Video ad network Videology has acquired mobile data management platform Collider Media, it’s first acquisition, as it works to expand its services to include more direct business from publishers.
In an exclusive interview with AdExchanger, Videology CEO Scott Ferber said that deal was done to reflect the advertisers’ demand for targeting consumers — using the wide array of anonymous data gathered by Austin, TX-based Collider — across various devices.
“One of the single greatest challenges of cross-platform marketing is tracking consumers because of different user identification on individual devices,” Ferber said. “Collider has developed a business that works with the publishers to match them with their users across any device. We’ve been working with Collider for a year-and-a-half and it has a huge registered user base on mobile in particular. They manage large publishers, and they help manage their audiences so their advertisers can deliver targeted advertising. It’s a simple marketing desire: an advertiser wants to market and manage the ads that are shown to same Scott Ferber whether he’s on the PC, the smartphone, the tablet, and eventually, the connected TV.”
Terms of the deal are not being disclosed. From a brand standpoint, Collider will continue to operate independently and will keep its name and its executive staff in the same place, including CEO Bryan Jones, who spoke to AdExchanger last October about the issues of targeting and privacy, an issue that was crucial for Videology in making the purchase, Ferber said.
“This is a sensitive issue and in addition to making sure that the data is anonymous, each publisher still gets to keep its own data with Collider’s system,” Ferber said. “If one publisher in the system knows someone, and another doesn’t, that information isn’t shared. But I can manage data that was there but never surfaced in a way that allows for large publishers to be able to create a large, targetable audience.”
In continuing as a distinct brand, Collider will also be encouraged to be open about who it works with. “There is no coercion here, we want them to be able to do great business and work with every demand offering out there, not just ours,” he said. “The value in being acquired by us is that we can provide Collider with greater resources to keep doing what they do.”
The acquisition marks another rung in Videology’s evolution, which changed its name from Tidal TV in January. So as Videology fills out its supply side face with Collider, it is also looking to the company for its patent pending technology called Vault, which is billed as a way to protect publishers’ data from third parties. As the ad tech space gets more crowded with service providers, patents are the clear way to show differentiation and also provides an additional, direct revenue stream.
“The key thing here is, ‘Who controls the data?'” Ferber said. “People like to say ‘Content is king,’ and I’m happy with that. Hey, American Idol gets a pretty high rate, the Super Bowl gets the highest rate and reruns of The Andy Griffith Show, which I particularly love, don’t get a high rate. However, this ability to see the audience and understand them on every touchpoint that they experience the content is something that advertisers have always wanted. And with all these devices and digital assets, the publisher have the data and the power is shifting back to them. Authentication on devices will change things, we won’t need the user identification code on devices anymore. That’s why the focus will shift to the supply side and that’s why we did this deal.”
By David Kaplan
