30-Second Ads and Their Journey From Linear to Connected TV

As the TV set still remains the focal point in almost every living room in the US, the rules of media consumption, however, have changed a lot over the past years. The adoption of connected TV and a wide range of streaming services redefined how consumers are spending their TV time and how they consume advertising content. 

The TV ad world settled into the routine of 30-second ad spots in the early 1970s as inflation and other market changes cut ads down from a full minute, and the format has been holding strong ever since. Its capability to tell a story, create emotional impact and communicate the brand have all helped this enduring format retain its position in the changing world of TV commercial messaging. And while linear TV keeps moving towards shorter ad spots lately, the 30-second ad is on the rise for CTV. Let’s take a look at where this lynchpin of video advertising stands in today’s video entertainment environment and how to make it work for media advertisers and publishers.

How Ad Spots Have Changed

For much of the past fifty or so years, the 30-second linear TV ad has been the king of advertisements, seeing as it was the most popular ad format on the most consumed entertainment medium. The standard US video entertainment program was 30- or 60-minutes long interspersed by several advertising breaks, each containing several ads that were about 30 seconds long. 60-minute programs usually had around a 45-15 minute split between programming and ads, and 30-minute shows usually had 22-8 split. However, as video entertainment consumption habits and methods have changed, so have trends in ad formats.

As recently as twenty years ago, the lack of rapid, on-demand entertainment meant that TV screens really dominated the public’s attention when they were on. People didn’t have smartphones to look at during commercial breaks, and the relatively slow speed of the internet meant that running back and forth between the computer room and TV wasn’t very practical. However, once typical home internet speeds became fast enough to support streaming video, the entertainment options started moving beyond the movie theater and TV sets into video on demand on multiple devices, and video entertainment started breaking out of its 30- and 60-minute program formula. Now, the length of video entertainment is dictated not so much by the size of TV program slots, but instead by how long video creators think they need to deliver what they want to while still keeping their viewers entertained. 

The breaking of the standard program formula, as well as the migration of video content to platforms like Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, has meant digital video advertising diversified far beyond the 30-second video ad. 15-second spots are now super common for digital environments, and many advertisers are working with six-second advertisements. This is especially common on mobile, where the skip option is readily available and easily selected, and attention spans have become much shorter. 

30-Second Ads on CTV

On CTV, however, 30-second ads remain overwhelmingly dominant and stay the preferred ad length for advertisers. The ads are shown when the actual viewers match the desired audience, all thanks to first-party and third-party data, and the ads appear on full screen in real time. In comparison with linear TV, it means that ads on connected TV lead to lower media waste and cuts out the irrelevant viewers and households from the process. With a more relevant audience there are more chances for 30-second ads to be watched fully, that means higher margins for publishers and better brand recognition for advertisers. It just needs to be rearranged and adjusted for the digital environment, rather than linear TV as has been historically the case.

CTV programs themselves tend to be longer, and longer programs tend to be better suited towards longer ads (watching several 30-second ads during five minutes of content is a lot more annoying than watching several 30-second ads over 30 minutes of content). In addition, CTV by definition is watched at home during dedicated TV viewing times, rather than on the go like mobile video, meaning that people tend to have more patience for viewing longer ad creatives. Moreover, 30-second CTV ads are likely to be more effective than their linear TV counterparts because they are far more targeted – while linear TV can only target ads based on the type of people advertisers think are watching a given program, CTV can target ads based on a comprehensive review of a viewer’s online habits, purchasing behavior, geographic location, and other information. 

How Much Does a 30-Second Ad Cost?

As always, the cost of a 30-second ad is strongly dependent upon when, where, and on what channels it appears. A national primetime spot for a 30-second commercial is going to cost a lot more than a mid-day spot on more local programming. Advertising on CTV may seem more costly than impressions on linear television. As prices are usually considered in cost per thousand impressions (CPM). The median CPM for a 30-second video ad on local broadcast/cable linear TV usually falls between $15-$20, whereas the price for a 30-second spot on national TV reaches an average of $115,000. For streaming platforms, YouTube’s CPM is usually $10-$30, while Hulu’s is usually $20-60.

The CPM for CTV ads tends to be higher than for other video channels, reaching $35-$65. The higher price is justified by the fact that CTV has far superior targeting than other channels. Moreover, CTV viewers tend to completely view up to 95% of the ads they see, meaning that they are far more effective at creating impressions on their audiences. They are not easily skippable, they are watched on home TVs during focused viewing time, and they are usually played during longer programs where viewers are already engaged.

How to Make the Best 30-Second Ads?

One of the advantages that CTV offers in advertising is the ability to create interactive ads. When advertisers work with a video ad platform like TheViewPoint, certified by Innovid to run interactive CTV ads, they are able to add things like browsable galleries, QR codes, TV 2 mobile, and branded video vignettes to CTV advertisements. The study by Innovid found that in the case of 30-second ads, watch-time is 3 times higher for iCTV compared to static video. 30-second interactive CTV ads are shown to drive even more engagement than 15-second ones, which makes them more valuable both for advertisers and brand marketers.

The additional time, which a 30-second ad spot affords advertisers in comparison to a 15-second or 6-second one, means they have more opportunity to tell the story and bring about the feelings they want the ad to bring out. That means that with a 30-second ad, the story can be more in-depth and more powerfully emotionally-targeted. This emotional targeting – done with the ad’s music, messaging, and even color and text arrangements – is a key to generating quality brand impressions and making customers feel like the product or service is something that they want in their lives.

Takeaways

Watching TV is still very much a lean-back experience for viewers. It happens when people are at home, keen on relaxing, and spending time with family, which makes it the most powerful way to connect with and engage consumers, even in comparison to more on-the-go video experiences had with something like mobile. With CTV viewership surging to new heights every year, advertisers and brands will need to make the most of the opportunities the medium offers for marketing, and that means developing lots of interactive, compelling, well-targeted 30-second ad spot ideas.