| ADVERTISING & MEASUREMENT
AMC Networks is onboard as the first company to pilot On Addressability, the addressable advertising initiative founded last June by Charter, Comcast and Cox. AMC will allocate a portion of its commercials to addressable ads delivered to aggregated household audiences across the Charter, Comcast and Cox cable television footprints. “Addressable is the future of advertising and with On Addressability, we are finally bringing the future into the present,” said Kim Kelleher, President of Commercial Revenue and Partnerships, AMC Networks. “We are focused on bringing performance-based marketing to our clients and innovative solutions to brands, however they are interested in buying television advertising. Fortunately, AMC Networks is in a unique position to push this frontier and, with our partners at Charter, Comcast and Cox, we are already getting started.”
Measurement and analytics company 605 announced the launch of 605 IMP4CT, a self-service, web-based application providing full-funnel audience attribution solutions to quantify the impact of TV advertising on consumer behavior. 605 IMP4CT enables clients to augment aggregated and anonymized household viewership data with 1st and 3rd party attributes and KPIs, allowing them to study consumer behaviors across the marketing funnel regardless of the audience they target. “The ability to comprehend the impact of linear campaigns in a world where consumers are moving across devices with increased fluidity is more important than ever,” said Noah Levine, Chief Revenue Officer at 605. “605 IMP4CT empowers users with timely audience attribution information, allowing programmers, advertisers and agencies to determine how and where to spend their next television dollar in a way that optimizes their return on investment.”
Discovery and native advertising platform Outbrain selected cybersecurity company CHEQ to provide its clients with protection from non-human, invalid and fraudulent traffic. CHEQ will provide an additional layer of ad-fraud protection on top of Outbrain’s existing defenses. “Ad fraud is a consistent problem plaguing the digital advertising industry,” said Yossi Amara, Chief Information Officer at Outbrain. “By partnering with CHEQ, we are taking the necessary steps to ensure our network is safe and secure for all clients and partners, via advanced fraud detection.”
Location technology company GroundTruth announced the launch of new capabilities that will expand the reach of location-based marketing through cross-device channels. With the introduction of its new Connected TV solution and Desktop offering, coupled with its existing mobile capabilities, GroundTruth aims to provide marketers broader access to cross-device channels in order to drive consumers to physical points of interest or convert them online. Campaign insights can then be used to optimize omnichannel messaging or targeting in real-time to increase performance. “By developing a solution for Connected TV and Desktop we are strengthening capabilities for omnichannel location-based advertising strategies and offering the ability to effectively market to audiences and drive ROI through various online and offline elements,” said Amit Goswami, SVP of Product and Engineering, GroundTruth. “Advertisers who integrate audience targeting on Connected TV and other devices with location targeting on mobile can execute an incredibly powerful cross-channel marketing plan.”
DoubleVerify, a software platform for digital media measurement, data and analytics, announced the launch of a new transparency and reporting solution for CTV inventory. The new solution is designed to give CTV buyers full transparency and accurate data on where their campaigns are running across all major CTV devices. “DV’s mission is to give advertisers clarity and confidence in their digital investment, regardless of platform, channel or format,” said Matt McLaughlin, COO of DoubleVerify. “With our new solution, CTV advertisers can get consistent evaluation standards, making it easier to track campaign quality and performance.”
Smart TV data company Inscape announced expansion of its suite of data offerings through the creation of a Nationally Representative Panel. The NRP, developed in partnership with Dativa, provides representative TV viewing data for all US households, demos and geographies and focuses on a panel of approximately 3.5 million of Inscape’s base of 15 million ACR-enabled smart TVs. The NRP applies anonymous consumer data to make Inscape data representative across a broad set of consumer and household attributes. “We’re extremely confident in the efficacy of our new NRP model and believe that being open about how we’ve constructed it will further drive confidence within the ecosystem both for the value of our new offering as well as the role smart TV data is playing across the industry,” said Zeev Neumeier, President of Inscape. “We’ll be looking to make ongoing extensions and enhancements and continue to invest in making it the gold standard for our licensees and their customers.”
