MIAMI - As it goes even deeper into live television streaming, Twitter is trying to make new advertisers feel comfortable with its platform. The effort includes Nielsen guarantees and measurement by Moat for third-party audience verification.
Twitter was a natural outlet for the National Football League, according to Ryan Moore, the company's Global Agency Development Lead.
"The NFL comes to us because they say there's a chunk of younger people that are just not watching as much TV. And they're looking for international distribution as well," Moore says in an interview with Beet.TV.
About 75% of people who stream NFL games on Twitter are under the age of 35, "So that's the demographic that's watching less and less TV," Moore says.
For the recent political debates streamed live on Twitter, about 85% of viewers were under 35, according to Moore, who pegs advertising completion rates, with sound, at "about 98%. It's going very well so far."
Many advertisers that were quickest to get on board with Twitter's live sports offerings had already been spending money on the platform. Asked by interviewer Matt Spiegel, Managing Director of MediaLink, to name some of those marketers, Moore says it runs the gamut.
"I think the ones that bite first are the ones who are our biggest partners already. They're more willing to test. They already spend tens of millions of dollars if not more on the platform, so they're comfortable with it," Moore explains.
Perception is one of the keys to getting more companies to put their money down, as Twitter "starts to look at lot more like a video platform," Moore notes. "You have advertisers who historically said I don't do social or I don't get Twitter," he says. "But now that you can buy video on the platform in a way that looks a lot like everything else, that's where we're starting to see some of these new advertisers get on board."
From a user perspective, Twitter plans to "go even deeper" into live TV, adding "some really cool stuff" on the screen alongside its streamed content.
On the marketer side, Twitter is using resources like Nielsen and Moat to make itself "look like a much more mature video platform so advertisers can start putting their money into these really exciting things while being comfortable with what's coming out the other side," says Moore.
This interview was conducted at Beet Retreat 2016: The Transformation of Television Advertising, an executive retreat presented by Videology with AT&T AdWorks and the 605. Please find more videos from the event here.
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