Invidi Technologies said it is launching Conexus, a platform designed to allow programmers to easily execute national addressable campaigns across multiple distributors.
With more networks looking to make their national inventory addressable, Conexus is designed to simplify and standardize interacting with distributors who all have different advertising technology stacks.
Conexus will be able to put addressable ads into 20 million homes served by Invidi’s customers, including DirecTV, Dish Network and Verizon Fios, Invidi co-CEO and global CTO Bruce Anderson told Broadcasting+Cable.
Invidi technology is also used for addressable advertising by programmers including AMC Networks and WarnerMedia.
“Conexus will unify the Invidi footprint so that programmers can access Invidi’s addressable capabilities through a single set of interfaces and reach all our distribution partners,” Anderson said.
"Conexus also provides the flexibility to use additional value-enhancing tools, and preserves the choice to use existing tool chains, he said. “Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Conexus is a bridge to other addressable distribution systems, allowing for a national addressable ecosystem to become a reality.”
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Invidi hasn’t actually run a campaign through Conexus. “Not yet. In the very near future. There’s definitely networks cued up to take advantage of Conexus,” Anderson said.
Anderson said Invidi has been working for a long time to unify the marketplace and make it simpler for advertisers to access addressable inventory and for networks and programmers to activate their inventory in an addressable fashion. Conexus is designed to make that happen.
“You've got all these different distribution technologies and all these different connection points and and we saw an opportunity to simplify how the market can interconnect all these different distribution points,” he said. “We built Conexus in order to make it much easier for the marketplace.”
In addition to its current footprint of mostly satellite homes, Anderson said Invidi is in talks to be able to also connect cable homes via Comcast’s technology company FreeWheel and Canoe Ventures, which is owned by Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Communications.
“We’re actually in discussion with the Canoe folks and FreeWheel about how to tie the whole place together so that you don’t have these independent silos. Conexus will be a piece of that,” he said.
“Canoe continues to talk with non-Canoe distributors and their technology partners on how we enable ease and scale on addressable TV for our shared Programmers and their advertisers,” said Chris Pizzurro, senior VP, sales and marketing at Canoe.
AMC Networks in February said it was enabling addressable advertising in every hour of the original programming on its AMC Network and We tv. It launched a national addressable ad campaign for Amazon that reaches 35 million cable households using technology from Canoe.
Even more homes may be reachable soon. “AMC will be activated through the Invidi footprint via Conexus in the very near term,” Anderson said.
Invidi is also looking to work with smart TV makers offering addressable advertising. Anderson noted that Invidi was part of Project OAR, the Vizio-led group setting standards for addressable advertising. “In fact we’re the ad tech behind WarnerMedia on the Vizio platform,” he said.
Invidi said Conexus features order management, campaign information on inventory, audience, scheduling, creative assets and impressions, cross-distributor monitoring for performance and attribution and support for traditional spot-based ad placement.
“This is a situation where providing this technology is going to be good for the industry and good for the consumer because their ad load will be more tuned to their own desires and needs, and it should generate additional revenue for the inventory holders, so it should win all around,” Anderson said. ■
