ITV, Sky and Channel 4 have announced a unification of the TV advertising marketplace.
Aiming to attract new brands to the medium, the three companies, working in collaboration with Comcast Advertising, will provide small to medium businesses with the ability to access premium video content through a single campaign.
Powered by Comcast’s Universal Ads platform and FreeWheel’s technology, the initiative beings together addressable inventory from all three content providers in what the companies say is a first for the industry. Simplifying access across the three portfolios with biddable pricing, the move aims to empower businesses that are used to buying advertising in social and digital environments.
The marketplace is expected to open next year, with the broadcasters also in discussions to further simplify the process of addressable inventory purchase for media agencies, including a joint agency-facing solution based on ITV’s Planet V Technology.
Key features include:
- One campaign, multiple broadcasters: advertisers can buy, measure, and report a single campaign across all the sales houses.
- TV unlocked: an interface specifically for SMEs and digital-native advertisers.
- Focus on Outcomes: tools and analytics to help brands measure and optimise their advertising performance.
Priya Dogra, chief advertising, group data and new revenue officer, Sky, said, “In today’s fast-evolving media landscape, we strongly believe success will require collaboration, simplification, and innovation. In partnership with ITV and Channel 4, and following the successful US launch of Comcast’s Universal Ads platform, we are excited to bring this to the UK and with it, the opportunity to open up TV advertising to new brands. Building on this innovation, we also want to simplify TV trading for established brands and agencies and look forward to exploring potential opportunities with ITV and Channel 4 to use Planet V.”
Kelly Williams, managing director, commercial, ITV, added, “As a TV industry, it is important that we collaborate to make television easy to plan, buy and measure for our established customers as well as the huge potential of new to TV brands. Both of these initiatives, this new marketplace for SME’s and Planet V for agencies, represent a very exciting future.”
