TV consortium OpenAP is looking to do what it's done for standardizing audience segments on traditional linear TV and applying it to digital streaming to help advertisers more easily target audiences across both. 

Dubbed OpenID, the new identifier combines metrics for a specific audience segment into a single identity framework. Rather than having to create a whole new set of metrics for digital audiences and for linear TV, OpenID can instead create a single audience identity that can work no matter where that audience is watching. The goal is to help the industry move away from traditional age and gender demographics to ID-based targeting. 

“Omnichannel viewership is at such an inflection point that programmers need to be proactive on a solution for cross-platform use cases doing this at scale,” says David Levy, CEO of OpenAP. “It’s the right time to be working on these things.”

The solution uses identity graphs provided by TransUnion and Tru Optik as its basis, and enhances it with data from programmers. First, advertisers can identify broad or narrow audiences that are matched to a set of identifiers. These audiences are defined at the ID level then matched to viewership data and platform IDs for linear, digital and addressable activation. Networks can then use these OpenIDs to build targeted media plans with their internal tools.

Previously, agencies had to onboard audiences with different networks, says Levy, and if the process was not done consistently or correctly it could result in two different audiences. OpenID can now find the same audience and target it across programmers by resolving identity across screens.

For years, OpenAP, whose members include NBCUniversal, Fox, Disney and ViacomCBS, among others, has been attempting audience targeting standardization, but Levy says the breakthrough comes from being able to get back a consistent measurement across linear and digital audiences. “If you’re creating an audience off OpenID, you can send that to any programmer you’re working with,” he says.

Agencies say having that basis of audience consistency is critical. “If I’m trying to find, you know, left-handed joggers who like to eat peanuts, if that’s my audience, I need that audience to be the same across every single network group,” says Brad Stockton, VP, video innovation at Dentsu Media. “Of course, we want to minimize our hops through the internet, so once we get it to the OpenID, that allows us to then make sure it’s cascaded out as cleanly as possible, and there’s no differences from how one network to the next is going to receive it and identify it.” 

Levy says OpenID will allow TV publishers to maintain control of data and protect data leakage, reducing onboarding costs and creating standards across publishers for measurement and attribution.

The solution will be enabled across OpenAP's network partners, which also include AMC Networks, A+E Networks, Crown Media, Discovery, Univision, WarnerMedia and The Weather Channel. It's also working with agencies like Dentsu, GroupM, Horizon Media and Omnicom Media Group.

OpenAP says it is collaborating with The Trade Desk to create interoperability with Unified ID 2.0, an industry-wide advertising identifier.