OpenAP said advertisers can now buy commercials programmatically on linear TV and digital video using OpenID audiences.
GroupM is the first agency to take advantage of OpenID’s programmatic capabilities.
The OpenID audiences have been integrated into three supply-side platforms —FreeWheel, Magnite and Xandr Monetize — giving buyers access to premium inventory from multiple programmers.
“The growth of cross-screen viewing will only continue to accelerate, and agency buying teams need to be able to view the performance of a campaign in totality – regardless of how they bought or where the video was consumed,” OpenAP chief business officer Chris LoRusso said. “Our sell-side partners have invested heavily in automating buying channels, and by extending the reach of OpenID to programmatic, we’re breaking down the silos that exist between linear and digital and buying teams and are making it easy and simple for an advertiser to maximize their spend across the entire premium video footprint.”
OpenAP was founded in 2017 by Fox, Turner and Viacom to create a standardized way for media buyers to define target audiences one time and use that definition to buy ads from multiple programmers. OpenAP shifted from being a consortium to an advanced advertising company and is now owned by Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery.
“It is imperative that we, as an industry, use the technology at our disposal today to simplify and optimize all aspects of video advertising for the betterment of advertisers and the overall consumer-ad experience,” said Esra Bacher, managing partner of programmatic investment at GroupM. “The interoperability of the OpenID spine with SSPs like Magnite will add further fuel to GroupM’s Premium Marketplace and help us start to resolve some of the fragmentation that has existed across the media ecosystem.”
OpenAP last year established OpenID, an identity framework accepted by the majority of media buyers and sellers, and XPm, which gives advertisers cross-platform campaign metrics from a menu of measurement companies.
“We’re committed to solving for fragmentation across the premium video ecosystem and partnering with those who can help further interoperability across television,” FreeWheel VP, supply strategic relationships Misha Williams said. “By continuing to work with Open AP and enabling programmatic delivery of OpenID through FreeWheel, we’re making it easier for advertisers to unify their audience delivery across all premium video. For advertisers and publishers that choose to transact via OpenID, this simplifies the ability to target and measure the effectiveness of their campaigns.”
“OpenID represents a major breakthrough for industry-wide efforts to unify linear-digital audience activation and measurement,“ Matt McLeggon, senior VP, advanced solutions at Magnite said. “As viewers shift to CTV and OTT, buyers have increasingly turned their attention to programmatic as a way to reach digital audiences with greater efficiency. Magnite’s ubiquitous reach in CTV will amplify advertisers’ ability to combine the operational efficiency of programmatic with the power of cross-platform reach and measurement.”
Xandr head of enterprise sales and partnerships Tom Koch added: “As the industry continues to grow investment in CTV, it has become paramount that buyers can identify and reach viewers wherever they are engaging with content while approaching video with a truly screen-agnostic lens. We’re excited to expand our partnership with OpenAP to enable the OpenID for programmatic, unlocking new opportunities for buyers to extend the reach of their linear audiences in digital channels with our premium CTV partners who trust Xandr’s Monetize SSP to help maximize their yield.” ■
