Seven set to be first to market with addressable advertising
Seven will be the first Australian television network to offer addressable advertising to viewers streaming its broadcasts and catchup content.
Today’s Australian Financial Review reports that Seven will make the announcement at its annual upfronts presentation in Melbourne on Friday, while The Australian today reveals that Foxtel has signed a deal with a technology provider which will allow it to offer a similar product in the future.
Addressable advertising allows ads in TV shows to be targeted based on the demographics of the household, rather than based on the content of the show. In theory it would mean, for instance, that dog-owning and cat-owning households could be shown different pet food commercials while watching the same show.
The technology only applies to streamed video, rather than traditional broadcast.
According to the AFR, Seven will begin offering the service almost immediately, with the Rugby League World Cup which kicks off in Melbourne on Friday night.
However, it is unclear how much detailed data will be available to advertisers wanting to accurately target the Seven’s streaming viewers, who have not so far been asked to register for Seven’s streaming service Plus7. However, users of one-off streaming offerings such as Seven’s tennis content have previously asked for details in order to register.
Plus7 falls under Seven’s Yahoo7 joint venture. In June, Seven signed a new deal which will allow to launch its own standalone video service. The AFR reports today it will be called 7plus.
Nine has been asking its viewers to register for its 9now service and claims to have 4.5m registered users since launching in February last year. This information will underpin Nine’s own automated buying and selling platform 9Galaxy, which will eventually include addressable advertising as part of its wider automated offering.
Today’s article in the Australian hints that Foxtel may be some way behind its terrestrial rivals, with the announcement only covering the signing of an agreement with a supplier, US technology company Invidi. According to the article, Foxtel will initially only use the technology “to hone promos and commercials for programming”. Invidi is partly owned by WPP.
Linkedin
Great achievement for Seven, lack of scale will ultimately railroad this very quickly. Scale will only be achieved when competitors have the same capabilities.
As a buyer I want scale across networks, not individual networks.
User ID not verified.
The Aus article says that the Foxtel implementation will “Span (…) traditional satellite broadcast, video-on-demand and live streaming”. So not sure why you’re claiming that Broadcast is excluded. That will be true for Seven (and the other FTAs) though.
User ID not verified.
Hi Propellorhead,
The author of the article in the Aus isn’t best known for his nuanced understanding of complex issues. It’s the same person who mistakenly alleged that the CEO of Ten was insider trading.
I don’t think the technology (or indeed bandwidth) yet exists to achieve this with traditional satellite broadcast.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
I hope they continue to show the same ads as linear broadcast on their live streams in the future (Same with 9 also). this is going the same route as Channel 10 with their TenPlay livestreams.
Why try to fix something that ain’t broke.
User ID not verified.
Excellent.
I’ll just tell them I own bugger all, earn bugger all, don’t shop in any of the big stores, don’t travel, don’t have superannuation or intend to buy a car or property anytime soon.
User ID not verified.
The shade of it all!
User ID not verified.
Addressable Advertising? Isn’t this just another name for targetted advertising (which most other digital players have been doing for years?)
User ID not verified.
Hi Liam,
You’re broadly correct, it’s certainly a subset. You could see it as programmatic for TV, I guess.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
well, progromatic for streaming video content from TV companies, not progromatic for broadcast TV
User ID not verified.
#nailedit
User ID not verified.