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."