Experian has taken a minority investment in Invidi Technologies, a provider of addressable-advertising solutions for TV, and formed a strategic relationship to jointly work on projects.
The amount of the funding was not disclosed. News of Experian's investment comes less than a month after Invidi announced Google as the lead investor in a $23 million round. Other investors include Motorola; GroupM, a unit of holding company WPP; and venture-capital firms Menlo Ventures, InterWest Partners, EnerTech Capital, Westbury Equity Partners and BDC Capital.
Under their agreement, Invidi and Experian Marketing Services will work on "projects of mutual interest" that will combine data, analytics and technology to provide advanced targeting and post-campaign marketing analysis. The companies said their jointly developed system will provide advertisers, television networks and pay-TV distributors tools to analyze the effectiveness of TV advertising.
Advertisers "for the first time will be able to close the loop and truly measure the effectiveness of television advertising, while also leveraging Experian's depth and breadth of data sources for consumer segmentation and advanced targeting," Invidi CEO David Downey said in a statement.
With the funding and partnership, Kosta Skoulikaris, Experian senior director of digital advertising services, will serve as an "observer" to Invidi's board.
Invidi's system allows ads to be targeted nationally, regionally, by DMA, zone, household or individual viewer, based on specific demographics. The company has agreements with DirecTV and Dish Network, while Verizon Communications is using Invidi to deliver different ads in different zones in certain markets.
Comcast Spotlight tested the Invidi technology with Starcom MediaVest in the operator's Baltimore system, serving targeted ads to 60,000 subscribers during a six-month trial that concluded last year. According to the companies, the trial showed addressable ads to be 65% more efficient and 32% more effective than non-addressable spots.
