• by Wayne Friedman , March 12, 2019

A major new industry-wide addressable advertising consortium, called Project OAR (Open Addressable Ready), has formed. It is led by smart TV manufacturer Vizio, along with eight TV-media companies.

Those companies include Disney’s Media Networks, Turner, Xandr, Comcast’s FreeWheel and NBCUniversal, CBS, Discovery, Hearst Television,and  AMC Networks.

Vizio’s TV ACR (automated content recognition) data company, Inscape, is also part of the group, which has a footprint of 10 million smart TV and connected devices.

The group is dedicated to the development and deployment of a new, open standard for addressable advertising on connected/smart TVs. Specifically, OAR is looking at “a direct dynamic ad-management pathway between content owners and TV devices.”

OAR will seek “a technical means to better monetize every TV impression through segment-based audience targets and addressable insertion. 

“TV programmers reach a massive and passionate audience, but have lacked the precision targeting of digital,” stated Mike Dean, senior vice president, advanced advertising and automation, CBS.

Jodie McAfee, senior vice president, Inscape, stated the new “standard” will form a baseline for ad delivery, impression verification and privacy compliance.

The consortium aims to have a working product by this spring, with full deployment targeted for early 2020. Vizio has made an initial pledge to deployed the product on its opt-in footprint of connected TVs.