Making advertising more accessible for small businesses

This week’s egtabite puts British broadcaster ITV in the spotlight with the launch of ITV Business, an advanced self-serve portal enabling small businesses to manage their own online video advertising campaigns on the ITV Hub - ITV’s on demand and live TV platform.

The goal? To make advertising drastically more accessible for small and start-up businesses, who want to make a big first impression with video ads.

There is no business like ITV Business

In a time when clients are demanding more simplification, the self-serve portal is a simple process which involves choosing targeting, budget and the uploading of an advert. The service is aimed at those who have never advertised on TV before.

ITV recently began courting companies to take advantage of ITV Business, allowing them to run advertising campaigns for as little as £200 per month.

The service offers an exciting combination of the power of TV, blended with the targetability of digital. Available inventory includes pre and mid-roll spots around its on-demand programming, as well as the ability to serve ads within its simulcast streams. ITV Business will also enable advertisers to target Hub’s 26 million registered users by gender, age, interests, income and region.

ITV also offers the possibility to use their creative team to produce the video ad for the client. The broadcaster is offering to create the ads on behalf of its SME clients for £600, while they can opt to hire their own film crew for £900. Small businesses that take advantage of ITV’s offer, and which meet their criteria, will see the cost of the media and production heavily subsidised during the portal’s early days

ITV is the only broadcaster that allows advertisers to target consumers on a national, macro, regional and micro-region level. After an initial trial earlier this year, ITV Business was introduced as a pilot programme in ITV’s Central region in July, supported by a brand-new TV advert – the first time ITV’s commercial team have used their own platforms to directly target potential clients.

The advert was broadcast in the ITV Central region on both ITV main channel and across channels on the ITV Hub in key programmes including Love Island and Coronation Street, as well as on LinkedIn and other websites.

Kelly Williams, ITV Managing Director, Commercial, said: “The Midlands is a growth area for start-up businesses and a key area of focus for the Government’s Industrial Strategy. This makes ITV’s Central region the perfect place for the next stage of trialling our new self-serve portal. We believe that the power of TV advertising can help businesses of all sizes flourish and we’re excited to be introducing ITV Business to the Midlands with a newly created TV ad to speak directly to the big brands of tomorrow.”

The next steps

The trial will be running for the remainder of 2018, and during that time ITV hopes to gain additional insights and continue to build on their ideas and feedback.

ITV chief executive Carolyn McCall said a “significant proportion” of her £60m investment plan will go into building the technical capabilities of ITV Hub, including the further development of addressable advertising.