Montreal, Canada – Hivestack, a programmatic digital out of home (DOOH) ad tech company has announced a strategic global collaboration with Xandr, a data-enabled technology platform powering a global marketplace for premium advertising. 

Through the partnership, the Hivestack Supply Side Platform (SSP) will be integrated with Invest DSP, the company’s demand-side platform, allowing Xandr‘s advertisers to access Hivestack’s premium global DOOH inventory via RTB transactions via Open Exchange and Private Marketplace (PMP) deals.

Bruno Guerrero, COO of Hivestack, said that as the future of DOOH advertising continues to be redefined, their omnichannel DSP business partners are increasingly important to their mission.

“We are thrilled to announce this crucial global alliance with Xandr and look forward to collectively driving the DOOH industry further in terms of technology and innovation,” Guerrero said.

Dylan McBride, head of global partnerships at Xandr, commented “The growth we have seen for the DOOH channel is evidence of the exciting opportunity advertisers today have to leverage data, measurement and precision in their OOH advertising strategies. We are excited to announce our collaboration with Hivestack who have proven to be at the forefront of this innovation.”

The collaboration is said to launch immediately across key global markets.   

Singapore — Advertising and analytics multinational telecommunications company Xandr, and Scibids, a company that specialises in artificial intelligence for digital marketing, has announced they have struck a strategic alliance that will seamlessly and automatically deploy Scibids AI within Xandr’s Invest DSP using Xandr’s Data Science Toolkit.

By utilizing Xandr’s Data Science Toolkit, which offers one of the most comprehensive custom bidding and log-level-data solutions in-market, Scibids AI can power more granular optimization and ad decisioning that does not require user tracking and profiling to generate greater efficiency and scale for Xandr’s advertiser customers and their campaigns.

The combined result is a frictionless experience for buyers who are able to activate Scibids’ customizable, privacy-centric, and highly performant ad decisioning.

Eric Schwartz, managing director of Scibids North America, said, “Xandr has a long history in enabling its customers to deploy powerful, custom buying strategies to help gain an edge. Thanks to advances in technology and our deep integration with Scibids, tailored bidding strategies no longer require a team of data scientists and engineers to bring them to life. We’re thrilled that our partnership with Scibids will help democratise access to this advanced technology.”

Rahul Vasudev, managing director of Scibids Asia-Pacific, commented that artificial Intelligence is raising expectations in marketing and none more so than in programmatic advertising.

“We are delighted to be partnering with the Xandr team to bring our custom algorithm solutions to Xandr’s Invest DSP, enabling advertisers to achieve their multiple business objectives across the open web. As Scibids is additive rather than disruptive our partnership will help trading talent to thrive by operating transparently and easily alongside their usual tech and processes,” Vasudev said.

The relationship can benefit all premium cross-channel supply, including Connected TV and digital video, among others. Scibids and Xandr provide a clear marketing path for consumers who are ramping up their use of first-party data — even if the customer does not have deep engineering, data science, or media optimization resources. Conversely, sophisticated buyers are able to enjoy rich customization options that can put their proprietary insights to work with the unified benefits of the Xandr and Scibids platforms.

Last December, Xandr was bought out by tech giant Microsoft, which have recently gone into a buying spree to consolidate its market position.

New York, USA – Tech giant Microsoft has announced that it will be acquiring Xandr, the advertising and analytics division of multinational telecommunications company AT&T. Said acquisition is built on a decade-long relationship between the two companies, including its predecessor companies, and Microsoft for delivering global digital media solutions for advertisers. In fact, Microsoft had recently partnered with Xandr this year as its global media space monetization partner.

With Xandr, Microsoft aims to accelerate the delivery of digital advertising solutions for the open web by combining Microsoft’s audience understanding, technology and global advertising customer base with Xandr’s large-scale, data-driven platforms for advertising.

Some of these platforms include first-party data-centered buying platform Xandr Invest, full funnel marketing offering Xandr Monetize, and native ad buying solution Microsoft Audience Network.

