FreeWheel, Comcast’s ad tech company, said it has launched new self-service technology that will let buyers plan connected TV campaigns targeting custom audience segments while calculating their deduplicated reach in relation to linear TV.
The technology also give buyers streamlined access to premium inventor form FreeWheel publishing clients.
Audience segments are based on aggregated Comcast viewership data from millions of homes and FreeWheel’s technology is designed to help both buyers and sellers understand the goals of campaigns and enable them to deal with each other, reducing intermediaries and making buys more valuable.
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“Advertisers who understand the benefits of targeted premium video are adding CTV to their linear TV plans to increase reach and improve consumer engagement,” said Jon Whitticom, chief product officer at FreeWheel. “The problem historically has been that the two channels were working in siloes, so accessing the right inventory was complicated and opaque. Not anymore; our solution unifies linear and CTV so that advertisers can easily maximize reach across screens with limited waste. This capability represents a huge step forward in better connecting buyers and sellers – something FreeWheel is known for in the industry and that improves the consumers’ experience.”
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FreeWheel said the new technology would be immediately useful to political advertisers. It has worked with Comcast’s ad sales unit Effectv to get the new tools directly into the hands of political advertisers using the FreeWheel’s Strata platform.
“As a result of fragmentation, audience-focused, multi-screen campaign planning is more important than ever,” said Dan Sinagoga, head of political sales at Effectv. “These new tools are just what our clients had been waiting – and asking – for. With this launch, we are bringing to bear many strategic assets across Comcast Advertising to address these challenges, and we’re excited to support the initial deployments with political advertisers. Nearly $9 billion will be spent by political campaigns in 2022, and this technology will make each dollar spent more efficient.”
FreeWheel said it will be launching other technology initiatives this year designed to help buyers and sellers work with each other in what has become a dynamic and challenging advertising ecosystem. ■
