Launch Of The New OpenAP Market Brings Simplicity And Scale To Audience-Based Campaigns In TV Advertising

Building on its existing standards-based audience definitions, the OpenAP Market now helps advertisers power audience-based campaigns across linear TV and long-form digital video

OpenAP, the advanced advertising company owned by Fox Corporation, NBCUniversal and Viacom, today announced it has launched the OpenAP Market, an open marketplace that now offers premium video advertising inventory and unified audience-based buying across the largest collection of digital and linear television programming. The release expands OpenAP to include digital, introducing a massive addressable footprint with cross-publisher optimization against audience segments.

OpenAP’s 2.0 release builds on its existing audience definition standard and enables marketers to seamlessly define an audience and create cross-platform, cross-publisher campaigns. OpenAP offers the largest consolidation of premium TV programming delivered as both linear and digital, reaching more than 90% of all U.S. television audiences through its combined member footprint of 20 cable networks, 3 broadcast networks and a vast array of digital video. Members of OpenAP include FOX, NBCUniversal, Viacom and Univision. The marketplace launched in a closed beta program in September and is now available to all advertisers as of the October 1 official release.

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David Levy, chief executive officer of OpenAP, commented: “Two years ago, OpenAP was founded on the thesis that the only way for advanced advertising to truly scale was for TV networks to come together and collaborate to create new standards that would push our industry forward. Because of the partnership and investment made by Fox, NBCUniversal and Viacom, this launch marks a significant milestone that we believe will fundamentally change the way TV advertising is bought and sold. The OpenAP Market helps solve a critical need for advertisers, and I’m incredibly proud that we have delivered on our promise of bringing new buying power in time for fall campaigns.”

The OpenAP Market was created to serve the needs of advertisers through an open philosophy and data agnostic approach, making it easy and simple for brands to realize the scale of advanced advertising on TV. By connecting directly to agency planning systems and approved demand-side platforms (DSPs) via standard APIs, the marketplace reduces friction in accessing advertising inventory and increases speed to market for advanced audience-based buys.

The new capabilities available in the OpenAP Market offer the following benefits to advertisers:

• Create Audience: Buyers can create, upload and augment an audience, as well as collaborate with OpenAP to build or extend an audience using custom or licensed data;
• Define Goals: Advertisers can define a single cross-publisher, cross-platform campaign and review one forecast of goals based on media plans from each network;
• Increase Reach: Advertisers can access unified, cross network forecast insights to drive more effective allocation of budget for message delivery.

Buyers will then receive a consolidated, optimized linear media plan, as well as unified optimized media plans for digital. OpenAP will provide insight into both pre- and post-campaign analytics to enable strategic allocation of budget.

In a joint statement, Meredith Brace, EVP of Client Solutions and Portfolio Marketing at FOX; Krishan Bhatia, EVP of Business Operations and Strategy at NBCUniversal; and John Halley, EVP and Chief Operating Officer, Ad Solutions at Viacom, said: “We share an ambition to transform the future of television advertising by making it easier for advertisers to buy precise audiences across both digital and linear inventory. Together we believe that by making audience-based buying consistent, frictionless and guaranteed, we will ultimately enhance the viewing experience, making ads more relevant and engaging for consumers. Now with the official launch of the OpenAP Market, we are thrilled that buying advanced advertising across our collective environments in a unified, singular campaign is a reality for advertisers.”

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Commenting on the impact to advertisers, AJ Kintner, VP of Media & Publisher Solutions at Merkle, said: “The new OpenAP Market enhances the ability for Merkle to help brands execute person-based marketing campaigns for both linear and digital. We believe that with these expanded capabilities it will help clients easily and efficiently create guaranteed TV plans against their audiences.”

The announcement follows organizational advancements in 2019 designed to accelerate the vision originally set forth for the organization in 2017, including the unveil of the next iteration in April; the appointment of David Levy as CEO in May; and most recently the hire of key executive leaders Chief Product Officer Ed Davis and SVP, Head of Marketing & Communications Brittany Slattery.

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