The leading U.S. cable companies are spearheading an initiative to unite constituents ranging from content creators to audience measurement companies to marketers in an effort to “deliver a sound, scalable and sustainable addressable solution to marketers that maximizes the impact and value of television as a marketing platform.”
This morning at the Cannes Lion advertising conference on the French Riviera, the advertising units of Comcast, Charter and Cox put brochures on the hotel door knobs of 1,200 delegates, informing them of the new initiative called “On Addressability.” The cable operators are seeking to get a broad ranger of constituents to agree upon definitions and standards of addressable advertising. They also want to educate advertisers on the value of addressable and identify best practices and business standards for transacting on addressable campaigns.
“TV is a tremendous, resilient medium with unparalleled reach and engagement, but data has changed the way that marketers use media. Historically, TV has lagged digital in this area, and this must change,” said Marcien Jenckes, president of advertising for Comcast Cable. “Our industry needs to find a way to fully participate in, and lead, the data-driven future of advertising as only TV can. We’re fully committed to making this happen. That’s the impetus behind the On Addressability initiative.
Enabling broadly available addressable marketing on television will require a cooperative effort starting at the content creation level and winding all the way through distribution.
According to Jenckes, “It’s the distributors who bring the ads into viewers’ households each day. It is therefore incumbent upon us to lay the groundwork and set up the infrastructure to truly ‘turn on’ addressability for the industry in a way that is secure, scalable and effective.”
Added David Kline, president of Charter’s Spectrum Reach division: “Advertisers want to use television as a full-funnel solution that marries the best of traditional television, with increased data-driven capabilities for targeting and measurement. We look forward to working with Comcast, and the rest of the industry, to establish best-in-class practices that learn from digital media, yet maintain the security and brand safety that have long been at the core of television advertising.”
As Ad Age noted, There are other efforts being made to standardize addressable advertising. For example, Project OAR (Open Addressable Ready) was established earlier this year to develop and deploy a new, open standard for delivering ads to individual households on smart TVs. Members include not only Comcast’s FreeWheel advanced ad unit, but also Disney Media Networks, WarnerMedia, AT&T’s Xandr, CBS, Fox, Discovery, Hearst Television and AMC Networks, as well as Inscape, a division of Vizio that is developing the technology.
