Data-centric advertising firm Collective recently raised $50 million in equity and debt funding as part of its efforts to grow its cross-screen tools. The company is focused on using set-top box data to help blend TV and digital planning, says Travis Lusk, VP of Inventory at Collective, in an interview with Beet.TV.
“We can find out what users are watching in a privacy-friendly way, and then figure out what they’re watching on other devices,” he explains. Advertisers then use that insight to better target users digitally and on TV. Collective’s tools can shed light on which channels viewers are and aren’t watching to help reach consumers that aren’t reached on TV and vice versa. “We want to be the toolset for any brand advertiser that wants to benefit from what direct response has done,” he says. “We want to send digital dollars back into addressable TV, connected TV.”
Earlier this summer, Collective inked a deal with Zenith Optimedia to use this data to plan TV buys based on users’s online behavior. Collective also launched a branding campaign this summer to promote its services. For more insight into how Collective plans cross-screen buys, check out this video interview.
