Sawtelle-based media services firm VideoAmp landed an agreement to provide cross-screen advertising campaign data to Warner Bros. Discovery, the media behemoth with a large presence in Burbank that operates a raft of cable TV channels. Video Amp provides audience information and advertising services using set-top box and connected TV set data.
The big hurdle for digital-age audience metrics is convincing advertisers and their agencies to embrace more precise audience measurement and the announcement of the VideoAmp/Warner Bros. Discovery looks to do that. According to an analysis of a set of October campaigns, “brands that took advantage of advertising with Warner Bros.
Discovery in October achieved, on average, a 1.2X greater reach per spot within theWarner Bros. Discovery Prime portfolio,” according to a joint press release. That’s in comparison to industry norms. The benefit was even greater at a 2.3 multiple within affluent households with per-capita income over $100,000.
Warner Bros. Discovery generates TV advertising-related revenue of more than $6 billion annually. It owns CNN, the Discovery channel, Cartoon Network, Food Channel, HBO, HGTV, TruTV, and major movie studio Warner Bros., which anchors a sprawling entertainment business in Burbank.
For decades, TV advertising was sold solely on basic TV ratings limited to number of viewers, gender and age demographics gleaned from audience-sample panels in tens of thousands of households; in contrast, digital media can tap millions of viewers with greater depth of information to measure engagement, attention, attribution (crediting a media platform for driving views to other media), viewership down to second by second and other specialized metrics.
Andrea Zapata, a Warner Bros. Discovery executive vice president, said she believes that audience measurement hasn’t kept up with the digital revolution.
“As a result, these audiences have been undercounted and current measures no longer accurately reflect their true advertising value,” she said.
The VideoAmp partnership will “provide holistic and more accurate cross-platform measurement, and de-duplication of reach and frequency metric,” Zapata added. “VideoAmp’s valuable and innovative approach to diverse data sets allows us to count viewership across every network in our ecosystem.”
VideoAmp is rolling up agreements with TV media outlets and advertising players for audience measurement with clients representing around three quarters of the relevant advertising-supported market. These include pacts with Disney Advertising in December, Spanish-language giant TelevisaUnivision in June, Comcast Cable’s advertising unit in February, Paramount Global in 2021 and tests with a handful of advertising agency giants.
