The TV industry considers sports to be one of the strongest anchors for linear TV viewing. No matter how popular on-demand streaming gets, sports fans will go where they need to go (which is most often linear TV) to catch sports games live.
But media buyers and sellers want the precision of a streaming buy to reach an audience that largely exists on linear TV.
On Tuesday, Ampersand – a local TV sales consortium co-owned by cable companies Comcast, Charter and Cox – rolled out new audience segments for brands to target sports fans based on the type of sports they enjoy watching.
Rather than just running ads on specific sporting events, advertisers can use these new segments to target the same viewers on other channels when they’re no longer watching the game, said David Solomon, director of sports partnerships at Ampersand, a newly created role.
This segmentation offering is the first time Ampersand has created a product for sports audiences.
Data dribble
Ampersand uses set-top box data from its cable owners Comcast, Charter and Cox to build its sports audience segments.
Ampersand divides those segments into sports interests like college basketball, football, baseball and golf based on viewership of specific sports events or channels. If someone is watching Monday Night Football, for example, Ampersand can add that viewer into an aggregated bucket of football fans.
Advertisers can then target their campaigns against networks or dayparts that rank highly against their audience. The retargeting can take place in two ways. Either advertisers can buy addressable spots that follow a particular viewer while they channel surf to increase the likelihood a conversion takes place, or advertisers can buy segments based on predicted viewing behavior of their desired audience to build up scale faster.
When it comes to targeting sports lovers, “we’re no longer taking a shot in the dark,” Solomon said.
Shoot to score
If advertisers can target sports fans, they can run campaigns that reach viewers before, after and during the event.
For example, sports fans get riled up in the weeks leading up to a big game, so brands often plan preseason campaigns to reach engaged fans and cash in on some of the excitement leading up to the event.
Plus, sports fans do watch more than sports. Advertisers could be limiting their reach if they’re only looking at sports content.
Solomon is a fan of golf, for example, but said he hardly sees any golf-related ads outside of golf events themselves. Identifying a viewer as a sports fan gives advertisers a better opportunity to reach them while they’re watching something other than, say, a golf tournament.
Which is why Ampersand plans to create a new audience segment to target viewers who watched March Madness now that the tournament is wrapping up this week. It’s still too early to say how the offering will perform, but for now, Solomon said, there’s a roster of advertisers ready to target campaigns against these new segments, particularly auto and retail brands.
Being able to reach sports fans beyond sports content creates “exponential scale,” Solomon said. So let the games begin.
