Time Expands 'Programmatic Print' Offering, Adds 12 New Audience Segments

Time Inc. on Monday announced the expansion of its “programmatic print” offering by introducing a dozen new audience categories that can be targeted via print advertising. AdExchanger first reported the updates.

Among Time’s new categories are beauty, family, travelers, fashion followers, foodies, health-conscious, influentials, moms, pets, tech savvy, sports enthusiasts and more.

“Advertisers can now buy 18 targeted audience categories across our premium print portfolio,” stated Mark Ford, EVP of global advertising at Time Inc.. In addition to Time Magazine, the company’s portfolio includes other well-known print publications such as People, Sports Illustrated, Real Simple and more.

It’s an expansion of Time’s partnership with MediaMath, a demand-side platform (DSP), that was first announced in February of this year. The partnership makes Time Inc.’s print audience segments be made available for programmatic buying. Target bought the first Time print ad through MediaMath's programmatic ad platform.

Joe Ripp, CEO of Time, said in a prepared statement that the goal of the “programmatic print” offering -- which the company has switch around and is now calling “print programmatic,” for what it’s worth -- is to let advertisers reach the same audiences across print and digital channels. 

The audience segments are created using Time’s first-party data. In theory, a marketers can target and reach a Time audience in the print world, and then reach them again via digital display.

Dentsu Aegis Network -- through its media investment arm Amplifi and its trading desk Amnet -- has plugged into Time’s programmatic print offering. The venture “represents a giant step in the evolution of print buying,” stated Ginger Taylor White, EVP and managing director of publishing investment at Amplifi U.S. and Dentsu Aegis Network.

Image via Popartic / Shutterstock.com
2 comments about "Time Expands 'Programmatic Print' Offering, Adds 12 New Audience Segments".
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  1. Henry Blaufox from Dragon360, August 3, 2015 at 10:18 a.m.

    Are we starting to overuse the term programmatic? Should the industry apply a clear definition to what the word means, what functionality programmatic actually includes, the purpose and the benefits? With the application of "print programmatic" I think so, especially if people think this is some hot new technology. It isn't, really.

    Let's start with the target audience segments available. Time and all the other familiar publishers have been collecting this demographic and geographic data about their readers (especially subscribers) and offering the segments to advertisers for decades. This article reveals that in passing, since it mentions that the segments are built around Time's first party data. Decades ago, we were able to adjust the content of print issues based on what we assigned as attributes and likely interest of those segments. In the past several years, the practice has diminished for print because ad page and circulation declines made it only marginally more lucrative.

    So what is new about this is that the data can be accessed via at least one current SaaS based platform (in this instance, from Media Math.) A number of steps performed manually are now automated. This saves staff time, labor and expense. Reporting and tracking performance will also be more timely (same day, not weeks later) and much more detailed. What might be called "legacy" data and systems have been migrated to a modern day platform. Valuable to buyer and seller? I'd say yes. But dramatically new? I'd say it is more an incremental enhancement, although worthwhile.

  2. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, August 3, 2015 at 1:48 p.m.

    To Henry's point, above, what exactly is "programmatic" buying in this case? How many alternative options do the agency "trading desks" have to consider, aside from those offered by Time Inc. in order to come up with the most "efficient" way to target audiences? If the answer is  no other options are involved, how does the buyer know that using "programmatic" to make these buys is delivering the undreamed of targeting efficiencies promised by the automated systems' ardent advocates? Just because some data as well as ad rates can be accessed via a computerized program doesn't make this a "programmatic" buy---at least not the way that the concept has been explained and sold ----or should I say, oversold.

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