Tag: CTV

United States – Popular streaming platform Netflix has announced that they will be launching their in-house adtech platform by 2025, a move that will continue supporting the platform’s ad-supported plan.

For Netflix, this will give advertisers new ways to buy, new insights to leverage, and new ways to measure impact.

Amy Reinhard, president of advertising at Netflix, said, “Bringing our ad tech in-house will allow us to power the ads plan with the same level of excellence that’s made Netflix the leader in streaming technology today.”

Moreover, Netflix will also expand its buying capabilities to include The Trade Desk, Google’s Display & Video 360, and Magnite who will join Microsoft as the main programmatic partners for advertisers.

“We’re being incredibly strategic about how we present ads because we want our members to have a phenomenal experience. We conduct deep consumer research to make sure we stay ahead of the competition, bringing opportunities that are better for members and better for brands,” Reinhard added.

The announcement was made during Netflix’s Upfront presentation, where Reinhard walked advertisers through the continued growth and momentum of Netflix’s ad-supported plan, which now has 40 million global monthly active users — up from 5 million a year ago. She also stated that over 40% of all signups in the ads countries now come from the ads plan.

It is worth noting that 70% of Netflix’s ad-supported members watch for more than 10 hours a month — which is 15 percentage points higher than the nearest competitor, according to Nielsen. Netflix members also pay even more attention three hours into watching than they do when they first start. With this, they’re around twice as likely to respond to an ad compared to other streaming services and linear TV.

Bela Bajaria, chief content officer at Netflix, explained, “Our audiences are highly engaged — and by engaged I mean that they are choosing to spend their time watching Netflix. That’s important because engagement is the key to success in streaming. When people watch our shows and movies, they get more value from Netflix, they stick around longer, and they’re more likely to recommend us to their friends. And this matters to all of you because you want to be where the audiences are, too.” 

New York, USA – Global media platform Teads has announced an expanded exclusive global partnership with LG Ad Solutions for CTV native advertising inventory across the Asia-Pacific region. 

The expanded partnership will cover Australia, New Zealand, and the other ten countries in APAC, including Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, and India. 

These new territories will extend Tead’s current exclusive footprint on LG Smart TVs in France and Belgium. Currently the exclusive premium associate for the first touch point on LG TVs in these regions, Teads is advancing the accessibility of high-quality advertiser engagement on the largest screen within households.

In France, Teads and Danone teamed up for Danone’s inaugural CTV campaign as an Olympic Games sponsor, using LG Ad Solutions’ unique CTV Native format. With Teads Studio and detailed data, they reached audiences on different devices, ensuring Danone’s presence in a top-quality, safe environment for brands.

Teads and LG Ad Solutions’ worldwide exclusive agreement adds to their current partnerships in Central and Eastern Europe on LG Smart TVs. This wider coverage lets advertisers use LG Ad Solutions’ Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology for better targeting. The seamless integration of ads and precise targeting ensures viewers get relevant experiences while advertisers enjoy improved media performance.

In these regions covered by the expanded partnership, brands can now use LG Ad Solutions’ ACR data to learn about how LG TV users watch shows and ads using privacy-friendly visual and audio recognition tools. Teads can then target particular audiences based on the type of TV consumption (live or streaming), content and ad exposure, and other relevant viewership data.

LG Ad Solutions’ advertising formats create a bridge between linear TV and OTT content consumption on the largest screen in the home, providing prominent brand placement, interactive ad formats, and direct access to advertised content and products.

Furthermore, Teads also collaborates closely with industry-recognised partners like Kantar and Cint (Lucid) to provide thorough and dependable measurement solutions. This gives clients strong insights and performance data, helping them evaluate their campaign effectiveness and make smart decisions.

This partnership with LG Ad Solutions helps Teads reach new CTV audiences and gives brands the chance to use Teads’ holistic omnichannel targeting strategy for precise and effective campaigns across different screens.

Combined with tailored ad formats that further amplify brand storytelling, Teads empowers brands to cut through the clutter and captivate viewers on the biggest screen, thereby maximising engagement and driving measurable results in the ever-evolving digital advertising landscape.

With customised ad formats that enhance brand storytelling, Teads enables brands to stand out and engage viewers on the largest screen, boosting involvement and delivering measurable outcomes in the constantly changing digital advertising world.

Bertrand Quesada, co-founder and co-CEO of Teads, said, “Our expanded partnership with LG Ad Solutions enables brands and agency partners to extend exceptional creative across all screens and further their storytelling with vast audiences. In just less than a year, we’ve already seen tremendous success in France and Belgium as they embrace CTV native advertising to leverage omnichannel strategies. We look forward to our elevated relationship as we deepen our CTV presence globally with a world-class leader.”

