We need to look beyond media metrics to business outcomes: Prasanth Kumar, WPP Media

Connected television (CTV) is emerging as more than a new video advertising channel in India, with marketers increasingly looking at the medium as the centre of a broader connected-household strategy that brings television, mobile and audio together, according to Prasanth Kumar, CEO, South Asia, WPP Media, and Tejinder Gill, VP, India and Southeast Asia, The Trade Desk.

Speaking at a fireside chat titled “What’s Next for the Big Screen”, Kumar and Gill discussed the rapid evolution of CTV in India, the fragmentation of consumer journeys across devices, the need for cross-screen planning and the growing importance of measuring advertising against business outcomes rather than conventional media metrics.

The discussion took place alongside the launch of an India Connected TV report jointly developed by WPP Media and The Trade Desk, which examines consumer behaviour and the changing role of connected television in the Indian media ecosystem. The conversation highlighted how the growth of CTV is forcing marketers to rethink the traditional distinction between television and digital advertising.

CTV's early signals were visible during the pandemic

Reflecting on the period when The Trade Desk was establishing its presence in India, Gill said the company entered the market roughly six years ago and that CTV's acceleration became particularly visible during the Covid period.

Kumar, who had encouraged Gill to explore the opportunity when he was considering joining The Trade Desk in 2020, said the growing global conversation around connected television was an early indication that the trend could become significant in India.

For WPP Media, the opportunity was particularly relevant because of India's highly diverse audience base and the potential for connected television to offer advertisers new ways of reaching consumers.

The early opportunity was therefore not simply about adding another media channel to the advertising mix. It was about understanding how technology, data and changing consumer behaviour could reshape marketing.

Kumar said WPP Media's focus is increasingly on how data and signals can generate insights that help brands make better decisions, beginning with audience orchestration rather than merely planning or buying media.

The objective, he said, is to use data and technology to create solutions that are relevant to clients while connecting media activity to the broader customer journey.

From media metrics to business outcomes

One of the central themes of the discussion was the shift away from traditional media metrics such as impressions and clicks towards business outcomes.

Kumar said the industry needs to look beyond media metrics and consider the business outcomes generated for clients. This requires marketers and agencies to connect audience understanding, media activation and business performance.

Gill echoed this point, arguing that the advertising ecosystem is increasingly moving towards the question of “what happens next” after an impression or engagement rather than treating the impression itself as the final objective.

The two companies' partnership, he said, is built around enabling greater choice for marketers. Both organisations operate on the buyer side and do not own media inventory, allowing them to focus on solving marketers' problems within an open ecosystem.

The partnership has already involved work around automation and artificial intelligence, with CTV emerging as one of the most important areas where the two companies are attempting to bring technology and audience insights together.

India's three-device, three-generation household

A key challenge for marketers, Gill said, is the extraordinary fragmentation of Indian households.

India can effectively have three generations living in the same household and, increasingly, three major connected devices — the mobile phone, television and connected audio. This creates what Gill described as a “three-by-three matrix” of potential consumer touchpoints.

For CMOs, the challenge is therefore not simply reaching a consumer. It is managing the multiple touchpoints through which audiences can interact with brands.

Gill said marketers need to be able to target audiences across these devices while also understanding how the different screens work together.

The objective should be to bring these devices out of isolation and make them work as part of a connected screen strategy.

This is particularly important because audiences do not consume media in neat channel-specific silos. A consumer may watch content on a connected television while simultaneously using a mobile phone, creating overlapping journeys that traditional media planning can struggle to capture.

India is moving from mobile-first to two-screen

Gill identified three characteristics that traditionally differentiated India from more mature CTV markets: the country has been mobile-first, CTV has been predominantly a metropolitan phenomenon and audiences are highly multilingual.

But all three are changing.

The mobile-first consumer is increasingly becoming a two-screen consumer, with households where children, for example, watch CTV while simultaneously interacting with their phones.

At the same time, while metropolitan markets remain important, Gill expects the next phase of CTV growth to come from emerging India.

The multilingual nature of the country is also evolving as dubbed content gains traction, potentially making premium connected-TV content relevant to broader audiences.

According to Gill, the common characteristic between India and mature CTV markets is fragmentation. There is no single CTV partner controlling the overwhelming majority of the ecosystem. Instead, the market consists of multiple pockets of inventory and audiences.

For marketers, that fragmentation can actually become a strength because it creates greater choice.

