CTV Advertising: The New Premium Video Canvas

When I talk to our clients on the media side, Connected TV (CTV) comes up almost every time as a key growth opportunity.  

It’s a compelling channel that meets many key advertiser needs: scale, access to premium household screens, high completion rates, and access to audience data.  As a result, they are increasing their spend and looking to grow further.

This has, in turn, created an interesting opportunity for media operators to capture more budget that was historically set aside for terrestrial TV. However, that interest often comes with the same two questions: 

“How can we differentiate our offering from everyone else running on CTV?”
“How can we scale our offering across such a fragmented landscape?”

In this article, we’ll dig into the challenges behind those questions, and what it takes to solve them, with real creative examples and a look at how dynamic personalization works in practice. This will also help you think through delivering CTV advertising at scale.”

Key Takeaways

• CTV advertising gives media operators a chance to capture spend that used to go to linear TV, but fragmented inventory and reused linear assets make it hard to build a differentiated offering at scale.
• CTV audiences watch in a lean-back, high-attention mode. The strongest CTV ad creative fits into that experience instead of interrupting it.
• Media operators can start building a CTV advertising strategy without new assets: branded wrappers and product overlays add real creative value using video advertisers already have.
• Dynamic personalization lets the same layout adapt per viewer, using signals like location or audience segment. Celtra has seen adoption of these dynamic features grow sharply over the past year.
• Standardization is catching up to CTV’s growth. Pause ads already show a 28x higher QR code scan rate than other CTV creative formats, and IAB’s 2026 CTV Ad Portfolio is helping formats like these scale across inventory.

The market reality: Big opportunity, fragmented execution

CTV’s rapid growth has outpaced media operators’ readiness in a couple of areas, and that has created some challenges in developing a differentiated CTV offering at scale:

Asset limitations 

Advertisers have not yet been providing the right assets for CTV. They often come to media operators with ready-made videos, repurposed from legacy terrestrial television spots, and expect them to run as-is. This makes it difficult for media operator teams to add value with the creative features available on CTV.

Inventory challenges

The inventory ecosystem is fragmented and still evolving. Many premium platforms are increasingly operating like walled gardens, controlling access in ways that limit creative flexibility. The inventory that offers more creative freedom isn’t always scalable. The result is a fragmented media approach that often forces creative and ad product teams to develop platform-specific solutions rather than scalable offerings.

We are seeing some positive industry shift towards standardization: In 2026, IAB Tech Lab’s CTV Ad Portfolio was released to help normalize emerging formats and signaling across VAST and nonlinear experiences, such as pause ads. As adoption of these standards grows, teams will be able to develop CTV ad creative concepts that scale more seamlessly across inventory, while also allowing channel owners to more easily manage their inventory.  

So the opportunity is here, and the industry is moving in the right direction on the delivery side.    

My advice to teams looking to get started in this space is to invest in creative products that already follow the industry standards we’re shifting towards vs. one-off custom integrations.  The teams that do that today will be in a much stronger position as the ecosystem matures.   

Consider the viewer first, always

Before getting into specific creative ideas, it’s important to step back and remember the environment you’re designing for.

CTV is a hands-free, lean-back experience. Viewers are immersed in a show, movie, or live event, which creates the high attention that makes the channel so valuable. This also means you need to be thoughtful about what you ask of them from an advertising perspective.

Most viewers will tolerate an ad break as part of the experience. However, they won’t tolerate an ad that feels disruptive or irrelevant. The creative has a short window to make a positive impression, and how that moment is used matters to how a brand is remembered.

The strongest CTV ad creatives use the unique features the channel offers: a large screen, an attentive audience, and signals that make messaging more relevant.  They also design the creative in a way that fits naturally into the viewing experience, with the goal of complementing the moment rather than competing with it.

That requires some discipline from advertisers. Every animation, overlay, QR code, or interactive element should have a clear purpose. Media operators are in a good position to guide their clients here, helping them create experiences that feel appropriate for the channel and useful for the viewer.

Creative ideas to get started on CTV

Let’s turn back ack to the first challenge that I raised for media operators looking to get into the CTV space.  Advertisers arrive with finished video assets built for linear TV, and teams aren’t sure how to add value from there.

This doesn’t need to be a blocker.

The most practical starting point is building on top of what already exists; this means enhancing the video rather than replacing it, and progressing from simple wins to higher-value executions.

One of the early formats that started appearing on CTV was the branded wrapper, often called the “L Wrapper”. These are one of the simplest executions that require minimal advertiser input while giving creative teams more real estate for branding, product shots, and actionable elements like QR codes, helping drive stronger brand recall.

From there, the same concept can be extended by pairing the video with a supporting product gallery, creating a more interactive and commerce-driven viewing experience. By combining storytelling with product discovery, QR codes, and clear calls to action, these experiences help drive stronger engagement, consideration, and a shorter path to purchase.

