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Desert heat, drizzling rain, or snowstorm – whatever the weather, companies can now advertise products on TV to match the weather situation. SevenOne Media makes this happen with its new targeting option and thus unlocks additional ad revenue potential in partnership with wetter.com.

It could be sunscreen when skies are clear or nasal spray during a period of persistently wet weather. Placing commercials by weather and location makes television advertising more informative and thereby more relevant.

This new option provided by ProSiebenSat.1 sales company SevenOne Media in its addressable TV portfolio is called weather targeting. In spring 2016, the digital sales team pitched the idea to Heinrich von Hoessle. “Could we broadcast advertising messages aligned with the minute-by-minute weather situation where viewers live?” they asked.

SevenOne Media and wetter.com:
linking data and expertise

As Unit Director for addressable TV at SevenOne Media, von Hoessle knows how critical addressing consumers selectively is for the future of TV advertising. “Our account managers had the right instinct. They hit the bull’s-eye,” he recalls. “Whether you’re buying food to barbecue, cough drops, or a new set of tires, most purchasing decisions depend on the weather. And this idea was particularly clever because everything we needed to implement was already available at ProSiebenSat.1: the weather data, the technology, and the marketing expertise.”

It helped that wetter.com is part of the ProSiebenSat.1 family. Germany’s market-leading weather portal wetter.com provides the data for SevenOne Media’s weather-based advertising. It took just six months for von Hoessle and wetter.com COO Stefan Bornemann to develop this innovative advertising product from the idea phase to market readiness. The first advertising campaign of this type, booked by airline Eurowings, aired for the first time in September 2016. Weather targeting by ProSiebenSat.1 offers advertising clients new options for customizing their messages to viewers, thus generating additional ad revenues.

01 – Innovation

Addressable TV combines the mass-media reach of television with the personalized communication made possible by the Internet. In 2015, ProSiebenSat.1 subsidiary SevenOne Media was the first sales company to tailor digital ad windows to target groups and locations on TV shows. Around 100 addressable TV campaigns were run in 2016, and 2017 is expected to see twice as many thanks to the integration of weather data, amongst others. “Weather targeting is an indicator of where TV advertising is heading,” explains Heinrich von Hoessle, Unit Director addressable TV at SevenOne Media.

02 – Product offeringS

Weather targeting opens the way for selective advertising in line with the current weather conditions at the viewer’s location. A weather-related SwitchIn is positioned on the left-hand side of the screen during the broadcast of a TV show. Additional attention-getters are optional co-branding with wetter.com and a display of weather data at the bottom of the screen. Viewers can also push the “red button” on the remote control to access a specially programmed web page (microsite) featuring supplementary information.

03 – Demand

Weather is a key factor in purchasing decisions – and not just in fashion, travel, and leisure. Ad campaigns tailored to cold or hay fever season can be effective for companies in the pharmaceutical and health care sectors. Barbecue weather is a boon for the food and beverage industry, while auto manufacturers count on consumers changing tires in winter, and storm warnings are important to insurance companies. The demand for targeting, 360-degree cross-media advertising concepts, and innovative campaigns is growing dynamically. “We plan to offer additional options such as behavioral targeting and also automate booking,” von Hoessle says.

04 – Value

Weather targeting attracts attention, and provides a glimpse into user behavior, thereby making commercials more informative for the viewer and offering new possibilities on designing campaigns for clients. For SevenOne Media and wetter.com, this product innovation generates additional revenues from the targeting premium and the opportunity for additional sales of other data products and consulting services. “Our weather analytics projects are greatly in demand. Together with our clients, we analyse the data and show the influence of weather on campaign results or product sales,” says Stefan Bornemann, Chief Operating Officer of wetter.com.