With use of VOD content surging, Comcast Technology Solutions and FreeWheel announced a new industry solution that will bring programmatic capabilities to premium set-top-box VOD video inventory. The solution allows both content owners and distributors to offer advertisers access to STB VOD content, unifying it with other inventory sold programmatically across connected TV and digital video channels, and combines the ad targeting capabilities of FreeWheel’s ad decision engine with the ad creative distribution capabilities of Comcast Technology Solutions’ Ad Store. “STB VOD inventory has long been an incredible opportunity for advertisers. The combination of premium content and the living room, lean back viewing experience has been the right environment for brands to tell their stories and deliver their messages,” Stefan Maris, Global Head of Partnerships at FreeWheel, tells Cynopsis. “However, programmatic transaction has been challenged due to creative management and workflow. We are excited to partner with CTS to solve these challenges and unlock the value of this premium inventory via programmatic channels – for both sellers and buyers alike.”
New data from mobile advertising company MobileFuse looks at advertisement receptivity over the course of the last few months: pre-COVID-19 (Jan-Feb), early COVID-19 (March 1-16), early shutdown (March 17-31), deep COVID-19 (April), and the push to reopen (May). The sample size is across millions of consumers, and hundreds of orders within the MobileFuse platform. Research found:
· Household incomes on the lower end (< $30k; and $30k – $50k) and upper end ($250k) are engaging with ad units more than ever, while middle income is lagging
· 18-34 year olds engaged the most in every phase, but other age groups are catching up
· Women always led with engaging with ad units, but coming out of the pandemic, men are engaging at nearly the same rate
· Rural and suburban ads served have much higher engagement rates than urban
· Not only has scale in mobile increased, engagement rates increased 15%
Roku has launched a shopper data program for CPG marketers. Kroger Precision Marketing, the grocery store’s media solution, plans to join as the launch partner to build first-to-market targeting and attribution tools for streaming TV. A completion of the integration will give marketers access to Kroger data science for targeting and closed-loop attribution to measure campaign performance across the Roku platform, as well as tools from Roku to measure the effectiveness of linear TV. “We believe that all TV ads will be targeted and measurable,” said Alison Levin, VP of Ad Sales and Strategy, Roku. “Our new shopper data program will make it easier and more effective for CPG advertisers to shift spend to streaming and focus on value for every ad dollar spent.”
Brands have pivoted with new messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic, but how should they talk to consumers post-crisis? New GfK research shows that 55% of Americans believe that brands will need to adopt a new set of concerns and messages, while the remaining 45% feel that companies should return to pre-coronavirus themes “as soon as possible,” so that consumers can “forget” that the COVID-19 crisis happened. GfK also found that Americans from different circumstances have different feelings about appropriate post-COVID messaging. Findings include:
* 66% of those with children under age 3 favor a return to pre-virus messaging, compared to just 34% of those who have no kids,
* 56% of people living in large urban metropolises would prefer that brands revert to earlier themes, versus 40% of those who live in small cities, and
* 60% of women think brands should behave as if the post-virus world is completely different, while men are split 50-50 between forward-looking and nostalgic messaging.
Wurl, provider of streaming video distribution and advertising services for connected TV, announced it has added 30 new AdPool customers since late 2019. In that time, AdPool has increased fill rates for users by as much as 50%. AdPool enables video producers to sell and backfill their CTV ad inventory to advertisers, ranging from global brands to local businesses. “The reality is that fill rates are not 100% – there’s left over inventory that can and should be monetized,” said Yuval Fisher, SVP, Technology at Wurl. “AdPool makes that supply available at configurable floor CPMs without devaluing inventory or competing with the inventory owner, and that capability is clearly resonating with our customers.”
STREAMING
Firstlight Media has launched a new initiative to incubate and accelerate the growth of scalable OTT services, to be led by Paul Pastor, a member of the Disney Hulu launch team and more recently a co-founder of OTT services in North America and Europe. “As industry trends accelerate toward OTT services, media companies are quickly finding out that content alone does not ensure success,” said Pastor. “The goal of our accelerator initiative is to provide OTT services of all sizes with what’s needed to compete and win: scalable product, data and technology that can reduce customer acquisition costs and churn, optimize the lifetime value of the consumer, and ensure long term growth.”
Tubi has partnered with hospital platform pCare to make the streaming service available to COVID-19 patients coping with isolation. “We are honored to partner with pCare and hospitals nationwide to bring Tubi’s rich library of titles to patients at a crucial time when entertainment, now more than ever, is beneficial for sustaining mental health,” said Andrea Clarke-Hall, Tubi’s Head of Global Business Development. |
