CTV

How about this for a premiere? Beginning this fall, all NBCUniversal inventory will be available for sale programmatically via the network’s private exchange NBCUx. Ahead of the upfronts, NBCUniversal has rolled out an offering called NBCUx for Linear TV, which will put additional data and automation in the hands of media planners to apply to […]

The extreme fragmentation of digital media is tougher on national political campaigns than on brand advertisers. Because political campaigns must fight for every vote (at least once the primaries are done), discrete audiences that a brand marketer might dismiss as too difficult or small are essential to the political advertiser. The 3% of American adults that still connect […]

Twentieth Century Fox’s new flick “Deadpool” shattered box office records over Valentine’s and President’s Day weekend, banking $135 million in the three days since its premiere. Although a popular Marvel comic (and actor Ryan Reynolds) certainly inspired that turnout, a week-long multiplatform activation from Viacom preceding the film’s launch helped generate awareness. Throughout the campaign’s […]

It may not be master over how its software is used, but that isn’t stopping Google from ruling its Play store with an iron first. It appears that some ad-blocking apps are not welcome. Taking a page out of Apple’s playbook, Samsung on Sunday rolled out support for content blocking within the default browser that […]

Comcast is losing fewer cable TV customers than it has in the past eight years. That’s no small feat, considering signs of rampant cord cutting inundating the broadcast industry. Comcast added 89,000 customers for video service Xfinity in the fourth quarter, the most of any quarter since 2006, according to its earnings release. Video revenue […]

Unlike earned digital media, which is reinventing political campaigns, presidential candidates tend to view digital video as support for their flashy TV advertising. “The hope for digital, in my opinion,” said John Randall, VP of digital at the right-leaning agency CRAFT, “is that by 2020 we don’t even see a difference between TV and online or mobile video ads. But […]

Automated guaranteed will color direct deals in TV in a big way, not just in digital, predicts Scott Braley, GM of programmatic at Telstra-owned video platform Ooyala. While traditional TV teams are accustomed to buying on a reserved basis, automated guaranteed deals could diversify the direct orders process. Broadcasters could subsequently gain more flexibility around […]

Watch out YouTube. Facebook is coming for your video ad honeypot. In his first week back in the saddle after the birth of his daughter Maxima, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors on the company’s Q4 earnings call that Facebook will explore the launch of a video-specific property, possibly an app that would compete with Google […]

The British broadcaster Sky Media on Monday announced a $10 million investment in the DSP and DMP provider DataXu. Sky hopes the relationship will help it better understand programmatic advertising, said Jamie West, Sky Media’s deputy managing director, in a release. “The money substantiates the belief in each other’s companies,” said DataXu CRO Ed Montes […]

Advertisers are embracing Instagram, with its video and direct-response potential gaining particular interest, according to a new report from social advertising and content marketing firm Brand Networks. CPG, fashion and retail advertisers in particular have been quick to embrace Instagram, which proved to be a significant player over the 2015 holiday season. The study examined more […]

AudienceXpress, a TV planning and buying platform Comcast acquired last summer via its purchase of parent Visible World, is opening up new programmatic TV tools to several agencies, including Horizon and US International. These tools include a self-serve platform and direct APIs, AudienceXpress’ first major product launch since the Comcast acquisition. The beta will last through the […]

Acxiom has released an addressable TV product, built from a segmentation platform it acquired in early December from the Allant Group. The tool, announced this week at CES, leverages Acxiom’s workflow automation software and its relationships with multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs). It’s not meant to execute on media buys. “We’re on a mission to […]

Video buyers see a future where they can bundle new-wave TV ad inventory – including VOD and connected TV – with linear television buys. But the “CTV” impression pool is still too shallow for many agencies and brands to bother. “We’re not going to scrape for impressions on some new 5 million-subscriber video startup,” said […]

True[X], the video ad platform Fox acquired last December, partnered Tuesday with Comcast’s TV ad-serving platform FreeWheel to bring more “engagement-based” video ads to broadcasters. The deal will give True[X] greater sell-in among FreeWheel’s base of media and entertainment brands, which include NBCUniversal, Turner Broadcasting, Viacom, Sky, DirecTV and ABC. True[X] creates interactive video ad […]

Glenfiddich, a family-owned maker of single-malt Scotch whisky, is among the first advertisers to place an addressable TV buy through DISH Network’s new programmatic marketplace, which launched in October. Glenfiddich’s media planning and buying agency, Resolute Digital, is using Rocket Fuel’s demand-side platform to serve an addressable, 30-second TV spot to the brand’s target audience […]

