Dive Brief:
- Comcast is beta testing a way to make its traditional linear TV advertising inventory available through a programmatic marketplace, per a company announcement.
- In what Comcast is calling a first for linear TV, media buyers will be able to bid and target both digital and linear inventory through the Programmatic Private Marketplace (PMP) using Comcast’s FreeWheel ad technology platform.
- A current beta phase with Dentsu is underway using Comcast’s inventory. After that phase, Comcast will enable other FreeWheel publisher clients to make their inventory available as well.
Dive Insight:
By offering advertisers its linear TV offerings through a programmatic channel, Comcast is looking to simplify media by enabling buyers to reach their audiences through a single, unified workflow. The news points to the growing complexity of the media landscape as connected TV and other digital channels gain viewers but often require standalone media buys, limiting advertisers’ reach and ability to optimize. Comcast’s new solution is an attempt to address this complexity.
“Buyers no longer need to patch together media plans,” said James Rooke, Comcast’s president of advertising, in a statement, of the cross-channel solution.
The solution also attempts to address a common complaint of advertisers that CTV buys don’t have a large enough reach. Complementing those buys with linear TV could provide incremental reach.
While other providers have made linear TV inventory available programmatically, those systems executed mostly on a spot basis, rather than through a traditional PMP. As Rooke explained to Ad Exchanger, those systems operated “more like a futures market,” and did not have programmatic’s real-time bidding capabilities.
In addition, Comcast’s offering will be more targetable for buyers, giving them the ability to bid based off of the segments they are buying for digital. Buyers will also be able to set their preferences on how they want to access inventory and audiences, including through managed IO, PMP or PG deals, and they will be able to purchase linear and digital TV inventory together.
As proof of concept, Dentsu, working with Rabbits Black, recently used a PMP to purchase both connected TV and linear TV from Comcast’s inventory to promote Briarcliff Entertainment’s animated movie “Stitch Head,” which is opening in theaters on Oct. 29.
The campaign “delivered true incremental reach,” and “demonstrat[ed] the power of unified audience-based buying across linear and digital channels,” according to Kevin Weigand, Dentsu’s vice president, partnerships, video and audio lead, in a statement.
