OpenAP, the advanced advertising company bringing simplicity and scale to audience-based campaigns in television, today announced the launch of the OpenIDSM, a unique identifier that enables the resolution of both linear viewership and digital audiences into a common identity framework that will unlock cross-platform capabilities for advanced TV advertising. The news follows the recent launch of OpenAP’s SSP, which offers advertisers transparency and visibility of available premium video inventory at scale.

The OpenIDSM is a consistent person-level audience definition that is unified across linear and digital video environments and enables efficient matching with viewership currencies for distribution to multiple television publishers, evolving advanced TV from age and gender demographics to ID-based targeting. The ID is built on a robust graph of offline and online data and is able to connect directly with buy-side data partners and sell-side platforms.

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With this launch, advertisers will start every campaign by identifying an audience that will be resolved to a set of OpenIDs, which can be broad or narrow based on campaign objectives. Audiences are defined at the ID level then matched to viewership data and platform IDs for linear, digital and addressable activation to create a unified, cross-platform OpenID audience. OpenIDs are shared with TV publishers for use in linear and digital campaigns, with publishers using their internal tools to build targeted media plans.

The OpenID allows TV publishers to maintain control of data and protect data leakage through the central identity framework, reducing onboarding costs, while creating standards that will unlock cross-publisher measurement and attribution. For advertisers, the OpenID increases speed of audience activation, reduces the reporting lag for OpenID audiences, and enables cross-platform use cases to drive investment. Advertisers benefit from more effective campaigns and now have the ability to see who they are reaching across each environment.

David Levy, chief executive officer of OpenAP, said, “The creation of an interoperable identity framework leveraged by all premium TV networks will give advertisers the clearest path toward omni-channel planning, optimization and measurement. Television has always had a competitive advantage with its quality of content, and now there is tremendous opportunity for publishers to lead the path toward an omni-channel future. With the OpenID, we will lay the foundation to truly compete with the digital platforms from a data and measurement perspective, while providing advertisers the data and insights needed to deliver on cross-platform.”

OpenAP has partnered with all premium U.S. national TV publishers to enable the OpenID audience for use in cross-publisher, cross-platform campaigns. Participating publishers able to accept OpenIDs include AMC Networks, A+E Networks, Crown Media, Discovery, Disney, Fox Corporation, NBCUniversal, Univision, ViacomCBS, WarnerMedia and The Weather Channel. The broad adoption of the OpenID signals collaboration and investment by TV publishers to accelerate speed to market for advanced targeting and lays the foundation for cross-platform measurement. The acceptance of OpenIDs will facilitate cross-platform convergence when used to seamlessly onboard and activate data across publishers and platforms, powering cross-platform use cases requested by the buy-side with new capabilities planned for launch in Broadcast Year 2022.

“Discovery is thrilled to help define and adopt the OpenID framework to serve both the needs of our advertising partners and the best interests of the entire television ecosystem,” said Jim Keller, EVP Digital Ad Sales and Advanced Advertising, Discovery, Inc. “As omni-channel audience targeting accelerates, it is imperative that we support industry wide and scalable audience buying solutions.”

“There is a large and obvious spike in advertisers seeking advanced audiences in cross-screen, multi-platform viewing environments, and the creation of a common cross-platform ID provides a scalable way for TV publishers to provide a more holistic view of cross-screen reach. The OpenID framework creates a crucial foundation for cross-platform measurement and ultimately helps fuel a more vibrant and effective TV ecosystem,” said President & CEO of the VAB Sean Cunningham.

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GroupM, dentsu, Omnicom Media Group, Haworth Marketing + Media, and Horizon Media will be the first agencies to integrate with and activate all audiences for advanced cross-platform TV campaigns as OpenIDs. The partnership with OpenAP will enable each holding company to optimize campaigns across TV publishers on all platforms – including data-driven linear, digital FEP, OTT and CTV – offering its clients valuable insights on cross-platform reach and frequency to enable more efficient targeting and allocation of media spend.

“OpenID is a critical step in maintaining TV’s value proposition to advertisers in the growing audience-first landscape,” said Adam Gerber, Global Chief Investment Officer at GroupM’s Essence Global. “As premium ad supply continues to fragment and contract, our need for audience and business accountability require the industry to come together to simplify and scale new ways to transact based on a consistent, cross-platform understanding of viewers.”

Brad Stockton, VP, US National Video Innovation, dentsu’s Amplifi said: “The last year has accelerated the need for TV advertising to move from age/genders GRPs to people-based impressions. Being able to seamlessly target advanced audiences that are unified across linear and digital viewing environments, then see reach and frequency across a clear set of people-based IDs, is critical in our ability to move the market from standard demos to advanced audiences. Building on dentsu’s recent launch of DELTA (Data Enabled Linear TV Activation), we’re thrilled to partner with OpenAP and bring our clients a person-level approach to TV advertising through the use of OpenIDs.”