German media group ProSiebenSat.1 is acquiring Kairion, a provider of e-commerce media solutions, from German agency Cocomore AG, the company announced today. The purchase is the latest addition to an already sizeable ad tech stack which the broadcaster has been building up over the past few year, designed to diversify revenue streams while also strengthening ProSieben’s ad offering for brands and agencies.
Kairion aggregates data and inventory from online retail partners (of which it currently has over 80), and says it uses this data to allow advertisers to tailor and target their messages to shopper’s specific interests. This enables brands interested in targeting potential customers who are in the process of making a purchase plan campaigns across Kairion partnered retailers, via one buying point. The company specialises in healthcare products in particular, with over half of its partnered retailers coming from the healthcare sector.
Kairion will be added to Advertising Platform Solutions, ProSieben’s home for its ad tech acquisitions overseen by Jana Eisenstein and Jens Mittnacht. ProSieben has been stocking Advertising Platform Solutions with companies it believe will add value to its own advertising business, and Kairion fits this mold.
The company believes Kairion will bolster its addressable TV advertising offering in particular. “Kairion is integrated within many mid to long-tail e-commerce shops, which enables it to gather and utilize precise purchase intent data for their targeting. This capability and the data could be transferred to addressable TV in the mid-term, e.g. for retargeting on TV,” Jens Mittnacht, managing director of Advertising Platform Solutions told VAN.
This acquisition follow the purchase of a majority stake in social media-focussed ad tech company esome less than a month ago. Alongside these two, ProSieben’s ad tech stack now includes AdClear, The Adex, Active Agent and Yieldlab. ProSiebenSat.1 also owns video ad network SMARTSTREAM.TV and syndicated video marketplace glomex.
ProSieben believes that Kairion will slot in well alongside this existing portfolio. “We will definitely foster cooperation and synergies within our portfolio by ‘connecting the dots’ of our other ad tech acquisitions with the target to create a fruitful ecosystem of platforms and technologies – for advertisers and publishers. For example, Kairion could work with AdClear (part of Virtual Minds) for enhanced measurement and attribution of Kairion’s retail media,” explained Mittnacht.
The ad tech offensive, a strategy also being undertaken by rival German broadcaster RTL Group, is designed in part to help ProSieben stay competitive in the face of competition for tech companies. The company is proving to be one of the more proactive broadcasters in respond to the duopoly threat: it has also been a prominent participant in broadcaster alliances, most notably as a founding member of the European Broadcaster Exchange (EBX).
“We are thinking of our activities as building a blueprint of an advertising platform for improved European broadcaster competitiveness versus global digital giants,” said Mittnacht. “There’s a clear appetite in the market for an independent, broadcaster-focused ad tech platform. We don’t believe that everyone needs to build or acquire an own ad tech platform on their own. We are rather inviting like-minded players from the industry to join us in building an internationally leading advertising platform, allowing partners to create incremental revenues, secure independence, and remain competitive.”