Also speaking on the partnership, Serge Matta, president of Global Ad Sales at LG Ad Solutions, commented, “As smart TVs are increasingly becoming the central device of households around the world, we are thrilled to expand our exclusive partnership with Teads in these new regions. We’re eager to further elevate our direct-to-glass strategy and shared mission in partnering with brands to deliver incremental audiences.” 

Meanwhile, Thibaud Rivals, lead media manager at Danone Paris, also shared, “The strategy deployed by Teads enabled us to respond to the challenges of media fragmentation and the new uses of our audiences. We were delighted to have been one of the first companies to test this new CTV screen, through the partnership between Teads and LG Ad Solutions.”

Australia – Digital advertising solutions company Kargo has announced three new hires in the Australian market as part of the company’s overall growth strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. They include Natasha Herbst, Jonty Saini, and Nina Johnston as new sales executives.

The new appointments are part of Kargo’s commitment to invest and expand in APAC in 2024 and plans to introduce a number of innovative new products and offerings in CTV advertising specifically. 

Moreover, the company is dedicated to creating a premium ecosystem that benefits both advertisers and publishers while maintaining a focus on transparent measurement for real results.

Neill Pitt, sales director at Kargo APAC, said, “APAC holds a pivotal role in Kargo’s global plans for 2024. We have launched a range of new omnichannel digital display ad units throughout this year, which have proved extremely popular.”

He added, “At the same time we have also witnessed tremendous interest in our unique enhanced CTV pre-roll products as well as our proprietary social commerce and e-commerce solutions. We eagerly anticipate expanding our offerings to meet the surging demand in 2024 and have some incredible innovation set to launch early in the new year.”

California, USA – Adtech company PubMatic has announced a suite of enhancements to its CTV platform, providing publishers with market-leading technology innovation and unique brand demand whilst enabling buyers to achieve campaign performance across premium streaming inventory.

The company processes well over 1 trillion CTV impressions per month from a rapidly growing roster of CTV and OTT publishers and has announced new and expanded partnerships with premium streaming brands including AMC Networks, FOX, iQIYI, ABS-CBN, and TrueID.

PubMatic works with six of the top seven global smart TV providers that have ad-supported streaming services, four of the top eight major addressable broadcast video on demand (BVOD) streaming platforms in the U.S., and five of the top eight free ad-supported TV streamers in the U.S. The company monetizes inventory for the top five addressable BVOD platforms in both Australia and Japan, two of the Asia-Pacific region’s largest CTV markets.

The accelerated pace of PubMatic’s new business growth in CTV coincides with the launch of a range of product and feature enhancements that provide innovation-driven advantages to buyers and publishers:

  • Viewer Experience Tools: Advanced ad-podding capabilities offer sophisticated competitive separation, frequency, and ad deduplication management to deliver a seamless experience for viewers and greater value for advertisers.
  • Publisher Controls: PubMatic’s new creative approval tool enables publishers to pre-approve ads prior to programmatic auctions.
  • Content Signals: A slate of enhancements related to oRTB 2.6 standards support richer content signals to bring CTV sales more in line with linear TV.
  • Audience Addressability: PubMatic’s integration with LiveRamp’s RampID maximizes audience reach, enabling privacy-centric addressability in CTV. PubMatic’s support of exposure logs means every single RampID impression is also 100% measurable.
  • Measurability: Through an expanded partnership, PubMatic customers can leverage Comscore Campaign Ratings (CCR) to evaluate the efficacy of media investments with high confidence across TV, CTV, desktop, and mobile.

The enhancements to PubMatic’s CTV platform for publishers come on the heels of the company’s recent launch of Activate. The new end-to-end supply path optimization solution brings the power of programmatic to automate the Direct IO process. 

“Our relentless innovation and exclusive demand partnerships make PubMatic the preferred monetization partner for premium CTV publishers,” said Nicole Scaglione, VP of CTV and OTT at PubMatic. “We have had tremendous interest in our publisher and advertiser solutions and new products like our recently launched SPO product Activate. Our customers are key stakeholders in our innovation roadmap and this has put us in prime position to win the programmatic future together.”

California, USA – Global adtech company PubMatic has announced the launch of ‘Activate’, an end-to-end supply path optimisation (SPO) solution, which allows buyers to execute non-bidded direct deals on PubMatic’s programmatic platform, accessing premium video and CTV inventory at scale.

Initial launch partners include dentsu, FuboTV, GroupM, Havas, LG, Mars, and Omnicom Media Group Germany, amongst others.

Built leveraging technology from PubMatic’s 2022 acquisition of Martin, ‘Activate’ is fully integrated into PubMatic’s growing software suite, including the PubMatic Sell-Side Platform and Connect.

