Having helped its clients leverage the Viacom Vantage advanced targeting product, WideOrbit has expanded the concept to the OpenAP consortium, of which Viacom is a founding member.

“What we’re doing with OpenAP is integrating it into our products so you can actually build a rate card against an OpenAP target,” says Ashley Barretto, GM, WO Network, WideOrbit.

“You can build deals against it, you can air the deals, you can steward against it and you can produce and report results,” he adds in this interview with Beet.TV at the recent WideOrbit Connect conference. “We started out working with Vantage, Viacom’s offering, and that led to OpenAP.”

Calling television a “fractured marketplace” with shrinking linear audiences, both buyers and sellers are seeking more value from advertising inventory, according to Barretto. Because Nielsen’s age and gender metrics are still the transactional currency, the desire for added value is in advanced audience targeting that can be attributed to business outcomes.

“This is taking them a step forward in terms of targeting the commercials beyond the age and gender into more specific targets that can produce results,” Barretto says.

One of WideOrbit’s priorities getting ad impressions to flow across platforms. With its roots in linear TV and having added digital to its toolkit, it’s working to provide clients with “fluidity solutions, where you can actually build a linear deal and if you’re under-delivering on that, you can move impressions across to the digital platform, bring those delivered impressions back and provide a holistic delivery across multiple platforms.”

The company’s efforts on OpenAP is reflective of what Barretto says is the way it does business. “What we’ve always done is partner with our clients. We don’t build it in a vacuum and then go out to market with it.”

This video is part of a Beet.TV series on advanced TV produced at the WideOrbit Connect conference. WideOrbit is the sponsor of this series. Please find more videos here.