• by Wayne Friedman , August 11, 2021

Samba TV, the TV first-party data company, has launched its own identity system to measure cross-platform usage. Walt Disney is one of SambaID's initial customers.

The company, which develops software for televisions, set-top boxes, smartphones and tablets, says its SambaID identifier provides “deduplication” marketers need in a cross-device media platform world. The identity graph intends to help control reach and frequency, allowing marketers to accurately attribute their media investment across all channels.

Samba TV is one of a number of media research companies to start identity efforts. All this comes with what is expected to be a disappearance of cookie-based digital media systems.

Samba TV's SambaID identifier comes from technology via Screen6, the cross-device attribution company Samba acquired in 2019. The ID uses a hybrid model built on “a large deterministic truth set that is scaled by probabilistic algorithms.”

Ashwin Navin, co-founder/CEO of Samba TV, stated: “Without these IDs to deliver and measure campaigns, advertiser’s budgets will be wasted on campaigns that fail to coordinate messaging for target audiences across devices. This gets even more complicated as TV consumption shifts towards OTT.”

Samba TV's real-time viewership data across broadcast, cable, over-the-top, and digital media using technology is integrated at the chipset level across 24 smart TV brands globally.