Viacom said it has reached a multi-year cross platform deal with comScore that will allow the programmer access to the company’s television, over the top and digital measurement tools.
The deal is the first major agreement for comScore since it closed its $779 million merger with Rentrak.
According to the parties, Viacom will translate comScore’s data through its proprietary suite of Vantage advertising products and make it available for use as a currency.
“This partnership with comScore marks a fundamental watershed moment in the business of television,” said Bryson Gordon, SVP Data Strategy, Viacom in a statement. “This revolution in targeting, currency and measurement is the equivalent of shifting from black and white to color. Viacom’s longstanding investment in data and innovation and our unique ability to merge creativity and science has positioned us far ahead in the marketplace by delivering what partners crave – the most comprehensive view of the consumer and the most effective way to reach them.”
The data for comScore’s cross-platform tools gather information from a population covering more than 40 million televisions and 120 million video-on-demand users in 210 markets across the US, in addition to more than 1.5 trillion monthly digital interactions.
"We are excited to partner with Viacom on a deal that we believe will transform the way that advertising will be bought and sold,” said com SCore CEO Serge Matta in a statement. “Viacom’s expertise in data strategy makes them an ideal first partner to leverage our cross-platform metrics and advanced demographics as a more powerful currency on which to transact. With these new capabilities, Viacom’s advertising partners will be the first to benefit from a radically more efficient way of conducting business and reaching the most precise audiences imaginable.”
Viacom Vantage has introduced five new products for this Upfront season, including:
Vantage Target Discovery – which uses data-mining techniques to help marketers identify “persuadables,” the consumers who are not currently using a particular brand but have the propensity to be receptive to the advertiser’s messaging;
Vantage Instant Audience – which makes Vantage accessible to a broader array of clients by simplifying the data-driven targeting process;
Viewprint - a data-driven creative map that innovates how custom marketing campaigns are developed by enhancing the level of visibility into consumer segments during ideation to inform and focus creative aspects;
Echo Social Graph 2.0 – which measures the effectiveness and virality of custom creative marketing campaigns;
Velocity Content Network (VCN) - a virtual network of custom creative branded content programs informed by data and distributed across social platforms.
