19 May 2026
Our Product Advisory Board (PAB) is a unique, intimate, and client-focused forum that brings together broadcasters from across Europe to strategically align on the future of TV and online advertising. Unlike traditional conferences, PAB is centred entirely around the needs of its members, serving as a collaborative space where industry leaders and tech executives identify how technology can solve unique market challenges and advance the European TV ecosystem.
A standout moment of our most recent PAB, was the keynote delivered by Marion Ranchet, Founder and Managing Director of Streaming Made Easy. Bringing her extensive career expertise to the stage, Ranchet focused on a sector that is frequently overlooked despite its massive scale within the European market: Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
While corporate giants have traditionally dominated the TV screen, Ranchet’s session highlighted a profound mismatch between the current advertising ecosystem and the needs of the “99%”— the SMEs that form the backbone of the European economy.
The “Attention Mismatch”
A central theme of the presentation was the tension between where budgets are spent and where attention is actually captured. While many SMEs funnel their budgets into “low attention media” such as social and online platforms because they feel accessible, Ranchet noted that the industry must challenge the assumption that this is where the best results are found.
For a small business owner, “premium” rhetoric often takes a backseat to practical concerns. These businesses are not primarily focused on brand building — which TV does exceptionally well — but on generating immediate business outcomes. When the barriers to entry for premium TV remain too high due to complex workflows or rigid requirements, a significant portion of the market is left behind.
The Power of Personalisation
The session also underscored that for an SME, targeting is a critical priority. Personalisation allows smaller players to compete with global brands by reaching the right customer with precision. To win SME budgets, broadcasters must “check the boxes” of targeting and business outcomes to prove that premium channels can deliver the same precision that SMEs have come to expect from digital platforms.
Moving Toward a Pan-European Solution
The industry is beginning to move toward a more inclusive, “platformised” model. Ranchet highlighted several key initiatives currently shaping the market:
- France: The TF1 AdManager offers self-serve options with budget caps and a minimum budget of 1,000€.
- UK: A joint self-serve addressable marketplace (utilising the Comcast Advertising tech stack) is launching to explicitly target budgets currently spent on Meta and TikTok.
- Pan-European: RTL AdAlliance is focusing on a pan-European self-serve video model to provide aggregated big-screen inventory.
The ultimate goal is to move away from local, fragmented broadcaster approaches and instead create scalable alliances. By simplifying the path to entry and treating the advertising tool as a SaaS product rather than a sales house, the industry can remove the friction that currently prevents local businesses from accessing the big screen.
The key takeaway from Marion Ranchet’s keynote was a call for a fundamental shift in industry behaviour: the advertising ecosystem must adapt to SMEs, rather than expecting SMEs to adapt to a corporate structure.
By lowering thresholds, focusing on business outcomes, and embracing platformisation, premium advertising can evolve from an exclusive luxury into a scalable growth tool available to every business, regardless of size. This spirit of challenging existing norms and strategically aligning on the future is exactly what PAB is designed for.
Thank you, Marion, for bringing this conversation to PAB. Your perspective on the lost opportunity in SME advertising has given us and our clients plenty to think about, and is exactly the kind of fresh perspective we value at our events. We look forward to continuing this conversation, and others like it, at our next PAB.
Lee is the Marketing Specialist Europe at smartclip and is responsible for content writing, editing, social media, and creative support across the department and company. Originally from the United States, Lee graduated from the University of Cincinnati, where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Electronic Media. Before joining smartclip, she has worked with various organisations managing social media accounts and assisting in the video and audio production processes.
Lee Richter
Marketing Specialist Europe