Shoppable video is still a novel concept, despite the industry’s efforts to move it into the mainstream (with Google launching shoppable video on YouTube being the most recent example). But NBCUniversal’s Bravo TV still sees the value of shoppable video. The network wanted to expand its digital business and encourage fans to return to its properties on […]

If you’re a large brand and you want 10 million guaranteed impressions, you’re not going to find it in episodic TV – yet. Adobe and Videology, through new over-the-top video ad sales and the yield management system Adobe Primetime TV Media Management, hope to solve this problem. The solution was released Tuesday during Videonuze’s programmatic […]

The emergence of data-enabled TV targeting is altering the agency buying structure. In 2014, WPP’s GroupM launched Modi Media, a unit that would become the poster child for so-called “advanced” TV ad buying. But it’s not the only agency group to build an offering geared to the fragmenting milieu of TV advertising. Others, such as […]

In 2014, American Express boldly declared in an RFP to ad tech vendors that it wanted to programmatically transact 100% of its then $128.5 million display budget. Though the statement was later clarified to be more of an aspiration than a brand-wide target, the financial services giant was one of several large brands exerting greater control over exchange-based buys at […]

YouTube’s TrueView has trained viewers to count backward from five – and then click “skip.” It’s a now-ingrained behavior that traditional and even nontraditional publishers like Norway’s VGTV are trying to grapple with. That’s because pre-roll engagement rates are the pits – and they often have an unfortunate effect on the engagement rate for whatever content […]

Interactive video ad server Innovid has rolled out a programmatic creative tool designed to let agencies and advertisers personalize video messages across devices. This capability is driven, in part, by Innovid’s experience tackling different ad-serving requirements through a series of connected TV partnerships. Innovid entered an audience solutions agreement with Roku in the summer, which […]

While the rise of subscription video services won’t lure all consumers away from ad-supported offerings, it represents a disruption to current business models – partially driven by ad blocking and consumer demand for better experiences. “If you think about all of the content we consume that is supported by an advertising model, if a consumer […]

“Brand Aware” explores the data-driven digital ad ecosystem from the marketer’s point of view. Today’s column is by Tony Ralph, director of advertising technology at Netflix. Every time I open a mobile web browser I’m reminded of Wirth’s law. Wirth’s law postulates that software becomes slower more quickly than hardware grows faster. Mobile hardware advances […]

Clypd and SpotX, two sell-side systems for TV and digital publishers, have jointly launched a cross-screen monetization platform for media owners. TiVo will be the pair’s first data partner, enabling platform users to anonymously match digital ad exposures to national households across TiVo’s 2.5 million set-top boxes. The goal is to allow an advertiser or […]

NBCUniversal transacted 10-15% of its digital business programmatically during the 2015-2016 season, the company has revealed to AdExchanger. Prior to the upfronts, the company expected to secure 50% of commitments on a “converged” basis, with elements of both TV and digital in a single deal. In this most recent upfront, NBCUniversal’s digital business grew 50% and, of […]

DISH Network is subscribing to the programmatic playbook, enabling greater automation and data application for buyers bidding on addressable TV spots. The satellite pay-TV provider, representing 8 million addressable households nationwide, on Monday debuted a programmatic marketplace and supply-side platform running on IPONWEB. Its initial demand partners are Rocket Fuel, TubeMogul and DataXu. After an […]

Television may be a little late to the programmatic party, but addressable TV promises to blend performance efficiencies with proven sales lift – and that’s changing the face of the TV buy. Media agencies were historically agents of the upper funnel, but data and technology are redefining the awareness and consideration phase. “A client used […]

TV has long proven to be an effective channel for Ancestry.com, a provider of genealogical software and services with more than 2 million subscribers. And 1 million have purchased its DNA testing product, AncestryDNA. Commercials advertising Ancestry are meant to be emotional and explain the value of using the family history search site and DNA […]

Toyota Motors is a big TV spender. It bought, according to Kantar Media, three minutes of commercial airtime during Super Bowl XLIX –trailing only Anheuser-Busch and Fiat Chrysler. Although Toyota will continue to invest in big TV tent poles, it’s test-driving more digital video activation, and is sponsoring premium NBCUniversal video running on AOL’s network. […]

Sony Pictures TV thinks there’s power in remaining subscription-free. In the case of its free streaming premium video network Crackle, which clocks 22 million monthly uniques, it promises brand partners a 93% ad completion rate and an engaged audience. Sony Crackle in April staged its first upfront presentation. “Because we see ourselves as a TV […]