While Adtech Builds the Homescreen Pipes, Advertisers Can Still Tap into the Opportunity
Imagine if every smartphone manufacturer had its own unique app dimensions, icon ratios, and user interface rules. Developers would have to rebuild every app from scratch for each device. The app economy would never have reached its current scale. Growth only became possible once shared conventions emerged.
CTV has already lived through one version of that story.
As TV viewing moved to streaming, audiences fragmented across apps and services. The mass audience did not disappear. It spread. In response, the homescreen became one of the most important surfaces in media, bringing viewers back together at the point where every TV journey begins. It is the gateway to streaming content and brand storytelling, and increasingly the place where fragmented viewing behavior reconnects. In that sense, it has helped solve one of modern TV’s biggest challenges.
But solving audience fragmentation has exposed another layer of complexity.
One premium experience on screen, many ways to deliver it
To viewers, the homescreen feels seamless. Operationally, its rapid growth has introduced variation across the ecosystem. Each OEM and operating system brings its own formats, ratios, file specifications, and placement rules. A campaign that runs smoothly in one environment may need adjustment in another. What works on Samsung may differ on Hisense. What runs on LG may not be accepted in the same way on Roku or Google TV.
The result is a landscape that remains powerful but complex. One-off creative builds, platform-specific workflows, and inconsistent reporting are familiar growing pains for any medium expanding at this pace.
From innovation to scalability
The operational complexity surrounding homescreen execution is the natural byproduct of rapid innovation. As OEMs expanded formats and capabilities, creative ambition moved faster than the infrastructure required to scale it consistently across platforms.
The industry has reached an inflection point. Through the IAB’s Ad Format Hero Task Force, the homescreen has been identified as a priority format for standardization, reflecting both its commercial importance and the need for shared technical foundations. Defining formats, harmonizing signals, and aligning measurement frameworks are essential steps toward a true “build once, serve everywhere” model, where premium inventory is portable rather than bespoke.
What the advertisers should consider next
Standards create the foundation, but real scale will come from how the market uses them. As the ecosystem moves from experimentation to infrastructure, advertisers will play an important role in determining how quickly homescreen becomes a scalable media channel.
- Strategic shift: The homescreen should move off the margins of experimentation. Sitting at the very start of the viewing journey, it has the power to influence what audiences watch next, making it a natural pillar within full-funnel CTV planning. That means evaluating it with the same rigor as other scaled placements, measuring impact across both branding and performance KPIs rather than treating it as a one-off test.
- Creative shift: The campaigns that succeed will not be those designed for a single platform, but those built to travel across ecosystems. Shifting the brief from “what’s possible on one platform?” to “what travels across platforms?” encourages creative ideas that are portable from day one, making it easier to extend reach and maintain consistency as homescreen buying becomes more standardized.
- Operational shift: As the market matures, simplicity will become a competitive advantage. Advertisers should prioritize partners that make cross-OEM buying feel unified rather than fragmented, and push technology platforms to deliver more streamlined activation and consistent execution across environments.
As infrastructure catches up with innovation, the homescreen is poised to become a defining surface in CTV. The advertisers that approach it with scalability, portability and operational simplicity in mind will be best positioned to unlock its full value.
[Editor's note: This is a contributed article from Teads. Streaming Media accepts vendor bylines based solely on their value to our readers.]
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