Nielsen Acquires Sorenson in Bankruptcy Auction, Advanced Ad Creation Unit – Variety



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Nielsen expects to have the elements in place to finally push up the scale of addressable TV advertising, targeted at the basis of a household profile televised in the same way that ads on the Internet have been broadcasting for years.

The Media Measurement Company has created Nielsen Advanced Video Advertising, a new group specializing in the development of addressable advertising aimed initially at smart TVs connected to the Internet.

To fill what he said was a missing link in his portfolio, last week Nielsen acquired Sorenson Media, an addressable TV technology provider, in bankruptcy proceedings with a winning offer of $ 11.25 million. Sorenson had requested a reorganization of Chapter 11 last fall, citing an "expensive" addressable advertising contract with Sinclair Broadcasting, which would have forced Sorenson to pay more than $ 100 million over the life of the deal.

Nielsen now claims that it has all the components to create an "AI-optimized end-to-end platform" for targeted TV ads that include streaming, data-driven targeting, unified campaign management, and measured.

"Our goal is to provide the market with a unified roadmap for addressable advertising and to get collaboration and feedback," said Kelly Abcarian (pictured above), newly appointed director of the group's video advertising group. Nielsen. Previously, she was Senior Vice President of Product Leadership for the company.

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For years, the biz TV has coveted the targeted and dynamic features offered by Internet advertising in order to exchange static advertisements in live TV with individual spots on the fly. While individual operators such as Comcast, DirecTV and Dish offered addressable ads in their own footprints, there was no industry-wide solution.

Nielsen is now well placed to decipher the code, Abcarian said. In addition to enabling technology, the company has announced that it will integrate its existing C3 / C7 linear television measurement standards with addressable TV advertising in a transparent manner. "Measuring is the key," said Abcarian. "There is no question about the ability of technology to address. It's about creating underlying data sets that are both linear and addressable, and finding a measure that reflects how ads are sold. "

Sorenson Media had in fact launched addressable ads, broadcast on Samsung smart TVs in inventory at local Sinclair and Hearst Television subsidiaries. Now, Nielsen is considering taking over Sorenson's technology stack, which includes decision-making and revenue management, and combining it with other pieces acquired over the years.

Nielsen achieved Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology through the acquisition of Gracenote Metadata Provider and the acquisition of Qterics, a provider of smart TV software and privacy management. Gracenote's ACR technology enables the detection of real-time, image-level ads, regardless of the source (ie, through the intermediary of an image). pay-TV operator or live broadcast). Last year, Nielsen signed an agreement with chipmaker MediaTek, which claims to power 50% of smart TVs in the market, in order to incorporate ACR technology into its silicon.

Looking ahead, the next step for Nielsen is to integrate Sorenson's technology and employees into its advanced advertising group. At the auction of Sorenson's badets, Nielsen beat competing bid from Sorenson's founder and president, Jim Sorenson. Sorenson has fewer than 100 employees who will join Nielsen.

Nielsen's advanced video advertising group builds on more than five years of company work to deliver the promise of delivering scalable addressable ads, according to Abcarian. "We will look to work in the industry to simplify the way they buy their audiences on television. We consider this a collaborative approach, "she said. Abcarian also noted that Nielsen did not sell any ad inventory, which allowed it to be a neutral third in the ecosystem.

Among its efforts to date in this area, Nielsen launched a five-market addressable TV pilot project late last year with CBS, A + E Networks and other programmers using smart TVs in a few hundred American homes. The purpose of the test, which is underway, is to evaluate consumer feedback (and, for example, to solve technical problems related to the badembly of dynamic ads in the live television) and understand how to reflect the extent in the media workflow, said Abcarian.

But the exact time Nielsen will provide a complete and addressable advertising solution remains unclear – and whether television networks, agencies, and marketers adhere to his vision is an open question. For the company, the rise of addressable TV commercials will be a test of the company's strategic direction, led by David Kenny, the recently appointed CEO, who was previously head of IBM's artificial intelligence division.

"It's clear that a significant portion of TV advertising will be addressable in the future," Kenny said in a statement. The acquisition of Sorenson Media, he added, will enable Nielsen to "create greater value and efficiency across the media chain."

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