Introduction

The Coresight Research team attended the second annual CTV Connect conference, which was held in New York City during March 12–13, 2025. The event hosted around 500 attendees from the entire CTV (connected TV) ecosystem. In this report, we offer key highlights and strategic insights from the event, covering transparency, data, targeting, measurement, and streaming versus linear TV.

CTV Connect 2025: Coresight Research Insights

1. Even the Giants Covet Data Transparency and Measurement

Travis Freeman, SVP of Demand Generation and Agency Solutions and Chief Media Officer at fast-food restaurant company Inspire Brands, kicked off the conference with a presentation on his company’s use of streaming. While Inspire Brands may not be a household name, the group operates more than 33,000 restaurants under the Arby’s, Baskin-Robbins, Dunkin’ Donuts and Sonic banners, generating more than $32.6 billion in group sales annually. The group’s size gives it considerable clout with advertisers—it spends $1 billion in advertising in the US annually—and the company is therefore able to obtain premium advertising slots.

Freeman outlined Inspire Brands’ OneInspire model, which is a shared services approach that leverages the group’s size and scale to support its portfolio of brands in achieving the lowest cost and receiving the best inventory while ensuring maximum flexibility and maintaining each brand’s voice. He detailed the group’s journey into the OTT marketing space (“over-the-top”—delivering video to consumers directly) and future directions (which he termed “3.0”) that leverage ML (machine learning) technology.

Freeman emphasized that industry participants “should all be screaming for” maximum transparency and unified measurement of viewership data as well as partners that can scale as CTV grows.

Freeman outlines Inspire Brands’ benefits of scale and its OneInspire shared services model
Source: Coresight Research

 

2. Amazon Provides Its Take on the CTV Revolution

Diving into the future of programmatic video at scale, Brian Tomasette, Director of Product and Engineering at Amazon Ads, described “the CTV Revolution,” which is expected to encompass 1.7 billion global streaming subscriptions in 2027, according to Digital TV Research.

Tomasette outlined four principles for CTV success:

• Personalization, to drive deeper connections
• Performance, to maximize ROI (return on investment) with data-driven performance
• Portfolio supply, to expand reach through diverse portfolio supply
• Privacy, to build trust through privacy-first practices

To achieve these goals, Amazon Ads launched “Complete TV,” a new capability on Amazon DSP (Digital Service Provider) that helps TV buyers plan, manage and measure their holistic streaming TV buys to deliver spend commitments in full, with AI (artificial intelligence)-powered recommendations to manage budget allocation across Prime Video and streaming publishers.

Following his presentation, Tomasette discussed how to balance broad reach with audience relevance in conversation with Tommy Burton, VP of Global Partnerships at Pacvue. They touched on the role of technology and AI in current strategies, highlighting the importance of data analysis in determining relevant customer personas.

Amazon’s Tomasette (left) and Pavue’s Burton (right) discuss the importance of data analysis in ensuring audience relevance
Source: Coresight Research

 

3. The Future of Sports Is Streaming

The panel titled “From Rookie to MVP: The Future of Streaming Sports” included executives from Disney (which owns ESPN) and streaming service FuboTV. Wendell Scott, SVP of Sales at Disney, commented that, “streaming for sports is at considerable scale now.” He said that there exists an opportunity for data to drive more personalization, enabling brands to connect differently with customers.

On January 5, 2025, Disney announced an agreement to acquire a majority stake in Fubo. Fubo is a content “super aggregator” and hosts more than 55,000 sporting events per year, including “niche” sports (from a US perspective) such as cricket, billiards and badminton. The investment would add yet another channel to ESPN, whose mission is to be the number-one digital epicenter for all sports and serve sports fans anytime on any platform.

Left to right: Sara Fischer, Moderator, Media Correspondent, Axios; Wendell Scott, SVP, Sales, Disney; Denise Ocasio, Executive Director, Investment, Mindshare; Dina Roman, SVP, Global Ad Sales and Operations, Fubo; Michael Worden, SVP, Creative Partnerships, Development, Advertising & Partnerships, NBCUniversal
Source: Coresight Research

 

4. How to Manage Frequency in the CTV World

Ziggy Zografakis, Head of Data and Measurement Product Partnerships at streaming TV company Roku, kicked off the session, “Frequency Isn’t a Dirty Word: Finding Balance in the New CTV Landscape.” He highlighted the recent launch of the Roku Data Cloud, which enables partners seamlessly to access, analyze and leverage Roku’s TV data, with a key focus on planning, activation, outcomes and measurement.

Beau Ordemann, Vice President of Advanced TV Sales and Strategy at Yahoo!, discussed the need to remove silos from the activation of TV: “One platform is not going to solve it for you.” He pointed to several blind spots such as linear TV and what happens outside of DSPs (demand-side platforms).

