OpenAP, the TV advertising and analytics joint venture between Viacom, Fox and NBCUniversal, released on Tuesday its first commercial product, called the OpenAP Market, a campaign planning and buying tool that works across the company’s three broadcast backers.
The market product lets advertisers upload data and targeting paramaters, like a brand’s first-party CRM data or a generic segment like “auto intenders,” and then purchase linear and digital campaigns on guaranteed audiences, instead of on ratings like Nielsen or Comscore, said CEO David Levy.
Market is for planning linear or OTT campaigns that unfold over days or weeks, as is typical for TV buys, so none of the campaigns transacted through Market are dynamic or real-time.
That means Market campaigns could serve to smartphones, computers or smart TVs, but will always show up in an episodic TV show. So NBC could sell ads for The Tonight Show across its owned and operated apps, or its linear and video-on-demand footprint, but not on its YouTube inventory.
With the guaranteed terms, advertisers using Market can buy linear or streaming TV campaigns and only pay for audiences that meet their criteria. The programmer – Viacom, Fox or NBC – eats the cost of commercials served to viewers who don’t meet targeting definitions.
Broadcasters don’t view potential refunds on missed ads as a major risk, though, Levy said. The programmers have developed strong data science capabilities, and are more confident now in their ability to forecast and target specific audiences.
The prize for broadcasters is that with targeted, guaranteed deals, the programmers can meet advertiser demand with fewer overall ads, Levy said. If a fashion brand wants to reach every woman between 20 and 45 years old in specific regions, the TV network saves a lot of inventory by serving those spots to only women, instead of to shows that index highly with women.
“We want to help broadcasters go from supporting hundreds of advertisers to thousands of advertisers,” he said.
