In A Madison Ave. First, Havas' Adnetik Begins Buying Video Ads Targeting Individuals

In a move that accelerates the development of an addressable video advertising marketplace, Havas' Adnetik unit this morning announced a deal with online video exchange Adap.tv that will enable marketers to target commercials based on the audiences they want to reach, as opposed to the programming they happen to be watching. The deal, which enables Adnetik to make buys targeting individual users on an impression-by-impression basis, is believed to be the first by a major agency holding company inserting ads into online video programming.

Other agency holding companies, especially Interpublic's Cadreon unit, have been racing to extend the shift toward audience-buying from online display ads into video, a move that many see as a precursor to transforming the television advertising marketplace as cable and satellite TV operators create an addressable advertiser infrastructure that will function like the online industry's advertising servers.

Adnetik, which was launched in 2008, and incubated by Havas Digital, was one of the first agency-held entities to begin exploiting the concept of individual audience targeting in the rapidly expanding online exchange marketplace. Based on its new deal with Adap.TV, Adnetik claims it can reach upward of 300 million online video users daily. Importantly, Adap.TV's exchange also allows advertisers and agencies to procure those impressions in a so-called "real-time bidding" marketplace based on supply and demand. Media companies worry that real-time bidding markets could commoditize the value of their advertising inventory, especially as the volume of supply rises, but exchanges claim it can work the other way too, driving value up for premium inventory that demand rises for.

Adnetik CEO Ed Montes did not address implications for the traditional television advertising marketplace, but he indicates that Adnetik was built to evolve beyond conventional online banner ads, and that online video - including pre-roll and interstitial ads - were always part of its plan.

He said the system was "built to scale across multiple channels," and that Adnetik is working on "similar opportunities in additional addressable formats in the future."

3 comments about "In A Madison Ave. First, Havas' Adnetik Begins Buying Video Ads Targeting Individuals".
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  1. Candice Seiger from Luminosity Marketing, October 28, 2010 at 9:43 a.m.

    Targeting down to the exact viewer will be very powerful in online video. With other studies showing that audiences have a higher tolerance for ads in online video than previously thought, this could be an exciting opportunity for advertisers.

    Candice Seiger
    www.LuminosityMarketing.com

  2. Ken Nicholas from VideoAmp, October 28, 2010 at 11:49 a.m.

    It will indeed be interesting to see now, how the 'Audience' vs. 'Environment' debate begins to play out, and whether there is in fact a difference between the Editorial [i.e. written word] vs. the Video worlds, in terms of either effectiveness or dilution one way or the other.

  3. Jason Burke from All Stage, October 28, 2010 at 12:49 p.m.

    Buying inventory from exchange is trivial. Making decisions on which impressions to purchase and how much to pay is the challenge. For exchange buying to be valuable, the buying must be done w/ a technology partner that can help make effective bid decisions.

    Anyone can buy stock from NASDAQ. Takes more to know what to buy and how much to pay.

    Jason Burke
    VP Product
    www.scanscout.com

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