OpenSlate launched eight years ago to measure content as people began watching more than just linear TV. The goal was to translate nature and quality to advertisers and marketers in an unfamiliar content landscape – specifically on YouTube and Facebook, where brand safety has been an issue.
At the end of last year, Nielsen took a minority investment in OpenSlate to combine its audience measurement and scoring expertise with OpenSlate’s similar approach to measuring quality of content.
“What Nielsen is to audience, we aspire to be to content,” says JoAnna Foyle, chief operating officer at OpenSlate, in an interview with Beet.TV. “To a marketer, those things get really interesting.”
Combined, Foyle says, Nielsen and OpenSlate can work with marketers and advertisers to inform them on contribution strategies for audiences as it relates to outcomes.
The combination of that insight, according to Foyle, is the strength of OpenSlate and its tie up with Nielsen. “Nielsen can tell how an audience impacted performance, and we can talk about impact of content,” she says. “We had one client call it ‘utopia.’ We’re not at utopia yet but we’ve got some nearer term opportunities.”
On the roadmap, OpenSlate’s expansion opportunities include extending its content rating abilities to additional social platforms beyond YouTube and Facebook. Publishers are also coming to OpenSlate, looking for it to rate its content in order to be able to provide consistent metrics to advertisers and brands who use OpenSlate to track content performance elsewhere.
“The industry is preparing for a world less dependent on audience and cookies,” says Foyle. “OpenSlate plays a critical and unique role given that our entire business is about content analytics and using content as a way to figure out how to reach audiences and how to place brands in the right environments.”
