TWC delivers coordinated online video ads across l
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As people increasingly slice and dice their TV viewing among a number of screens, it is becoming increasingly difficult for advertisers to reach the audiences they seek. With the roll-out of Blackarrow’s ad insertion solution for IP on-demand, TWC now has a single ad platform to reach customers regardless of device or video programming type used.
Time Warner Cable (TWC) has already deployed Blackarrow’s dynamic ad insertion (DAI) solution for use with its linear-over-IP and VOD-over-QAM services. Today, Blackarrow announced that TWC is deploying the solution for on-demand-over-IP.
Blackarrow’s DAI solution allows TWC to offer a coordinated buy to advertisers that will reach the viewer regardless of the platform they are using. This is important as prime time viewing increasingly gives way to my time viewing. Conviva released data that showed the number of devices streaming concurrently in the home during primetime increased 28% during primetime between 2012 and 2013. Simply put, consumers are increasingly watching individually, rather than together.
The Blackarrow ad solution allows TWC to more efficiently manage and sell advertising as a single buy, handling the routing and placement of ads across multiple screens. It also provides a unified view of campaign metrics across the screens. Ad targeting in the Blackarrow solution is on a household basis across a range of different demographic, content type and viewing attributes.
This is an important tool for operators to have in their possession. As companies such as CBS make the decision to go direct to consumers over the Internet, they will struggle with being able to sell a unified ad buy across all the screens a viewer may be using. While all of the connected screens are covered in such direct-to-consumer plays, the platform through which most people watch television today (pay television) is not.
Blackarrow’s solution also brings another feature to the table. Last year, the company introduced the Audience 2 product, a tool which allows operators to centralize all the information known about a subscriber in a single place. The data management platform allows the operator to associated connected devices, like tablets and smartphones, used to access operator services with a household subscription. The new update allows the operator to cap the number of times a particular ad is seen across all devices associated with an account.
Operator DAI solutions are also becoming more important as TV Everywhere becomes an increasingly critical delivery vehicle for online advertising. Freewheel reports that authenticated ad views (ads delivered in an app that used pay TV to validate a viewer’s right to access) increased 368% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2014. Further, 46% of live and long-form online video ad views came from authenticated apps.
Freewheel went further to say that the number of authenticated ad views was split fairly evenly between long form video (46%) and live linear viewing (56%.) This emphasizes how important it is that TWC, using Blackarrow’s DAI solution, can now deliver both live and on-demand ads in a single coordinated campaign.
Why it matters
Tracking the viewer across multiple platforms is becoming difficult for advertisers.
Consumers are increasingly watching television alone, through a variety of connected devices.
With authenticated online video ads views fairly evenly split between live linear and on-demand viewing, tight coordination of advertising between the mediums is critical.
Operators need an ad platform that allows them to offer a coordinate ad campaign across linear and on-demand in the IP and proprietary (QAM) domains.