Paramount CTV ad tech update: Conduit gives more programmatic controls

Paramount added a new layer to its connected TV ad tech to direct where ads appear across the multiple distribution partners for its streaming apps. The ad tech announced today, called “Conduit,” was designed to solve some of the sticky problems in the fragmented connected TV landscape: maintaining separation of rival brands in ad blocks and tracking how often ads run, said Leo O’Connor, Paramount’s senior VP of advertising. Conduit was developed internally at Paramount, O’Connor said, adding that it “allows a bunch of different technologies to seamlessly integrate into our ad serving system. So this sits between FreeWheel and a bunch of different tech, and it allows us to be nimble.” Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Paramount uses FreeWheel, which is owned by Comcast, as its ad tech platform to manage how ads flow to connected TV apps, including Paramount+ and Pluto TV. However, like most major media companies with streaming services, the apps get distributed on platforms such as Amazon Fire TV, Roku and others. The distribution deals make running commercials complicated because the platforms fill a percentage of inventory from Paramount, which means Paramount takes ads from demand-side platforms it doesn’t always control. Meanwhile, advertisers want to work with a variety of supply-side partners, such as Magnite and Google Ad Manager. In that siloed ecosystem, Paramount wanted a way to manage the ad experience on all of its shows. “Clients from marketers to agencies are making some requests of their publishing partners [such as Paramount] to integrate certain chains of technology,” O’Connor said. “So the marketer may say, ‘I want to use this SSP to DSP connection,’ or ‘I want to use this specific SSP to activate.’ And when we do that, we run the risk of losing some control over the ads that come back from that exchange unless we do it in an elegant way.” Paramount has been working on this new ad tech layer in its programmatic ad platform called EyeQ since 2020. Ad tech has become increasingly important to traditional TV broadcasters, including Paramount (formerly ViacomCBS), as they move to streaming environments. Disney, NBCUniversal, AMC Networks, Warner Bros. Discovery and others have been making the streaming transition, as well, and putting their shows and movies on ad-supported apps. The ad inventory can be sold in real-time auctions as internet ads have been sold for decades. With streaming, however, comes more complexity for advertisers that use ad serving technology that don’t always communicate with each other. Traditional TV advertisers—typically major brands—have been accustomed to ad separation and frequency checks on the number of ads they run, but on connected TV that has become a complex problem. Paramount is known for hit shows such as “Yellowstone,” “Survivor” and “South Park.” It designed a way to unify the programmatic ad auctions so that ads that it sells directly do not clash with ads coming from other sources. “The undercurrent here is that there’s a lot of programmatic technology, and these platforms don’t always play super nice together, and we feel as a publisher the buck stops with us to serve a high-quality ad experience,” O’Connor said. “If a viewer gets a bad ad break watching one of our shows, they don’t get upset with the ad server, they don’t get upset with the TV manufacturer.” The new tech in Paramount’s ad server system is meant to also improve latency issues, as it will help plan commercials for a program and deliver them with faster load times. The ad server works on filling ad slots within the Paramount apps and on FAST channels, or free ad-supported TV, which are available on connected TVs, including Samsung, Vizio and LG. When distribution partners, say, Amazon on Fire TV, serve ads into apps, the publishers need to know what types of brands are appearing in which ad slots, so that they don’t bump up against commercials the publisher serves, O’Connor said. Rival brands typically don’t want to run in the same ad break, or even the same show, and even less ideal is for a brand to run overlapping ads from different programmatic pipes into the same show. “Conduit utilizes the FreeWheel platform to make a unified decision on Paramount’s behalf,” said Mark McKee, FreeWheel general manager, in an email statement, “enabling advertisers to tap into the scale of Paramount’s global portfolio in a way that optimizes ad spend.” Sign up for Ad Age newsletters From influencer marketing to agencies, get the latest news and analysis delivered to your inbox Click here

Paramount’s new connected TV ad tech update gives more programmatic controls

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