Much like the waves programmatic private marketplaces have made domestically of late, more European broadcasters are considering these deals for the “brand safety” they promise marketers and the perception of control over CPMs they provide.
London-headquartered Videoplaza, which was founded in 2007, is going after this very trend. Its sell-side ad-serving and management platform Karbon is used by a number of major European broadcasters and video publishers.
If you had to bucket Videoplaza, competitively, you might say the company is the European equivalent of FreeWheel, according to the company’s VP of new business, Maria Flores, who is leading the company’s programmatic charge. Approximately 50% of European broadcasters manage inventory through Karbon, the company claims.
Videoplaza is presently four months in to a beta roll out of “Aunia,” a private video marketplace for broadcasters that the company has first launched in Madrid, Spain, said Videoplaza founder and CEO Sorosh Tavakoli.
Early broadcast media companies that have adopted Aunia include Mediaset, the largest commercial broadcast company in Italy (Videoplaza currently works with its entity in Spain) and Atresmedia, a major Spanish broadcast network.
“Europe is very much a premium marketplace as opposed to the US, where a majority of programmatic dollars are still being spent on the open market on mid-and-long tail in many cases,” Flores said. “In Europe, because it’s dominated by local markets and every country has its own language, it’s much more about local, premium content.”
Premium broadcasters are looking for creative ways to package their unsold inventory while protecting their CPMs and positions in the market, Flores said. This is evident in deals from publishers like The Guardian in the UK, which created a private video marketplace with Adap.tv to help drive incremental sales around special events like the World Cup.
Speaking to signing on two major broadcast media networks thus far to use Videoplaza’s private marketplace, “we think efficient, high-quality inventory will be important and there will be a drive for quality,” Flores noted. “We’re working with different broadcasters with very different needs and many are interested in automating direct sales… it’s a massive opportunity for the buy and sell side.”
Although Videoplaza has initially rolled Aunia out in Spain and Italy, it is aiming to be the European private video marketplace of record, and is extending broadcaster roll out to France, Germany and the Netherlands at present.
Flores foresees traction on the buy side, as well, with more brand advertisers considering programmatic video partnerships.
Earlier this week at the Cannes Lions festival in the French Riviera, big advertisers like Mondelez International and Heineken talked about taking an active role in exchange-based media partnerships, as AdExchanger’s Zach Rodgers reported.
In Mondelez’s case, the consumer-packaged goods giant is cutting a direct deal with video demand-side platform (DSP) TubeMogul for programmatic video buys, of which its media agency Starcom MediaVest will help execute.
