Having launched last September 29, the OpenAP television audience targeting consortium platform of Fox, Turner and Viacom has more than 700 users. Meanwhile, Turner is beta testing mapping audience segments across its digital footprint.
“We have a roadmap that takes us through essentially a 1.5 release and it’s going to go even beyond that,” Dan Aversano, SVP, Ad Innovation & Programmatic Solutions at Turner, says of OpenAP in this interview with Beet.TV. “We have some very big, progressive and we think exciting ideas that we look forward to telling the marketplace about as we move through 2018.”
OpenAP, whose founding partners are Turner, Fox and Viacom, was designed to bring consistency to audience targeting in terms of how segments are defined and the data being used. Right now, Nielsen and comScore data are the options.
“But in the future, we firmly see that expanding based on marketplace demand,” says Aversano.
OpenAP users can on-board first-party data, “Which is actually I would say the biggest trend we’re seeing. The most sophisticated advertisers and agencies are moving that way.”
One challenge in particular that OpenAP users face—the process of matching first-party data in the platform—is something that will improve with time, according to Aversano.
“We want to make that process easier, faster, more cost efficient. Right now matching first party data can take a little bit of time. It can also cost a little bit of money,” he says.
OpenAP is strictly for planning purposes, not for buying inventory. “That’s today. Who knows what tomorrow holds.”
Once OpenAP users create audience segments they wish to target, they can use the platform to share those segments with Fox, Turner or Viacom. Buying negotiations take place in the traditional fashion. Information about campaign impression delivery then shows up in the OpenAP platform.
Turner is working with beta products “a little bit outside OpenAP” to map audience segments across digital delivery venues, “an FEP, potentially OTT and potentially even VOD when and where we’re addressable,” says Aversano.
Noting that TV audience fragmentation is being driven by media sellers, he believes the onus is on them “to build an advertising ecosystem and advertising products that enable us to consistently re-aggregate that audience and use data to drive value.”
This video is part of a series The New Marketplace for Television Advertising, presented by dataxu. Please find more videos from the series here.
