AMC Networks, an advanced advertising pioneer, said it has enabled addressable ad inventory in every hour of the original programming on AMC Network and WE tv.
Amazon has made a year-long commitment and will launch a campaign Sunday during the The Walking Dead, which is starting the second chapter of its final season. Amazon will also be airing addressable ads in the final season of Better Call Saul and in new programs like the upcoming series Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire.
AMC has been aiming to make all of its linear inventory addressable, but current technology limits it to three single-advertiser spots per show, said Evan Adlman, senior VP of advanced advertising and digital partnerships for AMC.
Also: AMC Networks Goes Programmatic With Linear Addressable Campaigns
The Amazon campaign will be addressable in 35 million households that subscribe to Comcast, Charter Communication and Cox cable using technology from Canoe Ventures. The campaign will also be addressable in homes with activated Vizio smart TVs.
Amazon will run its national ad campaign on the AMC networks. With the first-party data it has at its disposal, Amazon has created specific audience segments. When Canoe or Vizio detects that a viewing household matches an audience segment, a different commercial for Amazon is delivered to that household that is much more targeted to that particular household. AMC uses the OAR watermarking technology to merge the cable and Vizio footprints.
“It makes this advertising extremely relevant, the most relevant advertising that we've ever been able to sell on our network, because they can use their first-party data,” Adlman said.
AMC will be using data company 605 to track and measure the campaign’s results as it progresses.
Addressable advertising technology has been around for years, but it has been difficult to mount national addressable campaigns on linear networks because they are carried by multiple distributors, each with their own ad sales and serving systems. Most addressable advertising had appeared in the local time on national networks controlled by cable operators and satellite providers.
AMC began working with Canoe, a joint venture of Comcast, Charter and Cox, in 2020, to make addressable work and ran a campaign with Volkswagen later that year.
AMC has been testing addressability on its linear networks using promotional inventory.
“We’re still testing with other pockets of inventory, but we’re launched and capable now. It’s no longer an aspiration,” Adlman said.
Also: AMC Networks Signs Up With Addressable Ad Group
Beyond Amazon, AMC is talking about addressable campaign with other clients. “There’s plenty of opportunity for all of our clients to take advantage of this new capability,” he said.
It might be a while before all of AMC’s addressable inventory is used in addressable campaigns.
"We’re probably ahead of the majority of the market,” Adlman said. “There’s a large amount of education that still has to happen within the industry on how to execute these types of campaign and how to implement these capabilities across a linear network.” ■