Mike Wolk, VP Growth and Partnerships at digital marketing agency Goodway Group, said that “over-frequency” (putting ads in front of consumers multiple times) can be necessary in our multi-screen universe, since sometimes it requires multiple variations of an ad to have the desired impact.

Left to right: Dan Mouradian (Moderator), SVP of Global Client Solutions at Innovid; Ordemann; Zografakis; Wolk
Source: Coresight Research

 

5. The “Currency Wars” Are Far from Over

CTV Connect covered the challenges for advertisers in today’s environment. Multiple companies—comScore, iSpot, Nielsen and VideoAmp—measure audiences, providing the “currency” (meaning the valuation of audience reach and frequency) for the allocation of ad dollars. “Currency services count the eyeballs. CTV fundamentally changes the nature of demand for currency,” said Josh Chasin, Principal of KnotSimpler, a consultancy specializing in the monetization of data assets in advertising analytics. Noting the contrast to the precision counts available online, he continued, “Facebook and Google get impression counts audited. What we don’t have is planning data. If I’m a planner, knowing how many women aged 25–54 are available on Peacock [a subscription streaming service] could help me plan how much to allocate to Peacock or Hulu, but this data is not available.”

Although many audience-measurement firms cover CTV, Nielsen remains the majority player for traditional age sets and offers known (though flawed) data, which advertisers have developed measures to navigate.

Left to right: Sarah Sluis (Moderator), Executive Editor at AdExchanger; Howard Shimmel, Head of Strategy at datafuelX, President of Janus Strategy & Insights at datafuelX, Inc.; Sean Cunningham, President & CEO of VAB; Josh Chasin, Principal at KnotSimpler
Source: Coresight Research

 

6. ADT Has Shifted Its Advertising Almost Exclusively to CTV to Reach Its Core Audience

In a keynote, home-security company ADT’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, DeLu Jackson, explained that although the company wants reach and frequency, its CTV content has more impact. ADT’s goal is to make it as simple as possible for future customers to understand the company’s presence, according to Jackson: “If we have to explain why we’re there, we’ve already lost the audience.”

ADT has moved away from traditional media metrics. Instead, one key currency metric for the company is the number of installations, and trackability has helped, Jackson said. In its advertising strategy, ADT defines success as the number of security-system installs over time, which are not attributed to individual channels. The company has almost exclusively transitioned to CTV in order to reach its core audience, and about half of ADT’s CTV ad budget goes to programmatic advertising, per Jackson.

CTV Connect attendee lounge
Source: Coresight Research

 

7. The “Linear TV vs. Streaming” Debate Continues

In a session that delved into the benefits and challenges of streaming relative to linear TV, Kay Wesolowski, SVP of Investment and Partnerships at media agency KSM Media, questioned the accuracy of CTV data. “Is CTV really precise? When targeting the 25–54 age group, you’re targeting the entire household,” she said, referring to “spill-in” (the unintended reach of advertising beyond the target audience or market area).

Moreover, Chris Novak, Chief Operating Officer at media performance solution provider Eden Collective, commented that a high-income audience is likely paying a premium not to view ads on streaming and, so, it is excluded from the campaign. However, he discussed the value of a broad approach, saying that spill-in could be a positive thing, though the impression rate could be just 0.1% of the viewers. Finally, echoing Wolk, Novak cautioned that frequency is important—a one-time ad is most likely wasted money.

Left to right: Lauren Zweifler (Moderator), Consultant & Former SVP of Insights & Research at NBCUniversal; Novak; Wesolowski
Source: Coresight Research

 

8. The Synergy of Cable TV Partnering with Professional Networking

In the “Connecting with Audiences Where They Are” session, executives from cable TV operator Spectrum Reach and Microsoft’s business networking platform LinkedIn discussed their partnership. According to Dan Callahan, GVP of National Sales at Spectrum Reach, Spectrum TV is the most-watched app on a streaming service, with people watching 4.5 hours on a nightly basis.

Ramon Vinluan, Sales Director of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions at LinkedIn, claimed there is “no other place [like LinkedIn] where you can get first-party data about people, education and skills. People watch comedy and drama and may be a decision-maker within their work.” Callahan noted that LinkedIn’s data (such as employment) can be verified, which is not the case for other social media platforms. Moreover, LinkedIn offers controls such as “allow” and “block” lists, and leverages double-verify technology to support its members-first values.

Vinluan discussed LinkedIn’s campaign management tool, which uses engagement information to target those who have watched a video, quantifying the incrementality that these campaigns have versus lower-level campaigns.

Left to right: Albert Thompson (Moderator), Managing Director of Digital Innovation at Walton Isaacson; Callahan; Vinluan
Source: Coresight Research

 

9. Brooks Brothers Started Its CTV Journey Small but Achieved Great Results

Luxury clothing brand Brooks Brothers is currently running a campaign celebrating the 125th anniversary of the Oxford button-down shirt, involving celebrity photo shoots and ads on buses, trains and subway cars in New York, New York.

