Disney isn’t the only publisher giving character-inspired names to its ad products.
At Warner Bros. Discovery’s upfront presentation in New York City on Wednesday, it announced the launch of not one but two ad solutions: an ad platform called NEO and a linear advertising tool called DemoDirect.
Guess NEO’s not “the one” after all.
NEO, presumably named for the hero of the Warner Bros.-produced “Matrix” franchise – strap in for more movie jokes – offers direct access to WBD’s video inventory, including streaming, linear and FAST channels.
DemoDirect, meanwhile, will allow advertisers to buy against audience demographics on WBD-owned linear networks with “one plan, one CPM, [and] one seamless execution,” said Bobby Voltaggio, WBD’s co-president of ad sales.
WBD execs on stage didn’t share much more about the new ad offerings, although they did continue the increasingly popular upfront tradition of roasting ad tech jargon, which came via a taped segment from Conan O’Brien during which he manhandled a series of complex printed-out charts and frantically complained about words not being real.
But there was a little more info about NEO in the press release, including that it was created in partnership with Magnite and FreeWheel and will incorporate first-party data from advertisers. Buyers will also get show-level transparency into where ads are running.
In other news, Voltaggio and Ryan Gould, co-president of ad sales, also touted the success of WBD’s existing ad suite, including shoppable ad formats for the Max streaming platform named Shop with Max and its contextual AI ad product called Moments. Both were first announced during upfronts last year.
According to WBD, Moments has helped drive a 600% increase in consumer action, Voltaggio and Gould told upfront attendees, while the shoppable ad formats have delivered 12x lift in viewer engagement.
Of course, now that the Max streaming service is rebranding back to HBO Max – yep, that’s happening – it’s unclear whether Shop with Max will undergo a similar name change.
(Too bad Oracle’s already taken.)