‘Activate’ represents a new industry paradigm as it is a single layer of technology that directly connects buyers and sellers of digital media. Activate gives buyers more control over their omnichannel video investments by executing deals across PubMatic’s premium CTV and online video inventory in one platform, enabling a seamless transition of their direct business to programmatic private marketplace (PMP) or programmatic guaranteed (PG). 

It is also expected to facilitate the transition of insertion order budgets into the programmatic ecosystem due to the reduction in complexity, time, and cost achieved by the single technology layer approach. As a result, buyers may expect increased ROI and publishers may see increased revenue.

For PubMatic co-founder and CEO, Rajeev Goel, as buyers and sellers of digital seek a more efficient, transparent, and sustainable supply chain, ‘Activate’ extends this successful supply path optimisation strategy, which they pioneered four years ago.

“By seamlessly connecting buyers and content owners via a single layer of technology, we are significantly reducing the hops, discrepancies, data proliferation, opacity, and complexity in the programmatic marketplace. This will result in higher ROI for buyers and increased revenue for publishers, consistent with our mission to fuel the endless potential of internet content creators who rely on advertising as a primary source of revenue,” Goel said.

Sydney, Australia – Tremor International’s Unruly, the omnichannel advertising platform with a specialisation in Connected TV (CTV) and video, has announced its partnership with TCL FFALCON (TCL), the Internet and AI×IoT service platform, to provide advertisers with the opportunity to deliver impactful and relevant ads to receptive audiences across the United States, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

Following the integration of the Amobee demand-side platform (DSP) into Tremor International’s end-to-end platform, the partnership between TCL FFALCON and Unruly grants advertisers leveraging Amobee direct access to TCL FFALCON’s ad units on premium CTV/OTT inventory in the TCL Channel, which includes popular entertainment, movies on-demand and live channels. 

“Connected TV has become an integral part of the media landscape across APAC, particularly Australia. The rapid adoption of Broadcast Video-on-Demand (BVOD) and FAST channels is providing more opportunities for advertisers to reach fragmented audiences,” said Adam Hunt, vice president, partnerships and business development at Amobee. 

He added, “Amobee and Unruly’s partnership with TCL FFALCON helps bridge this gap, giving advertisers a unique opportunity to capitalise on this growing trend and deliver highly targeted and impactful campaigns that resonate with their audiences, ultimately driving better business outcomes.”

Kenneth Suh, chief strategy officer at Tremor International, also remarked, “As audiences diversify their viewing habits – and, in some ways, become increasingly difficult to reach – we are pleased to be partnering with TCL FFALCON to help advertisers tap into these viewers at scale.”

Suh further added that the partnership will strengthen the company’s capacity to provide clients with advanced targeting and high-impact creative executions on TV.

“TCL FFALCON is committed to delivering innovative TV solutions to our customers, and that’s exactly what this partnership was built to provide,” said Rebecca Wan, overseas business department leader at TCL FFALCON. 

Wan added, “By leveraging Unruly and Amobee’s technology and offerings, we are now able to bring a more personalised TV experience to viewers while also creating new, more powerful opportunities for leading brands and advertisers. It’s a win-win-win.”

Singapore – Adtech firm PubMatic has appointed Sandro Catanzaro, former head of publisher media strategy at Roku, as the company’s new vice president of product management, CTV, and video. He will be responsible for the product vision and roadmap for the company’s growing CTV and video businesses.

In his new role, Catanzaro will lead a team of seasoned product managers to further develop and execute product plans, ensuring that the company continues to drive innovation for an increasingly sophisticated and diverse CTV and video market.

During his stint at Roku, he led the company’s product team by providing automated solutions for publishers, including self-service header bidding. Previously, he was the founder and chief innovation officer at software company DataXu, which was acquired by Roku. Prior to his tenure at DataXu, Catanzaro was a consultant at Bain & Company.

Speaking of his new role, Catanzaro said, “PubMatic has a legacy of industry-first innovation and technology that puts us in prime position as leaders in CTV and video. I look forward to working with our incredible engineering and product teams, along with our global customers, to deliver solutions that are meaningful and rewarding for publishers, advertisers, and consumers.”

Meanwhile, Nishant Khatri, SVP of product management at PubMatic, commented, “We are thrilled to have an esteemed product innovator like Sandro join PubMatic. With his guidance, we will build on our leadership position in the high-growth video and CTV formats, and enhance the value we bring our global publisher and advertiser customers across the open internet.”

PubMatic recently announced the promotion of APAC marketing director Emily Yri to the role of vice president of international marketing.

Sydney, Australia – Independent omnichannel sell-side advertising platform Magnite has announced the launch of its singular supply side platform (SSP) Magnite Streaming, which combines technology from the Magnite CTV and SpotX platforms.

