DG supports Media and Advertising industry initiative to accelerate video asset identification and trackability standards
New York, NY – DG (NASDAQ: DGIT), the world’s leading multiscreen ad management company, announced today that it plans to adopt both Ad-ID and EIDR open-standard video asset identification registries within its core operations, and for the benefit of its clients. DG’s announcement follows its participation in the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement’s (CIMM) Trackable Asset Cross-Platform Identification (TAXI) initiative, which encourages media and entertainment ecosystem companies to become “TAXI Compliant” by automating asset ID registration and ID flow-through from post-production through asset distribution, consumption and measurement.
Participation in TAXI included unprecedented involvement of 28 media and entertainment entities from media agencies, advertisers, measurement companies, media outlets, and other vendors.
SAG-AFTRA and the ANA-4A’s Joint Policy Committee have also mandated the universal adoption of Ad-ID saying that all commercials produced for TV, radio and digital platforms must now use Ad-ID as the sole commercial identifier.
Because DG handles the vast majority of video advertising production, transcoding and distribution for US advertisers and agencies, DG’s plan to implement Ad-ID (the industry standard for identifying advertising assets across all media platforms) and EIDR (a global registry for unique identification of movie and TV content) registration and tagging procedures will be a media and advertising industry catalyst for realizing the benefits of automated media asset workflow and increased speed, transparency and accountability in cross-platform media campaign management and measurement. DG recognizes the importance of technology and its impact on the media and entertainment business and will continue to foster development of industry standards that provide benefits to advertisers, agencies and media companies.
“One of the challenges we face is the incompatibility and inconsistency of data as it passes through different systems, hardware, software and networks, which are managed by different multichannel operators before reaching data processors,” said Harold Geller, Chief Growth Officer of Ad-ID. “Decisions made at each step impact data quality and comparability across data sets. Universal adoption of Ad-ID for all advertising assets will eliminate the guesswork in merging and comparing data from internal and a variety of external measurement sources. We need to set hardware, software and network standards so data are comparable, and able to pass the MRC audit and meet the needs of end users.”
“DG’s commitment to integrate AD-ID and EIDR helps to further standardize and streamline the media workflow supply chain,” said Bradley Epperson, Vice President of Commercial Operations at NBCUniversal. “By DG supporting standardization, media and entertainment companies will be able to provide faster and more accurate services back to our agencies and advertisers. A better, more reliable way of providing our customers an elegant level of service is what we are constantly trying to achieve. Thank you to DG for helping us take that step.”
Jane Clarke, Managing Director for CIMM, said, “The two-plus years of work that went into testing the feasibility of implementing Ad-ID and EIDR codes proved successful and as a result organizations within the media ecosystem are increasingly taking notice. As DG can attest to first hand, those that choose to adopt these codes will see a host of benefits from a streamlined supply chain and increased productivity to increased revenue and cost savings. We are pleased DG chose to collaborate with us and look forward to working together to spread the word on how the industry can harness the merits of TAXI.”
Media & Entertainment companies that participated in CIMM’s TAXI initiative universally agreed that advertisers, agencies and content companies need a simple, low-cost method for keeping track of content – both entertainment and advertising assets. Until TAXI, the industry had not come together around common asset identification methodology.
“Growing media fragmentation across many platforms makes interoperability across TV and digital media platforms essential. We are well positioned to reduce multi-channel, multi-platform media complexity and enable our clients to more easily track video content and advertising as it migrates across a growing array of devices — whether on TVs, online, tablets, smartphones and video-on-demand systems,” said George Musi, Head of Cross Media Analytics, DG. “We are very pleased to be part of driving TAXI’s vision forward. We have the potential to make a huge impact and provide numerous benefits across the industry because of our position in the supply-chain. We can begin demonstrating how being TAXI Compliant and tagging video assets with Ad-ID and EIDR can drive benefits, particularly around a measurement system that will facilitate apples-to-apples comparisons across platforms, with widespread adoption. It will increase efficiency, productivity and accuracy of media workflows and reduced operating costs.”
DG and other organizations that support the TAXI initiative are urging the entire media ecosystem to begin adoption according to the following implementation schedule:
- Before the end of 2013, begin registering all newly-created video assets with the EIDR and Ad-ID registries
- Also this year, detail functional requirements and budgets for implementing ID flow-through within media asset management, delivery and distribution infrastructures
- Operationalize ID flow-through from post-production through distribution, consumption, measurement and reporting in 2014
About DG
DG (NASDAQ: DGIT) is the leading global multiscreen advertising management and distribution platform, fueling campaign management across TV, online, mobile and beyond. Through a combination of technology and services, DG empowers brands and advertisers to work faster, smarter and more competitively. Boasting the world’s largest hybrid satellite and internet network for broadcast video delivery, the company’s unparalleled campaign management encompasses multiscreen ad delivery, cross-channel research and analytics, and unified asset management. The DG product portfolio consists of two overarching product lines for online and video campaign management: MediaMind and VideoFusion.
With New York as a center of operations, DG is a global company that connects over 14,000 advertisers and 7,400 agencies worldwide with their targeted audiences through an expansive network of over 50,000 media destinations across TV broadcast and digital advertising in 78 countries, managing approximately ten percent of the world’s media assets. For more information, visit http://www.dgit.com.