Mike Welch, executive vice president and general manager at Xandr said, “Microsoft’s shared vision of empowering a free and open web and championing an open industry alternative via a global advertising marketplace makes it a great fit for Xandr. We look forward to using our innovative platform to help accelerate Microsoft’s digital advertising and retail media capabilities.”

Microsoft and Xandr both said that they share visions and complementary strengths to empower the open web, where everyone can thrive and do so in a way that is consistent with their commitment to strong data governance and consumer privacy practices.

Mikhail Parakhin, president of web experiences at Microsoft, commented, “With Xandr’s talent and technology, Microsoft can accelerate the delivery of its digital advertising and retail media solutions, shaping tomorrow’s digital ad marketplace into one that respects consumer privacy preferences, understands publishers’ relationships with consumers and helps advertisers meet their goals.”

Singapore – AT&T’s advertising and analytics division, Xandr, has released a new feature on its platform, described as content metadata for video. The new feature aims to help publishers improve the monetization of their premium video supply through standardized content descriptors.

Each publisher has different ways of labeling content, and buyers find it challenging to forecast, target, transact and report at scale across premium video inventory, and this is what Xandr aims to solve. Through the new feature, Xandr will be able to standardize content metadata to make it simple for both publishers and buyers to better represent and identify video content.

Xandr will take the thousands of unique genre values and simplify these into standardized categories using its fields including duration, delivery type, genre, program type, rating, network, and language. Xandr also offers multiple integration options to make it easy for publishers to send their metadata, including automated live content mapping to ensure there is comprehensive coverage. According to Xandr, over 50% of transacted CTV impressions on Xandr Monetize, its premium inventory, include content metadata.

The new feature will ensure the publisher’s metadata is standardized into Xandr’s taxonomy. This means that Xandr will take the thousands of unique genre values and simplify these into standardized categories using its fields including duration, delivery type, genre, program type, rating, network, and language.

Lynn Chealander, Xandr’s director of product management, commented, “As video continues to grow, Xandr is leading the way in standardizing content metadata to help our customers across both the buy and sell-side better understand premium video. Content metadata for video will allow publishers to capture unique spend as it unlocks demand for contextual audiences and will give buyers insight into the content so they can make informed decisions. All while matching ads to relevant content to create a better experience for viewers.”

Singapore – Marketing and advertising solutions Rakuten Advertising has expanded its relationship with Xandr’s Global Supply Evangelism Team (GSET), and will also be extending its partnership for the adoption of Xandr’s Monetize SSP. 

Through Monetize SSP, premium inventory that sits within Rakuten Advertising’s unified portfolio across connected TV (CTV), digital video, and native will be available in the Xandr marketplace. 

Across APAC and LATAM, excluding Brazil, Xandr’s buyers will be offered CTV and video inventory across Rakuten Viki, which offers primetime Asian entertainment, and inventory on its messaging app Rakuten Viber. The portfolio will be promoted globally through GSET and have monetization services and deals set up for buyers in-market on their behalf.

The GSET is a team of programmatic experts at Xandr dedicated to servicing strategic publishers by extending their sales efforts to global markets and promoting a publisher’s programmatic inventory, available via Xandr’s Monetize SSP. 

Xandr said GSET has been a unique addition to their offering, where the team provides a three-part service to publishers including in-market sales, monetization services, and marketing services

Ulrik Morell, the VP of Global Supply Evangelism at Xandr, said, “With the advertising ecosystem facing many upcoming challenges, Xandr is proud to be partnered with a major global publisher who is focused on directly benefitting their marketers and agencies.”

Meanwhile, James Collins, SVP of Media at Rakuten Advertising, commented, “We always seek to align our partner opportunities to serve our customers’ best interests. Whilst we have a global network, it has always been important to us to operate through the open internet and ensure transparency with advertisers we work with.” 

Xandr has also recently announced the expansion of its video inventory in APAC which includes top OTT platforms Viu, iQIYI, and True Digital.

