TV

While television has evolved over the past decade, one pattern remains the same: the appetite for live events. But when it’s only live once, milliseconds matter. How can advertisers make the most of this moment of emotional engagement?

In a new video series, #YOLO (You’re Only LIVE Once), we gathered key players from the buy- and sell-sides of the TV ecosystem, including Uber Advertising, State Farm, Bain, Magna and Fox, on the FreeWheel Beach in Cannes to get their take in the moment on the challenges and opportunities with live as TV consumption shifts from linear to streaming.

High attention, high precision

Technology and data advancements are changing the live TV industry – combining mass scale and moments of emotional engagement with the precision of addressable TV, giving advertisers of all sizes more opportunities to connect in the highest attention environment.

“Live TV can still be about big brand moments at mass scale – and that continues to have great value,” says Pooja Midha, general manager, Effectv. “But it can also now be about bringing precision into the equation through the advancement of our ability to apply data insights in that environment to reach an audience inside an incredibly emotional event.”

NBCUniversal and Comcast Advertising, for example, have created the opportunity for brands to be promoted alongside NBC’s coverage of Olympic Games Paris 2024 programmatically on Xfinity platforms – the first time brands can be featured throughout the user interfaces on Xfinity X1, Xfinity’s Xumo Stream Box, and Xfinity Flex.

“Advertising in live TV is changing dramatically because something new is happening; it’s addressability,” adds Philippe Boscher, head of digital marketing at TF1 Publicitéon. “Live addressable and linear addressable means that now you can combine the power of live TV with the capability to target niche targeting, geo localization data targeting.”

Social connections

Beyond the record viewership that live events draw, the enduring appeal of live TV is its ability to create communal experiences and deliver real-time content. A report from FreeWheel, It’s Only Live Once: How TV Advertisers Can Capture Audiences in the Moment, finds that live events are 17% more likely to be viewed by multiple people together versus other programs; 54% of sports viewers often watching live with others.

Research from Bain & Company also found that 51% of consumers who are streaming content are looking at social media at the same time. That’s why it’s important to think about “how to connect moments from what’s happening on the screen through live and connected TV into social interactions in the same moment,” says Jeff Katzin, partner, Bain & Company. “There’s an explosion in appetite for real and authentic experiences. Consumers are really looking for opportunities to have a shared moment or connect with others – and that’s something the power of live can do better or as well as anything that exists out there.”

The live experience doesn’t just happen on the big screen – but on the journey to the live event. “Consumers want to watch what they want to watch when they want to watch it,” says Megan Ramm, global director, head of CPG partnerships at Uber Advertising. “The on-demand nature of people’s desire for personalization and creating experiences that they want for viewing and the choices that they have is presenting unique opportunities to connect with them when they’re in a positive mindset, attentive and receptive to wanting to receive those messages.”

Interacting in the moment

While it’s clear that consumption habits are changing, the real benefit for brands is to reach new audiences and attract younger generations through alignment with live TV.

“Live programming is still very important to us, especially around sports; it’s where the eyeballs are, but it also gives us an opportunity to move at the pace of culture,” says Kristyn Cook, executive vice-president and chief agency, sales and marketing officer at State Farm. “We all recognize that consumption habits are changing – they want to consume content anywhere, anytime across any screen that they want, so it’s important to have a very cohesive, comprehensive approach to both live TV and streaming.”

But the fundamentals remain the same: to deliver the best viewing experience. “It’s a different relationship, different consumption that’s much more forward than laid back,” says Thomas Bremond, chief revenue officer, international, FreeWheel. “My kids don’t even know what changing the channel means, they don’t know the technical infrastructure, but they know that the experience has to be seamless and perfect.”

With this scale, the opportunities are for brands are endless – offering more interactivity than before. “The fact that live programming is living on these new platforms brings the opportunity for innovative ad units like interactive and shoppable, and first-party data to connect and target audiences in a different way to move down the funnel quicker,” says Dani Benowitz, US and global president at Magna.

“We talk to our clients a lot about the power of live and migrating dollars that may have been slated for general entertainment, to keep moving to sports and live events because of the watercooler moments and the leaned in engagement from consumers.”

Engineering challenges

As record amounts of viewers tune in to their favorite live events, advertisers have the opportunity and responsibility to provide an enjoyable viewing experience.

“At any one time a single piece of content, including live events, can be consumed on more than 400 different endpoints,” explains Mark McKee, general manager, FreeWheel. “It makes it very hard for programmers and very complex for buyers. Within live events, milliseconds matter and so having the most direct connection is the most powerful way in which to engage with a consumer.”

That’s why FreeWheel unveiled a new suite of live product capabilities in Cannes, to better enable programmatic transactions to take place across some of the largest live events on streaming platforms – include the Olympic Games Paris 2024.

“From a creative and production perspective, we look at all the different canvases that we distribute sports to – from connected TVs to broadcast to cable, through to mobile and web, and we think differently about those canvases and what we can do with them,” adds Paul Cheesbrough, chief executive officer of Tubi Media Group, a business of Fox Corporation. “Technically, it’s a very challenging thing to plan for [streaming major live events like the Super Bowl] and why we work with companies like FreeWheel to deliver very low latency, high-quality streams.”

The recent partnership between FreeWheel and Fox Corporation, for example, sees FreeWheel programmatically enable Tubi, and the entire One Fox portfolio, by serving the company’s primary monetization engine, and includes a proprietary integration with Fox’s AdRise to further drive scale, access and a more simplified path to premium video ad inventory.

As the industry continues to innovate, it’s clear that it’s live TV’s moment as a powerful medium for advertisers to connect with audiences in meaningful and memorable ways. Whether through sports, entertainment, or special events, its ability to bring people together and create shared experiences will ensure its relevance in the ever-evolving media landscape.

Watch the full video ‘#YOLO (You’re Only Live Once)’ for more insights.