At the same time, broadcast companies are building capabilities to capture dollars being allocated to digital advertising. The changes come as technology is playing a big role in supporting the growth of video advertising, but other developments, such as improved attribution services, are also helping the industry advance. Just recently, advertising company OpenAP, which was founded by a group of large television companies, including Fox and Viacom, announced a new service that lets brands purchase advertising campaigns for both linear TV and digital video across publishers, reports CNBC.
Linear TV refers to traditional over-the-air TV and cable TV, as opposed to digital video that is streamed over the internet. While Warner Media, formerly Turner and a founding member of OpenAP, has pulled out of partnership, NBCUniversal joined the organization last year. In addition to placing advertisements across publishers, OpenAP seeks to better reach audiences with targeted content. OpenAP CEO David Levy explains that broadcast television has invested in data science platforms to assess what kind of audiences watch certain types of shows, which allows OpenAP to better target audiences with relevant advertising. The organization, however, can also place advertisements on digital content for shows that are at least a half an hour in length, he adds.
In a related matter, NCC Media, which is a television advertising sales and technology company owned by Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Communications, has just rebranded itself as Ampersand to reflect its new ability to aggregate viewership and deliver targeted content, reports Multichannel News. In addition to using its own technology, the group will use the OpenAP platform to expand its reach. That will result in the company being able to reach more than 40 million households that currently view content from Comcast, Charter, and Cox. Ampersand will also place advertisements on video-on-demand shows while it seeks to unify television advertising across multiple screen types, audiences and inventory.
As part of that expanded relationship, Ampersand said it will serve as part of the central hub for network-enabled addressable ads for Comcast, Charter and Cox. Those three companies also own Canoe Ventures, which distributes video on demand inventory on behalf of clients that include ABC, AMC, CBS, Sony CINE, TV ONE and Univision. Brands may be increasingly willing to advertise on linear television because enhanced attribution services are being developed to measure the results of campaigns, reports MediaVillage.
Tom McLoughlin, vice president, regional sales, at New York Interconnect (NYI), says his firm recently ran a campaign for an entertainment venue. As part of the campaign, NYI installed tracking pixals on the client’s website to monitor activity and the entertainment venue’s ticket sales. By doing so, the client was able to assess the success of the television campaign, he says. In the same article, Michael Scott, head of sales, brand–North America, for Samsung Ads, explains that by using attribution technology, his firm was able to calculate that combining over-the-top advertisements with linear television advertising increased results by 143% above using only linear advertising (over-the-top refers to streaming services such as Netflix).
Other firms, meanwhile, are working to develop new capabilities for creating video advertisements for YouTube or social media platforms. According to a press release, John Gargiulo, formerly head of global product marketing at Airbnb and Sambou Makalou, formerly v.p. of client success at Facebook marketing platform Nanigans, have launched Ready Set, which will provide marketers with a library of video content while also offering filming and production services. The company claims that in one recent shoot, it produced 82 social video ads in a single day. Ready Set also offers its “Learning Platform” that seeks to help marketers understand what type of content is the most effective.