AMC Networks on June 10 announced that it has partnered with three major distribution partners to enable addressable capabilities on its own linear and VOD television advertising. The three distributors – Charter’s Spectrum Reach, Comcast Advertising and Cox Media – are the founding members of the On Addressability initiative, launched last June to accelerate the industry’s ability to deliver a scalable and sustainable addressable platform to marketers that maximizes the impact and value of television.
“Addressable is the future of advertising and with On Addressability, we are finally bringing the future into the present,” said Kim Kelleher, president of Commercial Revenue and Partnerships, AMC Networks.
As part of the addressability pilot, AMC will allocate a portion of its commercials to addressable ads delivered to aggregated household audiences across the Charter, Comcast and Cox cable television footprints, consistent with each company’s commitment to privacy. This will increase the amount of addressable advertising inventory available to national advertisers and provide additional scale.
Added Kelleher, “At AMC Networks, we are focused on bringing performance-based marketing to our clients and innovative solutions to brands, however they are interested in buying television advertising. Fortunately, AMC Networks is in a unique position to push this frontier and, with our partners at Charter, Comcast and Cox, we are already getting started.”
On Addressability focuses on the “how to” of enabling addressability based on the learnings of its participants. This includes (1) defining common practices and standards, (2) enabling technical solutions and (3) working to solve larger challenges surrounding addressability, such as measurement.
“We launched the On Addressability initiative last year because as MVPDs, we are responsible for delivering ads into viewers’ households. Enabling addressable TV has to begin with the content distributors who lay the groundwork and set up the infrastructure,” said Marcien Jenckes, president, Comcast Advertising. “Programmers have the largest amount of inventory, however, and we need their participation to achieve scale. AMC Networks’ decision to partner with On Addressability is important for the industry and the start of what we believe is a growing trend.”
Charter, Comcast and Cox are working with Canoe Ventures as their technical implementation and service management arm for linear and video on demand addressability, providing programmers with one main entity to interact with to reach a larger, unified footprint of households across all three MVPDs.
“Even though MVPDs have inventory across all platforms – IP, VOD, online included – linear television is still where the majority of viewing takes place, so if we can bring better targeting and more scale to TV advertising, while maintaining security and brand safety, everyone wins,” said David Kline, EVP, Charter Communications and president, Spectrum Reach. “We’re looking at a really big opportunity, and with the cooperation and support of forward-thinking programmers like AMC, we’re well on our way.”
“Bringing addressable capabilities to television will allow us to serve our customers better, including agencies, brands and viewers. It’s no longer optional. After lots of thoughtful planning, we’re energized to move ahead to the next stage of the market introduction,” concluded Louis Gump, SVP and general manager at Cox Media. “These addressable trials signal an inflection point that will bring scale and accessibility to addressable campaigns for national advertisers. It’s an important new solution in our tool kit.”
For more information, visit www.comcastadvertising.com/onaddressability.