As it’s CES week, there were no shortage of announcements from the leading players in electronics and ad tech. Alongside the news from Vegas, WPP’s GroupM made two interesting announcements which suggest that Xaxis mightn’t be the only trading desk in operation over at WPP. To stay up to date and have the latest industry news and insights delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for the weekly VAN newsletter.
CES Round-Up
Innovid and Cisco Announce Second Screen Partnership to Target Keywords Spoken on Screen
Innovid, an ad platform for interactive advertising, will partner with Cisco to enable broadcasters, service providers and other third-party app providers to deliver interactive second screen advertising based on relevant keywords spoken in television shows. The solution brings relevant and contextual advertising to consumers in real-time. For example, when a talk show host says the word “tablet,” within a few seconds, an interactive ad for today’s top tablet appears on the viewer’s nearby second screen.
Yahoo Kills Off Genome and Right Media Brands, Introduces ‘Yahoo Ad Exchange’ Yahoo made a number of announcements at CES this year around the (long-awaited) revamp of their ad offering, which will include:
- Tumblr Sponsored Posts now powered by Yahoo Advertising
- Yahoo Audience Ads — a better way to buy ads targeted to specific audiences
- Yahoo Ad Manager and Ad Manager Plus — a new buying platform that gives advertisers direct, hands-on access to Yahoo’s advertising products
- Yahoo Ad Exchange — a new global ad marketplace that provides premium publishers with more visibility and control over advertising on their sites.
YuMe and Gracenote for Second Screen Partership Using ACR
YuMe, a video ad technology company, and Gracenote, a specialist in music and video content recognition technology, are collaborating to synchronise TV and mobile advertising. The partnership will see YuMe use Gracenote’s ACR technology, which uses audio fingerprinting technology to let smartphones and tablets identify TV programmess and ads by “listening” to a few seconds of the dialogue and soundtrack. Gracenote ACR technology combines this gathered information with YuMe’s SDK to deliver relevant mobile video ads on YuMe publisher’s mobile sites and apps.
LG Launches New webOS Operating System
LG launches its new webOS TV operating sytstm, which the Korean tech giant acquired from Hewlett-Packard in March last year. LG’s focus was on making the TV experience intutitive and simple, while also making it developer friendly.
Samsung Launches Bendable 4k TVs and…I’m Sorry, I’m Sorry
Samsung’s CES presentation bombed, with Hollywood director Michael Bay walking off stage when the teleprompter wouldn’t work.
Once Samsung composed themselves, the focus was on bendable TVs (LG was also pushing bendable televisions) which they say provide a more immersive experience.Sony to Launch TV Service
Sony is to begin testing a new television service that combines traditional viewing with on-demand content through its PlayStation gaming system. The Japanese electronics giant say the a cloud-based service could possibly change long-established cable and media industry relationships, describing the as-yet unnamed service as a blend of live cable, on-demand and DVR content.
ActiveVideo and BrightLine Partner to Bring Connected TV Ad Experiences to STBs and Connected Devices
ActiveVideo and BrightLine announced a strategic partnership that is designed to accelerate the availability of Web-style interactive TV advertising on cable, satellite, IPTV set-top boxes and connected devices. The two companies have worked together to create a HTML5-based solution which will run across any device — cable, telco, connected or otherwise. This integrated offer combines http://www.groupm.com/pressandnews/details/951 CloudT AdCast, an interactive ad distribution software platform for pay-TV providers, with BrightLine’s next-gen connected TV ad products for advertisers and agencies.
In Other News
GroupM Acquires German Ad Network and Launches New Addressable TV Agency
WPP’s GroupM has acquired Plista, a German ad network which brings ‘advertisers and publishers together via its data-driven proprietary content and advertising platform’. The move is an unusual one and would be the type of acquisition most industry observers would have expected Xaxis, WPP’s trading desk to make. In another act of trading desk-like behaviour, GroupM announced the launch of ‘Modi Media’, a new TV business unit that will offer clients ‘superior targeting and engagement capabilities in what has become a technology driven, data fused, addressable media environment’. The unit will be led by Michael Bologna, GroupM’s Director of Emerging Communications.
Read Plista Announcment Read Modi Media Announcement
Adap.tv Beefs Up Audience Path Platform
Adap.tv have added new features to its Audience Path Platform for advertisers, including expanded support of Nielsen’s and comScore’s measurement solutions. The upgrade will include an expanded roll-out of the Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) and comScore validated Campaign Essentials (vCE) apps in its App Centre. Users comScore’s vCE will now also be able to use the viewability features as well as those used for measurement.
