• by Wayne Friedman , April 13, 2017

TV audience targeting platform Simulmedia has struck a deal with Oracle Data Cloud -- the big in-store/consumer purchasing data service -- to provide data-driven linear TV advertising deals.

“It’s first announced partnership in the TV space -- we have done this in digital for years,” boasted Joe Kyriakoza, vice president-general manager for automotive and TV for Oracle Data Cloud.

Oracle Data Cloud claims $3 trillion in consumer transaction data, from five billion global IDs and 120 million U.S. homes, and more than 1,500 data partners.

Kyriakoza says many of its digital advertiser clients have been asking for consumer purchasing data connected to linear TV viewing for years. Oracle says 97 of the top 100 U.S. advertisers already use its data for their digital campaigns.

“Brands can align their audience strategies across TV and digital and improve the overall ROI of their advertising spend," stated Dave Morgan, founder and CEO of Simulmedia, who has been championing linear TV ad buys based on combinations of traditional GRPs, as well as consumer data.

Speaking to Media Daily News, Morgan added the deal will help move the company to the next step -- “performance TV,” determining audiences in addition to calculating return on investment of marketers’ media spending. “To do that we need big data sets.”

He said he believes Oracle’s efforts will let ad agencies create their own TV "DMPs" -- digital management platforms -- to complement their digital DMP audience targeting efforts.

Oracle’s Kyriakoza said marketers will be able to also use their own first-party CRM (customer relationship management) data. Oracle data will be used with Simulmedia’s VAMOS platform, which creates data-driven audiences, predict viewership and optimizes performance-based media plans.

After years of providing this data to digital media marketing, Oracle is only now focusing on its the linear TV  business.

Kyriakoza noted there continues to be hurdles with linear TV when it comes to data-driven deal-making.

“The biggest hurdle is that the industry is fragmented; it’s a more complex marketplace for sure,” he explained, adding that TV networks, as well as cable/satellite/telco TV providers, have had different approaches when connecting consumer purchase data to TV viewing.

Recently Open AP -- a consortium of 21st Century Fox, Viacom, and Turner -- announced efforts to simplify much of this for marketers -- including standardizing new kinds of TV audiences.