If the launch of streaming services by TV distributors has created two different kinds of ad inventory and business model, Aaron Martin wants to solve that.

Xandr, where Martin is director of product management, forecasting and inventory management, just launched a tool he says will bridge the gap.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, Martin explains the idea is applying digital logic to linear media, uniting the two channels.

Bridging the gap

The tool, converged inventory analysis, is a sub-product inside Yield Analytics that unifies audiences and ad systems across linear addressable and OTT.

Xandr says the aim is to sooth a fragmentation that has occurred as a result, with a “consolidated advertising and analytics system to manage distributors’ digital and linear addressable businesses, enabling the identification of a single
audience across channels”.

Martin says: “We’re really trying to break down the silos, so that the planning isn’t done within addressable linear and then replicated or done a second time within digital silos, but just done one time so that I understand where my best yield optimization levers are and where the most competition for that inventory exists.”

Building on logic

The product is build out of Yieldex, a company Xandr’s earlier AppNexus acquired back in 2015.

Martin says the team added advanced forecasting capabilities for the ad server. Now that is being offered to TV teams, with benefits claimed on both sides:

  • Buyers: “You’re just buying a single audience … instead of having to go interact with two different teams that might exist within the same company.”
  • Sellers: “Taking into account that addressable linear lens that needs to be applied, which is a little bit more schedule-based, and which spots are going to be opened up to addressable and how that audience overlays it.”

It’s all in pursuit of enabling a “holistic” approach to media, whether buying or selling, Martin says.

By Robert Andrews on @robertandrews