Matching data sets for video advertising audience targeting is nothing new to comScore, particularly with Rentrak under its wing. Now with “100 percent market share” of all U.S. video-on-demand transactions, the company is encouraged by what partnerships like the nascent OpenAP consortium represent.
Earlier this year, after Fox, Turner and Viacom announced the formation of OpenAP, details emerged about how comScore’s advanced audiences would be one of the first data sources integrated into the new system. And while OpenAP is just up and running, comScore’s Cathy Hetzel believes it’s a tipping point.
That’s because definitions of audience targets—say, automobile intenders—tend to vary. “What you find is that targets are defined differently” Hetzel, who is EVP of Commercial at comScore, says in this interview with Beet.TV.
One of the best things about OpenAP, according to Hetzel, is that the networks involved are using common definitions of audience targets as supplied by comScore. It can then “measure the effectiveness of that target on the back end and it’s exactly the same target. The advertiser is not having a slightly different definition of a specific target that they’re in the market to find.”
With everyone within OpenAP doing business off of a unified target, its “a true tipping where we have the opportunity as a measurement company to really see the power of big data sets working together,” Hetzel says.
She would like to see the concept expand to other media sellers, regardless of whether it’s under the auspices of OpenAP. Given the possibility of competing audience-targeting consortiums, “we’re happy to oblige, obviously.”
It’s also a good sign that the industry is thinking about ways in which it can reach scale because “We’ve always been about scale.”
OpenAP isn’t the only partnership in the advanced TV landscape, along with acquisitions and mergers and the vertical integration of networks and operators. Meanwhile, some newer startups are maturing and converging with one another.
“I think that’s good for the industry. There’s been a lot of noise the last several years and I think some of that noise is starting to settle down,” says Hetzel.
This video is part of a series of Beet.TV’s coverage of the Advanced Advertising conference held during NYC TV Week. Beet.TV’s coverage is presented by 4C Insights. Please find additional videos on this page.
