Zattoo has launched server-based dynamic ad insertion, providing TV broadcasters and advertisers with targeted advertising opportunities in the merging TV and internet markets. Oliver Knappmann, Chief Sales Officer at Zattoo, comments on the features, benefits, technical details and commercial availability of the new solution.
What can be done with this solution?
With Zattoo’s ad insertion technology it’s possible to replace ads that are part of a broadcasted commercial break in a live TV stream with other, individual ads. The inserted ads come from a standard online ad server (Google DFP) and support all sorts of features that are standard in the online advertising industry but revolutionary to traditional TV ads, such as:
• Targeting on user segments (e.g. by gender or age of registered user). Example: Male Zattoo users get a Gillette Fusion ad where at the same time female Zattoo users get a Gillette Venus ad
• Targeting on TV interest, e.g. users with specific interest in sports, series, cooking, documentary or kids content
• Frequency capping that allows perfect control over how many times one users sees a specific ad
• Reporting on impression base including View-Through/Quartile metrics
• Effective reduction of scatter loss
The technology operates frame-accurate, so it’s invisible for the user and doesn’t degrade the user experience.
What are the benefits for broadcasters and advertisers?
We give broadcasters an easy way to gain additional revenues from their OTT efforts. In most cases there’s no ads-based business model around OTT for broadcasters to date. We’re flexible both in terms of the technical setup as well as in terms of the actual ad sales strategy, so broadcasters are free to add ”Targeted OTT ads” to their sales portfolio if they want to.
For advertisers our solution opens up new ways of doing TV ads. Users can be targeted and budgets are placed way more efficiently. Results can be measured very accurately, so these informations help them plan the next campaigns even better.
In the end, even for users we enhance the TV experience through less annoying ad breaks since they consist of more relevant spots.
How is this technically achieved?
TV channels insert SCTE-35 markers in their streams that indicate ad breaks. We merge this with additional metadata that is provided beforehand to react accordingly and fast enough. Whenever we detect one of these markers in the stream, we fetch a set of ads for every user currently playing the live-stream and eventually replace the marked part with ads from the adserver. All of this happens before the stream is packaged into its final form, so our technology works independently of the output (HLS, DASH, Smooth etc.), DRM solution or the device receiving the stream.
Where is the solution available?
Since April 1, 2017 we have been using our ad insertion technology on the SD and HD live-streams of German sports channel Sport1 across all Zattoo Apps available in Germany (web, mobile apps, connected TV sets etc.). There are more TV channels wanting to deploy that technology soon. We’re also offering ad insertion components to B2B clients.
For previous coverage by Broadband TV News, please see Zattoo offers dynamic ad insertion to TV broadcasters and Stefan Kaiser: Server-side dynamic insertion.
