Atmosphere TV Is Capitalizing On The “Sorta CTV” Trend

Digital out-of-home is in the spotlight, thanks in part to T-Mobile planned acquisition out-of-home SSP Vistar Media, announced last week.

The deal is a “great moment” for DOOH to present itself as an effective and attractive advertising channel, said Ryan Spicer, CRO of Atmosphere TV, an Austin-based startup that delivers video content to TV screens in places like bars, restaurants and more . airports. Atmosphere TV monetizes ad inventory and shares the cut with venues.

However, T-Mobile’s move – and Atmosphere’s business model – have also drawn attention on the gray area between the DOOH billboards and connected TV. This gray area – Chris Kane, founder of Jounce Media, calls it “kind of CTV” – includes television screens that play video with commercial breaks in public places.

Atmosphere TV now has screens in more than 60,000 locations worldwide and reaches approximately 160 million unique viewers per month, up from 100 million almost two years ago.

Atmosphere for advertising

For Atmosphere, adoption was faster among venues than advertisers. While venues see Atmosphere as a neat new revenue stream that requires no heavy lifting, some advertisers are still trying to figure out exactly where “CTV-sort” inventory fits into their media and marketing plans.

For that reason, Spicer said, Atmosphere has taken its “foot off the gas pedal” slightly in distribution so it can devote more time and attention to attracting new advertisers.

Over the past two years, Atmosphere has expanded its direct sales efforts, focusing on agency holding companies, Spicer said, though it also reaches out to small and/or regional businesses.

Atmosphere offers advertisers and media buyers the opportunity to reach audiences that are typically difficult to reach.

Many streaming subscribers still refuse to watch TV with ads and are inaccessible to streaming TV advertisers. However, brands can reach these audiences without ads when they are out and about in bars, restaurants, waiting rooms, gyms, etc.

Atmosphere also showcases its digital-style targeting capabilities. For example, an advertiser may choose to target Atmosphere screens within a certain mile radius of where their customers are most likely to be. Buyers can also target screens by location type. Atmosphere sells its inventory directly and programmatically, including through Vistar Media.

CTV OOH Identity Crisis

Most advertisers agree that there is value in reaching large numbers of people at once while they are on the go and shopping.

But “where we get stuck,” Spicer said, is when advertisers try to look at atmosphere through a purely CTV or DOOH lens, because it doesn’t fit neatly into any one category.

“We don’t share a lot of DNA with DOOH,” Spicer said.

While digital billboards alternate between static or video ads, Atmosphere plays video content on TV screens with ad breaks — which is more like how streaming TV works at home, he said. Atmosphere is considered “functionally BTV,” he said, but it’s out-of-home and has cheaper CPMs. So not really CTV.

Either way, “we’re not here to argue about which bucket we belong in,” Spicer said.

Still, when advertisers expect Atmosphere to behave exactly like CTV or exactly like OOH, it can “slow down the conversation” about the value that video distributors like Atmosphere can offer brands.

Instead, according to Spicer, buyers should treat inventory like Atmosphere as premium video that belongs as such in their digital media purchases. This type of premium video — content that can reach large, high-value audiences at cost-effective prices — complements campaigns that run on popular streaming services like Disney+, Netflix and Peacock, Spicer argued.

And so far, more brands seem to be giving the “CTV sort” a chance.

Spicer said that today Atmosphere has more than 1,000 direct relationships with advertisers, up from hundreds a few years ago.

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