Brian Schmidt, VP of Digital & E-Commerce at Brooks Brothers, said that the company looked at CTV due to its measurability. In collaboration with performance marketing company Tinuiti and creative automation platform Spaceback, Brooks Brothers launched a CTV campaign featuring QR codes that drove a 20% conversion lift, 46% revenue growth and reached 514,000 households. (Although this seems like a small number of households, the campaign reached them cost-efficiently, at a total cost of less than $250,000.) Schmidt commented that outside of conversion, the CTV creatives positively benefited the brand through increased engagement, awareness and memorability.

Schmidt (left) and Harry Brown, VP of TV, Audio and Display Innovation and Tinuiti (right), discuss Brooks Brothers’ adoption of CTV
Source: Coresight Research

 

10. Netflix Is Launching New Ad Platform to Move Faster and Leverage Its Data

Nicolle Pangis, VP of Advertising at streaming service Netflix, emphasized two key points: The Netflix “member experience” differs from the linear TV experience; and one “passion point” of Netflix is to be intentional about providing a different member experience. Netflix launched its ad business two years ago (around the same time as Amazon), yet its ad load is lower than other services (i.e., four to five minutes of ads per hour, as compared to around eight minutes for other streaming services and 15–18 minutes for standard linear TV).

The company will launch its own ad platform, Netflix Ad Suite, on April 1, transitioning away from Microsoft’s platform with the aim of moving faster and providing flexible capabilities to customers, according to Pangis. Netflix Ad Suite will offer custom formats and leverage the streaming giant’s substantial collection of user insights. Advertisers can also bring their own first-party data to the platform.

Discussing the targeting of ads by context versus audience, Pangis said that no two people will receive the same recommendations due to a lot of technology in the background, and member insights will be available to advertisers.

Pangis (left) discusses the new Netflix Ad Suite with Sarah Sluis, Executive Editor of AdExchanger (right)
Source: Coresight Research

 

What We Think

CTV represents an enormous frontier in targeted advertising, with the ability to offer relevant, highly personalized ads based on consumer data (including preferred genres). Whereas retail media networks (RMNs) target consumers at the time of purchase, CTV advertisers put their ads in front of consumers for viewing several times a day. The increasing popularity of streaming services positions CTV as a major medium for reaching viewers. Although there are growing pains in the transition from linear TV to streaming and in finding accurate, common measurement tools, these are technical challenges that can be overcome over time as the market grows and solutions become more compelling. At the same time, due to diversity in hardware platforms and remote controls, the dream of shoppable video remains distant, with most shopping being done via QR codes that transfer the consumer to the retailer’s website to close the deal.

Implications for Brands/Retailers

• Retailers and brands can consider allocating an increasing share of ad dollars to CTV ads to generate awareness with this growing audience.
• The granular data that CTV can offer enables highly targeted, personalized ads.

Brands or Retailers Poised to Gain Advantage

• Ad networks such as Amazon that possess content and consumer data have an enormous competitive advantage.
• Walmart’s acquisition of TV manufacturer Vizio remains in its early stages, but owning a hardware platform would give the retailer an enormous amount of consumer viewing data and the unique ability to create shoppable video.

Brands or Retailers That Risk Losing Advantage

• Retailers and brands that concentrate their spending on linear TV will miss out on consumers’ migration to streaming.

Implications for Technology Vendors

• There are opportunities for vendors that can provide high-quality viewership data—i.e., the “currency” used to base ad spending.
• There is much room for vendors of set-top boxes (STBs) to improve user interfaces and the consumer experience.
• Vendors that can create a low-friction, compelling shopping experience via CTV will be benefit from rising interest from retail companies in targeting consumers who to prefer to shop on large screens.

Notes

Data in this report are as of March 17, 2025.

Companies mentioned in this report include: AdExchanger, ADT Inc. (NYSE: ADT), Amazon (NasdaqGS: AMZN), Axios Media, Brooks Brothers Group, comScore. (NasdaqGS: SCOR), datafuelIX,, Eden Collective, fuboTV Inc. (NYSE: FUBO), Goodway Group, Innovid Corp., Inspire Brands, iSpot.tv, KnotSimpler, KSM Media, Microsoft Corporation (NasdaqGS: MSFT), NBCUniversal Media, Netflix (NasdaqGS: NFLX), Pacvue (a division of Assembly, Roku; NasdaqGS: ROKU), Spectrum (trade name of Charter Communications; NasdaqGS: CHTR), SVP Insights & Research (formerly NBCUniversal), The Nielsen Company (US), The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS), Tinuiti, Video Advertising Bureau, VideoAmp, Walton Isaacson, Yahoo