Fox Corp. said it is working with Comcast ad tech company FreeWheel to enable programmatic trading of addressable set-top-box VOD advertising inventory.
Advertisers will be able to target consumers with Comcast Xfinity X1 and Flex boxes, as well as Cox Contour users, at the household level.
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The Trade Desk is the first demand side platform making this inventory available to buyers, with more platforms expected to join.
“Advertisers continue to recognize that television remains the best platform for reaching a mass audience in a premium environment and to drive greater brand awareness,” said Dan Callahan, senior VP of data strategy and sales innovation for Fox. “As audience viewing patterns increase across more platforms, Fox continues to focus on expanding our addressable capabilities and offering advertising partners multiple solutions for their media plans. Our partnership with FreeWheel enables us to deliver targeted advertising to Comcast households who are watching Fox’s popular series on their VOD platform.”
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VOD viewing represents an increasing portion of most programmers’ total viewing hours. Advertisers can access that inventory and use data and animation to efficiently launch effective addressable campaigns.
“Advertisers continue to crave more inventory from TV networks and their supply side partners, which is why this combined solution from Fox and FreeWheel hits the mark,” said Jon Tabak, GM, strategic partnerships, The Trade Desk. “Historically, TV has been somewhat of a blind spot from a digital advertising perspective. By further expanding our platform’s reach in the TV ecosystem, our clients have a clearer picture of their advertising investment and total impact across screens and devices, especially the biggest screen in the room.”
FreeWheel has been working toward helping more of programmers’ inventory addressable, with guaranteed, fixed prices.
“At FreeWheel, we believe in the power of Premium Programmatic, which must extend across all platforms where premium content is being viewed. Fox and The Trade Desk have been tremendous partners in working on this important VOD development that brings data and automation to such an important, and still untapped, growth area for television advertising,” said Dave Clark, general manager, FreeWheel. “It truly illustrates that technology can help programmers and advertisers work together in a way that elevates the opportunities for both.”
