Four key agencies operational within first month as programmatic continues to take hold
LONDON – AOL Platforms, a division of AOL, and Multi Channel Network (MCN), Australia’s most progressive media advertising company, have launched a programmatic private marketplace for television. This marks a milestone for the global media industry and a bellwether for how advertisers can access television audiences through the use of data and automation.
“Whatever can be automated will inevitably be automated, especially TV. Data is the main driver of this shift in marketing, and AOL, in collaboration with MCN, has put together the blueprint model for how television will adopt programmatic globally and align digital with TV,” said Bob Lord, President of AOL. “The initiative combines the media, automation and data at scale necessary to drive real value for marketers and a much greater efficiency and yield for TV programmers.”
“In effect, through our trading platform, advertisers now have the same rich view of a customer’s journey experienced when booking web-based video,” said Mitch Waters, Managing Director, AOL Platforms, ANZ. “It’s an exciting development.”
In October 2014, the two companies announced their intention to build and pilot a true programmatic platform for TV, MCN Programmatic TV.
Launched in May 2015, MCN Programmatic TV brings together AOL’s leading programmatic platform ONE by AOL: TV, rich consumer insights with first-party viewing data from 110,000 anonymous homes via MCN’s Multiview panel, and access to a full range of broadcast linear TV inventory across all dayparts.
Four agencies have used the platform since the launch four weeks ago, including Dentsu Aegis Network (Carat) and OMD.
“The legacy media model, predicated on the notion that scale equals value, is antiquated and no longer works. Value for our clients today is now measured in agility, powered by data and technology. We believe that the future of media planning and investment will move from reserved inventory to a more agile approach enabled by programmatic, and are committed to leading this transformation with innovative and collaborative partners like AOL,” said Doug Ray, Global President and US CEO, Carat.
MCN National Sales Director, Mark Frain, said: “The MCN and AOL Programmatic TV marketplace initiates a significant evolution in traditional TV trading, with early results indicating a clear course of what’s to come in future years. Through automation we are delivering advertisers an easier, more efficient and smarter way to buy television. Additionally, the targeting capabilities allows for greater data-driven advertising strategies, thus more effective and powerful campaigns.”
The platform will make it easier for planners to drive campaigns against a wide portfolio of broadcast linear channels, including FOX8, FOX SPORTS, The Lifestyle Channel, Sky News, Discovery, Cartoon Network UKTV, E!, NatGeo, MTV, plus many other leading STV brands.
The shift to programmatic TV is expected to be swift. AOL Platforms Australia and IAB Australia’s State of the Video Industry Report, published in October last year, showed that 27 percent of agencies were already using an automated data-driven process to inform their TV investment. The increase will grow further with the cross screen buying capability facilitated by the AOL Platforms-MCN initiative.
