LAS VEGAS — It’s not Google TV’s second coming, but the tech giant’s new integration with WideOrbit will make it easier for marketers to buy inventory from more than 600 local television stations. The deal means Google joins 14 other demand-side platforms to essentially “connect $7 billion of programmatic digital video spend back into linear TV,” says WideOrbit’s EVP of Programmatic, Ian Ferreira.
Advertisers that use DoubleClick Bid Manager can now bid on both online and local linear TV inventory, the latter representing the top 50 DMA’s reaching some 106 million households, Ferreira explains in this interview with Beet.TV at the 2017 NAB Show.
Local TV stations use WideOrbit to book and invoice offers, make ad decisioning and manage creative, among other activity. “Since we’re the DFP, we do not require the stations to give us any inventory. We’re just a software layer,” says Ferreira.
So if a DoubleClick user has an interest in local TV spots they can submit an offer to a station and “your offer shows up in the same software that they would seen an offer from the Ford dealership that just called them,” he adds.
“Historically, TV and digital advertising have been bought and measured through different systems and currencies,” Google says in announcing the integration. “By adding traditional TV buying into DoubleClick Bid Manager, we are taking the first step towards allowing advertisers and agencies to manage their video campaigns across digital and linear TV, in a more efficient and effective way.”
While local TV has been attractive to marketers for many reasons, it’s had its currency drawbacks, according to Ferreira, and was complex to buy on a national basis.
“It was ripe for somebody to just come in and stitch it together and make it as easy to buy as buying a video on YouTube,” he says.
Ferreira is amused by the turn of events in a path that has seen a lot of ad tech innovation fueled by the expected “demise” of TV. “So it’s kind of ironic after 10 years of demise we have these companies now integrated with TV instead of waiting to replace it,” he says.
This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the 2017 NAB Show in Las Vegas. The series is sponsored by Ooyala. For more coverage of NAB, please visit this page.