Singapore – Xandr, the advertising and analytics division of global telco AT&T, is continuously investing in more talents across their Asia-Pacific (APAC) market by the recent appointments of Masatsune Shironishi as managing director for Japan, and Nicole Prior as managing director for Australia and New Zealand.

Shironishi’s appointment takes effect immediately, while Prior’s appointment will take effect by 1 November this year.

In their new roles, Shironishi will be responsible for building on the early successes of the business, localizing go-to-market efforts and ensuring Xandr is well placed to grow in digital video and connected TV. Meanwhile, Prior’s remit will include overseeing the Australian business operations and continuing the momentum that the team has established in building a premium Australian video marketplace.

Prior to their new roles, Shironishi joined from Amobee Japan where he was country manager and brings deep industry experience and expertise across media agencies, TV, digital media and advertising technology. He has also worked at OpenTable, Elsevier and Microsoft in various senior sales and product roles.

Meanwhile, Prior was formerly the chief media partnerships Officer at IPG Mediabrands’ UM and brings extensive agency and broadcaster experience with executive roles held at MediaCom, Finecast, Ikon Communications, Network 10 and Seven Network.

Both new hires will be reporting to Jerome Underhill, head of global regions at Xandr.

“Xandr has experienced strong growth across APAC as advertiser demand grows for premium, brand and privacy safe environments and publishers and broadcasters seek to meet that demand through partnerships with Xandr. These senior leadership appointments are reflective of the broader investments we are making throughout APAC to allow us to best serve our expanding set of customers,” Underhill said.

The company is also continuing to build its APAC leadership team including a general manager to lead Southeast Asia and India. Xandr has already expanded the leadership team, with Tom Dover having relocated from Sydney to Singapore as director, video marketplace development for APAC. Tom will be responsible for accelerating Xandr’s video-first product adoption delivering creative and differentiated solutions to the region’s largest agencies and advertisers.

Singapore – Xandr, telco AT&T’s adtech company which offers a global marketplace for advertising, has announced the expansion of its video marketplace in APAC to include inventory from leading Asia-wide OTT platforms WeTV and iflix, Viu, and iQIYI, as well as local platforms SMX, True Digital and Vidio in the region.

The expansion also adds Australia’s premium commercial broadcasters, signing agreements with Nine Entertainment, Seven Network, ViacomCBS/Network Ten as well as SBS and Foxtel Media.

The said platforms in Asia and Australia have signed on to use Xandr’s strategic selling platform Xandr Monetize, bulking up Xandr’s video offering in the APAC region.

Xandr’s Senior Account Director Shilpa Kolte said that the adtech company remains committed to improving the experience for advertisers, content owners, and consumers in the region in a privacy-first and brand-safe environment. 

“We are thrilled to see the region’s leading OTT players coming on the Xandr platform to provide premium video ad inventory at scale. As an innovator at the intersection of TV and digital, Xandr provides an open platform to support the growing demand in CTV buying and selling across multiple verticals,” said Kolte. 

In June, Xandr has also announced a renewed partnership with Microsoft, which will see both working on expanding Microsoft’s ad space inventory. Similarly, Microsoft will also be utilizing Xandr’s sell-side platform (SSP), Xandr Monetize. The partnership also entails Xandr augmenting its marketing spend using Xandr’s demand-side platform (DSP). 

As it bolsters its business in adtech, Xandr is further claiming its part in the ecosystem as it recently launches its industry guide called ‘Shaping the Future of Identity’. The guide aims to prepare buyers, sellers, and market participants for a future without third-party cookies.

As the deprecation of third-party cookies further nears, the guide aims to offer insights from Xandr executives and industry leaders to look at how the identity landscape is changing and what number of solutions are best responses, such as from industry IDs to contextual targeting and curated marketplaces.

Singapore – Microsoft, which has multiple consumer properties such as Microsoft News, MSN, and Outlook.com, has renewed its global contract with Xandr as its sell-side (SSP) and demand-side platform (DSP) for expanding and diversifying its ad space inventory and augmenting its marketing spend, respectively. 