Magnite Streaming empowers media owners to maximise the value of their assets holistically across live and VOD inventory, CTV and OTT environments, and addressable linear, while gaining insights to more efficiently and effectively drive their businesses. 

Some of its CTV and OTT clients include Nine, TVNZ, Emtek Digital and Samsung Ads. Magnite Streaming also provides advertisers with unparalleled access to CTV and OTT inventory, audience targeting capabilities and real-time reporting.

The SSP’s features include comprehensive seller deal management capabilities to monetise all types of long-form video content, inventory curation tools purpose-built for video such as advanced podding, frequency capping and reserved/upfront inventory management, and multi-faceted audience activation features including seller defined audiences, third-party data integrations, and secure data matching, amongst others.

Juliette Stead, head of JAPAC at Magnite, commented, “Magnite’s combined expertise across all digital video formats makes us the strongest omnichannel technology provider for premium publishers to count on. Our experienced team is able to effectively address the diverse opportunities and challenges that arise in video advertising, having executed many exciting streaming video campaigns in partnership with leading broadcasters and streaming publishers throughout JAPAC, such as Nine, TVNZ, Emtek Digital and Samsung Ads.” 

She added, “Through Magnite Streaming, we’re reinforcing our commitment to address the unique needs of our clients and helping set them up for long term success to propel the progression of ad-supported CTV and OTT.”

The recent SSP launch comes after the recent news of Magnite’s global, two-year expanded partnership with Disney Advertising.

Sydney, Australia – Omnichannel advertising platform Kargo has acquired connected TV (CTV) and over-the-top (OTT) platform VideoByte, as part of the former’s mission to deliver differentiated interactions to audiences through various platforms.

With the partnership, VideoByte will be adding innovative CTV advertising technology to broaden Kargo’s offerings to its brand partners and their audiences.

VideoByte will likewise be providing Kargo with access to a large and growing footprint across the television ecosystem and new advertising products to be launched in the next few months to drive immediate innovation to Kargo’s current customers.

“We are thrilled to join the Kargo team and are in lock-step with their mission to develop uniquely differentiated ad experiences that grab attention and drive performance for publishers and brands alike,” said David Naffis, CEO at VideoByte.

He also added that Kargo’s growth, scale, and reputation as market innovator will help accelerate VideoByte’s go-to-market as it continues to push innovating new CTV formats.

Moreover, Naffis will also be joining Kargo as its general manager of CTV.

Harry Kargman, CEO and founder at Kargo, also commented on the acquisition, “Acquiring VideoByte is a clear next step in our growth and evolution. Kargo has been expanding across multiple screens and the Connected TV experience is calling for this kind of ad format innovation and disruption that Kargo has brought to the mobile screen.”

According to Kargman, VideoByte also shares Kargo’s mission and vision to create unique and performant ad creatives through its platforms. 

“With VideoByte, we will bring an amazing Kargo experience to Televisions everywhere and change the landscape with new capabilities while driving massive value and success for both brands and publishers,” Kargman concluded. 

Founded in 2020, VideoByte already has a presence in CTV and OTT with integrations across major media companies including Viacom, Tegna, and LG, amongst others.

Prior to VideoByte, Kargo also previously acquired cloud-based video technology SaaS company Ziggeo to beef up its video offering capabilities.

Sydney, Australia – Finecast, GroupM’s addressable TV business, has partnered with Australian broadcaster Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) to make connected TV (CTV) advertising better, and help advertisers reach bigger audiences through BVOD campaigns.

The partnership, which is done also with Xandr, will utilise the strength of ‘Header Bidding’ technology on CTV campaigns, representing a positive shift in the access capabilities for addressable TV, whilst maintaining the benefits of buying flexibility.

The ‘Header Bidding’ technology has long been a part of the digital media ecosystem creating a fairer and more competitive programmatic marketplace for publishers. This provides increased access to inventory for buyers and greater transparency and visibility of available inventory for marketers. By allowing advance bidding on inventory from multiple ad exchanges simultaneously, header bidding reduces the inefficiencies of a sequential waterfall approach.

John Miskelly, APAC investment director at GroupM, said, “This is an exciting development in the connected TV/OTT video space where we can harness the agility and addressability of programmatic and have access to the best inventory. The broadcasters are doing a great job as TV transforms, and SBS and Finecast are demonstrating true best practice for access and innovation in the CTV ecosystem.”

Meanwhile, Lee Callagher, national digital operations and technology manager at SBS, commented, “Being able to prioritise both direct and programmatic demand whilst maintaining our premium ad experience is important for SBS’ future commercial strategy. Working with Finecast to successfully bring ‘Header Bidding’ to connected TV enables greater scale and reach for advertisers in BVOD.”