You can also consider overlay experiences here: a creative that keeps the full video on screen, but has products or messaging overlays on top.  Alongside the “brand wrappers” these experiences reinforce key messaging and callouts from the main video.  Even with just a glance viewers can easily understand what is belong promoted and why, even if the audio is muted or the viewer is not fully attentive with the ad break.

All of these creative experiences are lightweight enhancements that allow you to add real creative value on CTV through stronger branding, sharper messaging, and product integration, and all with limited additional asset input required from the advertiser.

Dynamic personalization as a key unlock

When I talk to clients about what makes CTV distinct from linear TV, dynamic personalization is almost always where the conversation lands. It allows media operators to offer a capability that has not been traditionally available on the living room screen, and offers a unique value-add on top of the traditional video creative.

CTV allows us to use a variety of signals at run time to make creative more relevant for the viewer. These can be something broad, like location, or something more specific, like audience data. The level of personalization can vary, but this is one of the areas where CTV starts to separate itself from traditional television.

As you think about these experiences, remember that the design doesn’t necessarily need to change. The layout can remain the same while the content adapts to the viewer. A product overlay can update based on a live catalog, messaging can change based on location or weather, creative themes can shift based on audience segments. These approaches give media operators a stronger story to bring to advertisers while creating more relevant experiences for viewers.

Another benefit is that personalization isn’t tied to a specific inventory source or technical integration, so it remains more scalable than those ad products that require custom CTV integrations. Once the framework is in place, the same approach can often be applied across a wide range of environments.

At Celtra, I’ve seen adoption of these capabilities grow substantially over the past year, which reflects demand in the market. And we’re seeing it translate to performance, with clients using dynamic features like our locator component reporting measurable impact on in-store traffic. In fact, our data shows that the number of video creatives utilizing a locator component increased 53x year-over-year as brands rush to connect on-screen viewing with physical-world action.

Ovative pushed this further with Celtra, building creative that shifts with the weather and points viewers to the nearest dealership, and purchase intent climbed 11.9%.

And importantly, with the demand growth, clients are also seeing real performance impact from clients using these dynamic features.

The question of interactivity

While more attuned creative and personalization on CTV can be real value drivers, interactive creative is another area of growing interest for clients exploring CTV that must be considered.

Interactivity is often positioned by sales teams as a premium add-on, and the concept is compelling. But in practice, there are blockers with scalability and reliability across inventory sources.  It’s also an experience that requires creative thinking to respect the viewers’ lean-back environment.

The clients I’ve worked with who have been able to scale this offering successfully are those publishers that own their own CTV inventory and can control the technical aspects of interactivity, as well as build a suite of offerings specifically suited to their audiences. 

I’ve seen very few partners successfully run interactive campaigns programmatically for CTV. However, that’s starting to change. The standardization of SIMID across CTV opens up real potential for light, intentional interactivity that can scale and it’s something Celtra is actively developing against.

In the meantime, there’s a more practical middle ground – Celtra’s creative experiences that deliver the engagement value of interactivity without asking the viewer to pick up a remote. 

Placement evolution

Beyond creative and personalization, new opportunities are emerging with the evolving CTV inventory. As CTV owners try to maximize their inventory, they’re looking for placements beyond the standard pre-roll and mid-roll video ad units, and introducing new formats like home screen ads and pause ads.

Pause ads especially are getting a ton of attention as they’re simple to produce, appear at an engaging moment for users, and are reaching programmatic scale in a way that makes them viable for most campaigns. According to our Creative Insights report, pause ads demonstrate a 28x higher QR code scan rate compared to any other CTV creative execution, proving that users are far more willing to initiate action during natural, user-controlled viewing breaks.

While there is still a need to standardize delivery types, such as VAST, MP4, PNG, etc., we’re seeing VAST work well for many clients because it is programmatically compatible, expands creative possibilities, and supports ad tracking and measurement capabilities.  And when dynamic messaging is layered in, this creates an even more powerful and relevant pause experience.

What next?

It is a really exciting moment in CTV as it enters a more mature phase.  Since its inception, the channel has contained the right factors to be game-changing for the industry, but the fractured landscape has prevented many media operators from making a real impact.  

With the shift towards standardization that is happening, there’s a clear opportunity for those teams to move now, before that shift is complete, to take advantage of CTV’s growth.

If I’m advising a team building out their CTV offering today, I recommend focusing on three areas:

1. Build around emerging industry standards so you are creating something scalable and sustainable. 
2. Design creative specifically for CTV, and don’t just repurpose videos from cable TV.
3. Keep the viewer in mind to create CTV experiences that feel relevant and well integrated into the viewing experience, and not disruptive.

As you develop your CTV offering, I’d encourage you to use these principles as a starting point. These provide a solid foundation for building ad products that advertisers are interested in today, while giving you the flexibility to adapt as the ecosystem continues to evolve.