Viacom wants to license its TV ad targeting tech to the entire industry — and it’s starting with Fox

Viacom
CEO Bob Bakish
Koki Nagahama/Getty
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• Viacom is licensing its data-driven ad product Vantage
  to Fox.
• The media giant says it has invested in proprietary ad
  targeting tools and analytics, and wants to employ them across
  the industry.
• The deal could accelerate the growth of “advanced TV”
  advertising, or serve to make things more complicated as heavy
  hitters like AT&T plot their own data courses.

Viacom wants to become an ad tech company. And it wants to help
the TV industry better compete with Facebook and Google.

The beleaguered media giant, which
announced decent second quarter earnings results on Thursday,
is looking to develop a new revenue stream by licensing its
proprietary ad targeting tools to other media companies.

Initially, Fox has signed on to license
Viacom Vantage, a three-year-old ad product designed to help
marketers reach more precise audiences with linear TV ads.

And the hope is that there are many more to follow.

“We are very much committed to working with more
publishers,” Bryson Gordon,
the head of Viacom’s advanced advertising group, told Business
Insider. “We are in deep
discussions with a broad set of publishers, both
domestically and
internationally.”

In a way, it’s not all that surprising that Fox would look to
borrow someone else’s tech rather than build its own. The company
is in the midst of selling its studio assets and several networks
to Disney.

The remaining company, “New Fox,” which will include the Fox
broadcast network and Fox News, will be much smaller.

Plus Fox and Viacom were already partners on
OpenAP, a TV data consortium that includes NBCU, Univision and
Turner.

Still, it’s telling that Viacom was able to convince a rival
media company that Vantage was a worthy product. 

“We love what they’ve built and being able to take advantage of
all that great work is a big win for both of us,” said David
Levy, EVP at Fox Networks Group.

Fox’s move could signal that TV companies are more inclined to
join forces on data technology for ad purposes. Or it could set
up a battle over who’s TV ad algorithms are better.

Either way, the TV business is trying to prove it can be
effective at reaching exact audiences with advertising, as Google
and Facebook continue to suck up huge chunks of ad budgets.

Viacom says OpenAP is gaining traction, and its Fox deal with
accelerate adoption

OpenAP is designed to help
advertisers create common data sets that can be used for placing
ads in shows that reach particular audiences. 

For instance, an auto advertiser may have proprietary research on
a particular demographic that is likely to be interested in a new
SUV. They can upload their data to OpenAP’s interface and then
try to find that audience on various TV networks.

Until now, each OpenAP partner uses its own proprietary software
and tools to execute those deals, essentially to get the right
ads to those audiences.

Now, Viacom and Fox will be using the same tech to do just that.

Gordon said that 900 advertisers have already run campaigns using
OpenAP.

Data-driven TV advertising is a big growth area

Viacom said on its earnings call that revenue in its digital
division, which includes its web video business and its Advanced
Marketing Solutions unit, surged 33% this quarter and should
deliver $300 million this year.

The Fox deal, “is a powerful validation of our leadership
in the space,” said CEO Bob Bakish. “And as we work to secure
additional licensing partnerships with publishers, we’re excited
by the potential of this new business to accelerate the ecosystem
and evolve into an incremental revenue stream.”

Viacom’s expansion of Vantage should accelerate things.

“The way we think about it,
this
initiative is
actually about having a broader
impact on the industry,” said Gordon.

Perhaps. But many big media giants have also built out divisions
centered on helping brands find unique audiences on their onw
networks.

NBCUniversal has its own solution. So does Discovery and Turner.

And of course, Turner’s new owner,
AT&T is planning to build its own mega TV ad platform,
and wants the whole ad industry to join in. It all makes for a

complicated playing field.  And ad buyers generally

don’t want nine different ways of buying TV ads.

Still, Gordon sees Vantage as being complimentary and flexible.
He says Viacom has invested in data scientists, engineers, and
product people at a level that not every traditional media
company has.

When asked about AT&T’s
plans, Gordon declined to speculate.

“
Our focus is very much about our
p
roven capabilities,” he
said. “We c
continue to see
a
 significant
increase in demand.”