IPG Mediabrands’ media investment arm, MAGNA Global, has added 15 long-tail and premium TV networks to its consortium mix. The long-term goal is to automate more than 50% of client buys.
MAGNA Consortium’s original slate of partners included print, digital and TV publishers like Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, Tribune, AOL, Cablevision and A+E Networks. The new roster, revealed Tuesday, consists of vertical interest networks like adventure sports and music channels Outdoor Channel and Fuse.
“Most of these partners were independently owned and reached really unique and specific consumer segments, but had comparatively smaller audiences,” Todd Gordon, EVP and US Director of MAGNA Global, told AdExchanger.
Some of the smaller networks reached only 160 million unique viewers in the fourth quarter compared to the 267.5 million viewers attained by some of MAGNA’s primetime broadcast partners.
While the smaller network partners won’t unlock a lot of new inventory for MAGNA advertisers, Gordon noted that these networks were “strong performers and delivered viewers that weren’t easily found in other places.”
MAGNA Global will help these networks automate more of the television sales process and quantify the value of their audience data.
MAGNA’s move parallels TV audience activation platform Simulmedia’s work to segment niche cable network audiences, many of which fly under network buyers’ radars.
“If you want to buy sports [viewers] or you want to [buy against] music fans for a specific target, it lets you go after these diversity of interests,” Gordon said. “If you have a base TV buy, cost per incremental reach can get really expensive in the end because there’s a lot of duplication of audience, so finding these unexpected pockets of inventory is really valuable.”
One of MAGNA Global’s big pushes last year was the private TV marketplace. It partnered with publishers Cox Media and Tribune as well as TV supply-side platforms WideOrbit and AudienceXpress to make inventory, predominantly from local TV markets in this instance, more targetable.
Although Gordon did not say whether the agency was creating additional private marketplaces with its new 15 network partners, he said they are using a mix of set-top box, client-sourced and third-party data from companies like Rentrak to parse some inventory more deeply than the traditional Nielsen GRP on behalf of advertisers.
“We don’t think there’s one right way to measure,” Gordon said. “While we see tremendous value in Nielsen and they’re core to our business, there are parts of Rentrak that are also interesting. I think you’ll see us talk more about these things in the future.”
