VIZIO today announced it has surpassed 11.2 million addressable TVs across the U.S. that enable frame-accurate dynamic ad insertion. The news comes on the heels of numerous successful ad campaigns from America’s top TV networks.
The number represents a significant milestone for members of Project OAR, the addressable advertising consortium founded by VIZIO and America’s top TV media companies. By expanding the addressable footprint, programmers are able to deliver and manage addressable TV ad inventory inside of linear programming broadcast to homes across America.
“Addressable TV advertising has arrived. This milestone pushes the consortium beyond a “Project” and into an addressable business. We have worked to put standards in place in collaboration with top networks to deliver addressable campaigns at scale and enhance the TV experience for viewers at home. With the infrastructure in place and more campaigns going live in the market, we are making it possible to deploy, manage and sell dynamic ads for local and national inventory,” said Adam Gaynor, VP Network Partnerships and Head of Addressable for VIZIO and OAR.
Addressable Campaigns Go Live
The Project OAR consortium, which is composed of America’s top television networks and operators and VIZIO, have worked hard to create open standards that anyone in the ecosystem can use to increase the relevancy of advertising and improve linear viewing for consumers.
AMC Networks, FOX and WarnerMedia are among several of the companies that have executed national addressable campaigns using the OAR standard to deliver more relevant advertising experiences within linear and on-demand formats on smart TVs. With addressable campaigns, companies can reach audiences regardless of where, when or how they choose to view television.
“We started our first addressable campaign in late 2020 and have continued to air addressable campaigns across our national inventory and complemented by set-top box VOD and CTV, allowing for true convergence,” said Kristine Bayles, VP, Advanced Advertising, AMC. “Working with OAR, we are helping to push standards that the entire industry can use. With over 30% of our linear viewership being addressable, we are unlocking new opportunities for brands to connect directly with the intended consumer with precision.”
“At Fox, we’re working to make advertising more accessible and effective for our marketing partners by delivering ad innovations with precision and purpose,” said Darren Sherriff, VP of Advanced Advertising Products at FOX “As the scale of addressable continues to grow, we’ve been working with OAR creating standards to drive adoption across the industry that will enable execution on a broader level moving forward.”
“WarnerMedia has run national addressable campaigns across linear and VOD since 2020,
while expanding our capacity and footprint through direct integrations with multiple
distributors, and partnering with brands across an array of categories,” said JP Colaco, head of advertising sales, WarnerMedia. “As pioneers in the addressable industry for nearly a decade with DIRECTV, we are excited to collaborate with other industry leaders like OAR to continue to drive awareness, education and enablement, while advocating for standards, in addressable TV.”
Discovery was early into the addressable trials and is among a number of media companies that have successfully conducted addressable campaign tests to evaluate how the OAR open standard interoperates with existing sales, insertion and measurement workflows.
“At Discovery, we are happy to report that we are out of the test phase and are bullish to begin live addressable campaigns,” says Steve Silvestri, Senior Vice President, Advanced Advertising, Discovery. “As a member of OAR, we have been on the front lines for creating the standards to move the industry forward. Programmer enablement represents a massive growth opportunity for the addressable marketplace and is bridging the divide between linear and digital, allowing advertisers to reach valuable audiences in a premium and brand-safe environment, across all platforms and at scale.”
Expanding Reach and Audiences
OAR has also expanded its membership, adding Univision to the consortium and attracting new sources of inventory across national, local and spanish-language content.
Univision joined the consortium in the first quarter of 2021 and is already underway with plans for addressable TV beta trials across its Spanish-language television portfolio, including broadcast networks Univision and UniMás, and cable networks TUDN and Galavisión.
OAR-Certified Ecosystem
Dedicated to interoperability, VIZIO and the members of OAR have worked closely with watermarking, decisioning, measurement and demand companies to expand the OAR ecosystem so platforms and participants can use their preferred tech stacks or existing solutions. VIZIO is now providing OAR certification to those vendors that work directly with VIZIO on watermarking and decisioning technologies and have proven their commitment to driving addressable TV forward. This small circle of OAR-certified partners provides a distinction in the industry and the future of addressable TV.
About Project Open Addressable Ready (OAR)
Project Open Addressable Ready is a technology consortium created to deliver better advertising experiences to viewers through the use of dynamic advertising on internet-connected TVs and devices. Formed in 2018, OAR members include AMC Networks, Comcast NBCUniversal, Discovery Networks, Disney, EW Scripps, Fox, Hearst Television, Univision, ViacomCBS, VIZIO and WarnerMedia. The consortium provides technical specifications and best-practice provisions for the selling, targeting and measurement of addressable TV advertising within privacy-compliant, consumer-forward TV environments and is open to content providers, linear inventory owners and OEMs.