LG Ad Solutions hopes to change the narrative of CTV advertising by adopting UID2

When LG Ad Solutions Global CMO Tony Marlow spoke with The Current Podcast in October, he said that consumers were more attentive to ads on streaming versus those on linear television.

“A lot of it is the addressability and relevance of the content, and the advertising that’s associated with it,” Marlow said. “It’s just more relevant when it’s built for you."

“Relevance is what turns an ad from something that can be annoying into being something that’s actually useful in life.”

Now, LG Ad Solutions is taking a major step in making advertising across the connected TV (CTV) ecosystem even more relevant and effective, as well as privacy-conscious.

The company announced on Thursday that it is integrating Unified ID 2.0 (UID2), an identity solution that allows advertisers to utilize their own first-party data across LG Ad Solutions’ ecosystem of 40 million connected TVs around the U.S., which will improve accurate targeting in a transparent way. It will be available to advertisers later this year.

“UID2 stands as a promising solution in the evolving digital landscape, offering a privacy-conscious alternative to traditional tracking methods,” Mike Brooks, global head of business development and partnerships at LG Ad Solutions, tells The Current. “With a focus on user privacy and data protection, UID2 has the potential to reshape the identity fabric significantly.”

In recent years, advertising has become paramount in growing revenue for many subscription video on demand platforms that have started offering ad-supported plans to subscribers. That has helped CTV see impressive growth; in a recent report, IAB projected the channel to grow 12% in ad spend this year and 32% faster than total media overall.

Those advertiser dollars are following the consumer, Brooks says.

“There are more people tuning in via streaming and CTV environments than ever before,” he tells The Current, citing a recent LG Ad Solutions study that found that 56% of internet-connected TV users prefer to watch streaming TV versus traditional formats like broadcast and cable.

That combination of increased CTV viewership and ad inventory, along with the precision and focus on privacy of UID2, made adopting the solution a no-brainer to Brooks.

“The largest screen in the home has long been known to be a vehicle for scale and reach and has lacked precision and measurability, but now with smart TVs, those worlds are combining, giving brands the benefits of both,” Brooks says.

He adds that with the “shift to a privacy conscious advertising ecosystem, marketers are becoming more innovative every day with the deployment of their own data.”

The digital media landscape is rapidly changing, including Google’s will-they-won’t-they on cookie deprecation. This has given identity solutions like UID2 even more significance. And while CTV has always been cookie-free, privacy-conscious identity solutions are an important step in the future of advertising through the channel, including helping advertisers understand exactly how much the channel is growing, according to Brooks.

“I’m excited about changing the narrative around advertising on TV,” he says. “Smart TVs are disrupting the environment and partnerships like this one with Unified ID 2.0 allows us to give brands the opportunity to understand that at scale.”

The Current is owned and operated by The Trade Desk Inc.