Andre Swanston

Once upon a time, it was the dumb box in the corner of the room. Now, thanks to digitization and internet connection, the humble TV is collecting vast quantities of audience data, usable for ad targeting. In this panel discussion, three executives at the coalface of the quest for TV ad data tell Beet.TV editorial […]

Not so long ago, many big media buyers just wanted a “premium” audience. By and large, that meant big, mainstay media houses that could deliver a scaled audience. But, in this video interview with Beet.TV editorial adviser Jon Watts, one man at the center of the ad data revolution says “premium” has been rebooted. Data […]

He had a successful exit when his start-up Tru Optik was sold to data giant Transunion last year.   But it was  tough sledding, building an advanced media data business five years ago.  Now a super-hot sector, Andre was ahead of his time. While he made early progress with product development and industry partnerships, funded from […]

TransUnion will continue its expansion from providing consumer financial profiles into powering advertising transactions with audience data, by fully acquiring Tru Optik. Tru Optik is a data marketplace and management platform that includes the behavior of more than 80 million homes on connected TV, streaming audio and gaming. Deal terms were not immediately disclosed. TransUnion […]

Early in the coronavirus pandemic, we knew that global lockdown and economic threat would soon be detrimental to ad spending. But it seems not every platform has suffered from the virus’ effects. In this video interview with Beet.TV, one ad-tech exec says streaming TV has actually seen positive COVID-19 growth. ‘Flight to safety’ “There was […]

Having been mostly silent over the past 10 years about his experiences with racial discrimination and police abuse, Andre Swanston, CEO and co-founder of over-the-top data marketplace Tru Optik, has shared many of these with his colleagues in a personal letter, and here, in this interview with Beet.TV Like many young black men, Swanston has […]

STAMFORD,  CT —  The dramatic uptick in OTT viewing during the pandemic, has acelerate the medium by some 18 months, observes Andre Swanston, CEO and Founder of Tru Optik in this interview with Beet.TV The company provides an identity resolution that powers the streaming media ecosystem. The company works closely with data giant Transunion in […]

SAN JUAN, PR — It turns out that many of the advanced software practices being applied to the advanced TV landscape in order to better target and understand advertising deployments can also be useful in a media world without pictures. In this video interview with Beet.TV, Tru Optik CEO and co-founder Andre Swanston says his […]

SANTA BARBARA — The emerging era of targeted over-the-top TV ads brings a consumer privacy challenge, says one vendor launching a new piece of technology to give consumers more control. In January 2018, Tru Optik, a technology vendor that offers a data management platform for over-the-top (OTT) TV advertisers, launched OptOut.TV, giving consumers a one-click […]

Amid growing concerns about tougher data privacy restrictions, give people the opportunity to opt out and they might just give you more information about themselves, according to Tru Optik’s Andre Swanston. “We knew very early on that privacy compliance was going to be something critical for the future of our entire business,” the CEO and […]

Just shy of its sixth anniversary, Tru Optik has reached “an inflection point for us” with a $10 million venture round whose participants include TransUnion, with which Tru Optik will partner on data and privacy, says CEO Andre Swanston. The funding round for the provider of over-the-top targeting, measurement and privacy management was led by […]

We have seen new TVs come with curved screens – but what if the next shape in TV was hockey-stick? That is the growth trajectory the industry is now seeing in the realm of advanced TV advertising, the practice of serving TV ads targeted to individual viewers. “I think that the conversation has really shifted […]

LAS VEGAS — Amid the growing consumer awareness – and, in some quarters, discontent – over digital ad tracking and targeting, one TV ad-tech firm may have just one-upped the rest in the race to provide control. This month, Tru Optik, a data management platform which facilitates ads for connected TV platforms, launched OptOut.TV, giving […]

MIAMI – Put several media industry professionals on a panel and ask them about the challenges of television and video audience measurement and you’re going to get lots of lively conversation. Along with some very blunt observations about just what’s holding back the progress of “advanced TV.” So it was at the recent Beet Retreat […]

MIAMI – Investor decks for martech ventures are typically rosy if not a bit over-the-top in their marketplace prognostications. Then there is the one that Tru Optik put together in 2014 as it tried to project the scale and growth for consumer uptake of OTT and connected-TV by 2018. “For every single one we actually […]

Under the partnership announced this week between AppNexus and Tru Optik, publishers will be able to pre-segment their connected-TV inventory and have private marketplace deal ID’s to control access to the inventory. “From a technological and logistical standpoint, it’s really a huge step forward for the entire industry,” says Andre Swanston, CEO and Co-Founder of […]

When it comes to the connected TV opportunity, many people are most excited about the opportunity to precision-target individual consumers using granular profile data. But that doesn’t mean demographics are done as a targeting mechanism. Tru Optik, a technology vendor that offers a data management platform for over-the-top (OTT) TV advertisers, is now partnering with […]

LAS VEGAS — On the spectrum of new-wave TV ad-targeting techniques, many executives are dreaming a degree of targeting precision that can customise ad delivery for individual TV viewers. That may be an intriguing possibility. Indeed, on many over-the-top devices, it may even be the norm. But, for a television industry whose infrastructure has been built up […]

LAS VEGAS — It may have started out by helping entertainment companies measure illegal P2P sharing, and may have helped those companies by advertising their shows back through P2P – but ad-tech vendor Tru Optik is moving forward as a data management platform for the next generation of connected TV. “We figured out how to measure […]

VIEQUES, PR — Age, gender and demographic just don’t cut it anymore. In the new age of advertising super-powers, marketers want to target consumers with more more granularity and certainty than traditional measurements allow. Fortunate, then, that a whole new raft of data sources is coming on-stream to help them do that. In a panel discussion convened […]