Netflix has had an ad tier for nearly a year. Crave’s ad offering has been live for a month-and-a-half. And Disney’s is supposed to land in November. Meanwhile, Pluto, Fubi and other FAST channels are also reporting wide pickup.

With all these new ad-supported platforms up for grabs, are any of them living up to the hype?

Media in Canada asked Zenith Media Canada’s VP of performance media, Marina Matyah; Robin LeGassicke, managing director of digital from Cairns O’Neill; and Finecast/GroupM’s SVP, strategy and partnerships, Wade Kuiken-Rogers, how they feel about the quality of the inventory, if they’ve adjusted their expectations, and how they’re approaching them as part of their media mix.

Here’s what they had to say.

Marina Matyash, VP, performance media, Zenith Media Canada

From an advertising standpoint we welcome the launch of ad tiers within the various streaming offerings. Consumers are continuing to shift their preferences from linear TV to other content options, and as they spend more time with CTV (AVOD) it makes sense to include this channel in your brand media plans.

That said, AVOD still remains a developing channel and hasn’t lived up to its hype yet.

Most streamers are not transparent when it comes to reporting their AVOD user base growth. Suffice to say, it is growing slower than expected.

While AVOD providers offer plenty of content, we need to better categorize it, understand what is popular, what is sticky, what is niche and what type of audiences these different content categories attract. We need a measurement system that will rank the content similar to how linear TV or Youtube do it (via ratings or video views, respectively).

Ad targeting and tracking will continue to improve and will be key in reaching audiences in the future.

Finally, as a stand-alone channel CTV (AVOD) hasn’t been adequately measured. As investment gradually increases, brands need to include CTV (AVOD) as a separate channel in their Media Mix Modeling and campaign effectiveness studies to understand its ROI, especially in relation to linear TV and other online video.

Wade Kuiken-Rogers, SVP strategy and partnerships, Finecast/GroupM

With all the new entrants coming into market, it means more choice and options for viewers.

Broadcasters have spent millions in original content and licensing rights to ensure that the content experience on each of their apps is truly premium and enjoyable. Combined with the new hybrid ad offerings from Disney, Netflix and Crave — which will provide access to their offering at a lower price — a truly great viewing experience has been provided, and I believe it has lived up to the hype thus far.

They have also done a great job in creating a catalogue of video-on-demand content to complement their new releases, which will prove to be a great asset in keeping viewers entertained as we start feeling the impact of the writer’s strike.

Where we need to be careful is how we speak to these viewers with our clients’ messages. Viewers choose the platform in question for the content, but would leave if there’s a poor ad experience.

Planning and purchasing inventory in silos and leveraging antiquated online video technology to buy an ad-podded system only proves to drive ad clashes and drastically increase frequency, which creates that poor user experience.

TV has the highest form of attention and 100% share of screen when an ad is played, so we need to make sure we are properly managing frequency and leveraging the right partners and technology to unlock this value. This is how we mirror the viewer content experience with the ad experience.

Robin LeGassicke, managing director, digital, Cairns Oneil

CTV and OTT services continue to have more quality inventory available through the various channels. It’s a great alternative to the consumer, and the ad-supported tiers are creating additional ad inventory and revenue within the industry.

It is, however, very fragmented and complicated to buy and ensure that clients are getting what they expect, where they expect it.

Just about every DSP has access to CTV now. We’re always looking to secure premium environments for our clients, which, due to fragmentation limits reach and often means buying directly from the service providers/CTV platforms, which can also be a challenge for holistic measurement.

In addition, the cost of quality content continues to rise. Many of the streaming services announced price increases along with the ad-supported tiers, but advertisers continue to see a steep rise in inventory costs as well. Ultimately, the growth of streamers on each platform is not growing at the pace needed to offset the content costs and deliver the required profits for these services.

When it comes to media mix, it’s important to strike the right balance between large format, quality content, and efficiency-based (brand-safe, fraud-free, in-view) video, in an effort to ensure we’re generating impact and creating recall, building both reach and frequency across the campaign.