Universal Studios Taps Video DSP DataXu For 'Adjustment'

The-AdjustmentBureau

Marketers gained a demand-side platform to support video ads when DSP DataXu released DX Video Wednesday. The tools range from real-time programmable buying and optimization to advanced targeting and new audience discovery.

DX Video automatically optimizes results against advertising objectives, such as awareness, engagement, views, influence and sales. Mike Baker, DataXu CEO, said a handful of companies have been testing the platform, pointing to Universal Studios as an example. "There are about 1 billion video impressions available to us for in-stream video per month, and about 60 billion ad video impressions available on page, not in a stream, but video that shows up in a box," he said. "We support about 4 million URLs daily."

Universal Studios, which has been working with DataXu since the beginning of the year, wanted to reach fans of thriller movies, related shows and movies, and females 18-49 for its new theatrical release, "The Adjustment Bureau."

As with most ad campaigns for movies, the campaign ran for just a few weeks, not allowing much time to adjust targeting and tactics that don't perform as expected.

The campaign's objective to maximize consumer engagement with the auto-start video ad unit was measured as clicks-for-audio and replays. Reaching the audience required targeting tactics, premium content buys, category and behavioral targeting supported by third-party data, demographic targeting of females age 18 to 49, and DataXu Audience Discovery targeting. The campaign outperformed traditional tactics by 2 times at 15 times the scale, according to the company.

The results were achieved by observing high variability in performance across times, content, consumer demographics, consumer psychographic segments and geography -- and by identifying and buying the highest-performing impressions both within and outside the campaign's identified targets.

DX Video features DataXu's Audience Discovery technology, which enables an advertiser to find the best-performing audience and engage with them across the Internet, as well as gain insights into consumer behavior. DataXu has been experimenting with Web browser technology HTML5 standards to make it easier to distribute content, with a focus on mobile. It will give advertisers the ability to lighten the payloads and expand the ad to provide a "richer experience" across operating systems.

Companies paying more attention to platforms supporting video ads have begun to shell out capital to support the move. Adap.tv, which supports buying and selling of video advertising, closed $20 million in financing led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Collective also said it acquired online video advertising network Web TV Enterprise. The deal follows six months after the company's expansion into the United Kingdom and weeks after acquiring video advertising platform Oggifinogi.

More than 70% of online video advertisers expect to increase video budgets by 25% during the next six months, according to an internal Web TV Enterprise market report based on a survey of U.K. media buyers. The research also suggests that digital buyers are responding to improvements in audience measurement techniques, an obstacle for many advertisers.

 

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