AT&T’s Xandr and TV consortium OpenAP partner in ad targeting push

AT&T’s ad unit Xandr and TV consortium OpenAP are joining forces to help make it easier for brands to target audiences on TV. To this end, Xandr will adopt OpenAP’s audience identifier inside its self-service platform, Invest TV. This will allow clients utilizing Invest TV to build unified audience segments across major TV networks. OpenAP, the consortium of TV networks that include NBCUniversal, Fox, Disney and ViacomCBS, along with others, introduced its new identifier, dubbed OpenID, this spring, to help the industry move toward ID-targeting on TV. The TV industry has spent years trying to bring together seemingly rival groups to advance improvements such as ad targeting to better compete with digital behemoths. The collaboration between Xandr and OpenAP is another step in those efforts. “What buyers want is consistent audiences, but what they've been asking is making sure that it can be interoperable with the tools that they want to use. If you're a big fan and a client of Xandr Invest, you should be able to use OpenID inside of Xandr Invest. That’s the approach we’ve always taken, away from the walled garden experience, the ability to use your audience whenever, whatever platform you want to use it in,” says David Levy, chief executive officer of OpenAP. “This partnership basically says regardless of what platforms you use, you’re actually also going to be using an OpenID audience,” Levy says. “It furthers the consistency and standards across advanced advertising in our space and gives buyers the ability to use that audience in platforms that they really love and care about and are delivering great value for customers. With this integration, OpenAP and Xandr will enable advertisers to activate an audience target centrally with OpenIDs and use that OpenID audience within Invest TV to define deals, distribute and collect RFPs across publishers, review and request changes to proposals and analyze post-campaign reporting. A consistent ID should allow advertisers to more seamlessly transact on a national footprint against TV networks while limiting duplication of audiences. For Xandr, which will remain a part of AT&T even after the deal between WarnerMedia and Discovery closes, the partnership with OpenAP is an example of how the division is proving to the market that it wasn't building a platform solely for WarnerMedia inventory. “We’ve pivoted and gotten back to our platform roots,” says Mike Welch, exec VP and general manager, Xandr. “We see ourselves as a platform company trying to solve issues around convergence.” “We’re going to treat all inventory owners agnostically and not give favorable treatment and bring a platform that benefits all, not just our sister company,” he says. Contributing: Mike Juang

AT&T’s Xandr and TV consortium OpenAP partner in ad targeting push

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