The next 100 million users could change the CTV market

Both executives pointed to the next wave of growth coming from audiences beyond India's major metropolitan centres.

Kumar said CTV's expansion is not likely to remain an urban phenomenon and that the next 100 million users could accelerate the medium's growth as connected viewing spreads into rural and emerging markets.

This expansion makes consumer understanding particularly important.

The India Connected TV report is positioned around this consumer perspective, rather than looking only at publishers or media engagement. Kumar said understanding behaviour becomes increasingly important as investment in the category grows and more consumers adopt connected viewing.

The report also looks at the interaction between CTV and linear television, including the changing behaviour of cord-cutters, and places the medium within a broader full-funnel marketing framework.

From multi-channel planning to omni-channel planning

Perhaps the most significant change required from marketers is in the way campaigns are planned.

Gill argued that the industry needs to move away from siloed, multi-channel planning towards an omni-channel approach.

Historically, linear television offered scale while mobile offered a high degree of personalisation. CTV occupies an important space between the two because it combines the characteristics of a household-level medium with the potential for digital targeting and measurement.

This creates opportunities to manage frequency across screens and, importantly, identify incremental reach rather than repeatedly exposing the same audience across different devices.

“The future is not just linear TV,” Gill said during the discussion, describing the emerging opportunity as one centred on connected households.

In this model, CTV becomes a central component of the connected home, sitting between different screens and helping marketers orchestrate audiences across them.

Marketers need to rethink what the big screen can do

Kumar said advertisers also need to recognise that CTV, despite being consumed on a large screen, has multiple utilities.

The medium should not be treated exclusively as an awareness vehicle. Depending on the campaign and consumer journey, it can play roles in consultation, consideration and other stages of the funnel.

This requires advertisers to move beyond simply transferring conventional television assets to connected television.

Instead, marketers can use the characteristics of the medium to develop more precise and market-specific activations.

For instance, CTV can be complemented by activity on other screens, with mobile or audio providing additional reach, language or engagement layers around the television experience.

Kumar also pointed to India's multi-generational households as a distinctive opportunity. Understanding how three or even four generations interact with connected devices can help brands identify different consumer opportunities within the same household.

As CTV reaches the next 100 million users, this level of consumer understanding could become increasingly important to campaign design.

Attribution remains a challenge

The growth of CTV also brings an important question around attribution.

Gill said one of the recurring concerns among CMOs is the tendency to give disproportionate credit to the last touchpoint before a conversion.

He compared this to a football match, where the player who scores the final goal gets the credit even though several other players, the coach and support staff may have contributed to the result.

The same principle, he argued, applies to advertising. While last-touch attribution remains relevant, marketers are increasingly recognising that multiple channels influence the eventual outcome.

CTV is particularly interesting in this context because it was initially perceived largely as a top-of-the-funnel medium. Gill argued that the medium is increasingly becoming a full-funnel proposition.

Technology is also helping to make this shift tangible. Publishers are introducing interactive formats and performance-oriented tools such as actionable cards and QR codes that allow consumers to move directly from the television screen into a digital journey.

The behaviour of younger consumers is accelerating this development. Gill noted that consumers, particularly children and younger audiences, are increasingly comfortable using a phone to scan a QR code displayed on the television and immediately continuing the interaction on another device.

For categories such as travel and automobiles, this creates an opportunity to use the biggest screen in the household to initiate a journey that continues elsewhere.

The big screen is becoming part of a bigger ecosystem

The broader message from the discussion was that the future of CTV is unlikely to be defined by television alone.

Instead, the medium is becoming a critical component of a connected household in which consumers move fluidly between television, mobile and audio.

For advertisers, this means the challenge is no longer simply how to buy more CTV inventory. It is how to understand audiences across screens, manage frequency, identify incremental reach, connect media exposure to business outcomes and give appropriate credit to every touchpoint that contributes to a conversion.

Kumar said the industry needs to embrace the distinctive utilities of the big screen rather than treating CTV as simply another version of linear television.

Gill, meanwhile, framed the evolution as a shift from individual channels towards connected households.

As India's CTV audience expands beyond metros and the next 100 million users come online, the medium could therefore become less about the “big screen” in isolation and more about how that screen connects the entire consumer journey.

The partnership between WPP Media and The Trade Desk is aimed at addressing precisely that challenge — combining consumer understanding, technology, audience orchestration and outcome-based measurement as India's connected-TV ecosystem moves into its next phase.