The renewed contract is an extension of over ten years of partnership with Xandr. On the sell-side, Microsoft will be extending its use of Xandr’s sell-side platform, Xandr Monetize. It aims to widen its monetization strategy, focusing on increasing Microsoft’s unique audiences for advertisers across premium display, video, and native supply in more than 100 countries. 

“We always seek to align our partnership opportunities to serve the best interests of and to directly benefit the marketers and agencies looking to drive growth through our unique Microsoft audience. Our renewal with Xandr, after ten successful years of partnership, extends globally-scaled programmatic access to Microsoft’s audience that marketers rely on today,” said Kya Sainsbury-Carter, VP of global partner sales at Microsoft.

As digital advertising budgets shift to video, Microsoft ramped up video monetization efforts supported by Xandr’s video technology solutions and unique video demand. Initially, Microsoft launched Xandr Monetize with a single video ad format in one market and quickly expanded to three formats and into over 60 global markets. 

Those three video ad formats include instream pre-roll, outstream in-article, and ‘BannerStream’ which enables multiple media types to participate in a single unified auction.

Most recently, Microsoft was an early adopter of Xandr’s simplified server-side header bidding solution, Prebid Server Premium. With the technology, Microsoft consolidates its demand for video and native through the tools on Xandr Monetize to enable efficient private marketplace (PMP) buying and providing advertisers a unified path to access Microsoft supply. 

On the buy-side meanwhile, Microsoft will be augmenting its media spend through Xandr’s Invest DSP as one of its primary DSPs for marketing campaigns.

Dave Osborn, Xandr’s SVP for North America commercial & global partnerships, said that its holistic relationship with Microsoft is one entrenched in innovation and collaboration. 

“We deeply value their continued trust in our platform and team to support formats that are so critical to the future of our advertising business,” said Osborn. 

“Microsoft’s international growth on Xandr, across the buy- and sell-sides, and across leading formats like video and native, are critical components of our global marketplace as Xandr builds to support campaigns that span screens,” he added. 

In 2020, Xandr joined the Microsoft Audience Network, which serves ‘Microsoft Audience Ads’, the only native advertising solution built by its trusted search platform, Microsoft Bing. Xandr has integrated premium third-party supply in the network, giving buyers the ability to target Microsoft’s unique audiences at scale across premium international native supply through Xandr Monetize.

Singapore – Xandr, the advertising technology unit of telco AT&T, has launched an industry guide called ‘Shaping the Future of Identity’, which aims to prepare buyers, sellers, and market participants for a future without third-party cookies.

As privacy among consumers is growing stricter, the deprecation of third-party cookies nears. With this, marketers need to adjust buying strategies to ensure their programmatic advertising investments remain effective and efficient, reaching customers across screens in a non-intrusive and privacy-safe way.

The ‘Shaping the Future of Identity’ guide by Xandr aims to provide a look at the impending path forward. It will be offering insights from Xandr executives and industry leaders, and will look at how the identity landscape is changing and what number of solutions are best responses, such as from industry IDs to contextual targeting and curated marketplaces.

Captify’s SVP of Partnerships Matthew Papa shared that as the loss of third-party cookies approaches, advertisers’ top concern is how this will impact their ad performance and their bottom line.

“Innovative solutions are emerging for the advertising market that empowers advertisers to reach high performing, intent-powered audiences at scale. In fact, Captify’s Search-powered Contextual available via Xandr’s platform is a compelling alternative to cookie-based segments and standard contextual offerings in the market,” said Papa.

Meanwhile, Samuel Tan, the senior director of market development at Xandr APAC, said that the rapidly changing identity landscape has led the advertising industry to reach an inflection point, and that both publishers and marketers are central to writing the next chapter. 

“A collaborative approach driven by a core belief in the need for an open internet will be essential for the success of both buyers and sellers in the new era of digital advertising,” said Tan.

The ‘Shaping the Future of Identity’ guide is already available on Xandr’s website.