As technology changes, advertising changes with it. But with these changes comes uncertainty—especially when emerging tech creates entirely new markets. Two great examples of this are connected TV advertising (CTV) and game viewing audience (GVA) targeted advertising.
To give you a better idea of how CTV and GVA work, we compare the two in this article.
What is CTV advertising?
Advertising has featured on screens since TVs became mass-market entertainment, but the internet has changed how advertising is implemented even for televisions. Connected TV advertising (CTV) involves advertising being displayed on TVs connected to the internet, such as smart TVs or using devices like Google’s Chromecast.
But while CTV makes for an excellent advertising stream for tech savvy audiences, not all streaming advertising falls under the CTV umbrella. CTV capitalizes on the impressive real estate of modern TV screens to provide increased engagement with more targeted messaging and the potential to reach multiple people at once.
What is GVA advertising?
The GVA is made up of millions of gamers across the world just as interested in watching games as they are playing them. These keen gamers might watch streams to be entertained by gaming influencers, watch elite gaming tournaments, or even just to learn how to play games better.
And the numbers speak for themselves: on streaming platform Twitch, 8.7 million unique creators streamed each month in 2021 with an average 2,810,000 concurrent viewers. And while these viewers watch games, they may also be watching ads that are built into the livestream itself. This is called instream advertising, and it’s an easy and extremely effective way for brands to form strong connections to the game viewing audience.
How the GVA compliments and expands CTV advertising efforts
CTV has its perks, but there are a few ways GVA can uniquely expand the advertising experience for audiences. Below are four of our favorites.
- Contextual targeting: with contextual targeting, you organically appeal to your intended audience by advertising with no complex tracking required.
- Complete viewability: by featuring advertisements to the GVA directly in-stream, you’re guaranteed 100% advertising viewability.
- Trusted messaging: you can access niche audience segments through a wide variety of top-tier gaming teams and influencers.
- Guaranteed media impressions: unlike CTV advertising, with the GVA you receive guaranteed impressions – so you know exactly what your budget is delivering.
But isn’t the GVA too niche for most brands?
A common misunderstanding about the GVA is that it is made up of only hard core gamers, a.k.a. the kids living in their parent’s basement playing League of Legends all day and eating snack food.
Simply put, this is just not true. The GVA is a wide, diverse, and global audience spanning the gamut of young professionals, stay at home parents, boomers and everything in between. To learn more about who actually makes up the GVA, check out our article on the game viewing audience.
Ready to make the most of the GVA?
If you’re interested in getting more out of your advertising budget and augmenting your efforts with media buys on CTV, we’d be more than happy to walk you through our advertising turnkey solution to show you how improved visibility can really be.
If you have any questions about investing in the GVA, we’d love to hear from you. You can also take a moment to visit our esports page and see how it all works.