In 2017, rival Virgin Media, a cable TV operator, announced it would take on Sky’s AdSmart to power its own addressable TV ad capabilities.

In this video interview with Furious Corp CEO Ashley J. Swartz for Beet.TV, Adrian Stroud, advanced TV ad specialist at Virgin Media owner Liberty Global, explains the deployment.

“We’ve had addressable (ads on) VOD in the UK for quite a few years,” he says. “But this year was really about getting linear up and running on the Virgin footprint.

“At the beginning of the year, that technology was just being delivered and then it went into kind of test phases and rollout over the summer and now it’s up and running.”

The deal was a watershed in spreading household TV ad targeting in the UK. Leading pay-TV platform operator Sky had offered this through its pioneering AdSmart since 2014.

Virgin Media tapped Cadent, a technology company which enables the practice for broadcasters, to integrate with AdSmart, giving advertisers the ability to buy across both rival footprints.

“Sky have a particularly sophisticated mechanism and a particularly sophisticated way of doing addressable,” Stroud says. “And so we had to mimic that very quickly.

“The Virgin platform now behaves almost indistinguishably from the way the Sky platform behaves. If someone buys an addressable campaign across the two platforms, it behaves and delivers in exactly the same way on both platforms.”

Next up, Stroud suggests the experience will be a “blueprint” for execution by Ziggo, Liberty Global’s Netherlands TV operator.

“In the rest of Europe, we’re now looking to really roll out a very similar proposition to the other territories,” he says. “We’re focusing very much at the moment on Belgium and doing groundwork to get that up and running in NL, in Netherlands.

“It’s very much a blueprint solution.”

We previously covered the earlier efforts of Liberty Global’s Telenet to roll out addressable in Belgium, as well as to Chile.

This video was produced in London at the Future of TV Ads Global forum in December 2019.   This series is sponsored by Finecast, the global addressable TV company that is part of WPP.   For more videos from the series, please visit this page.

Now Virgin Media’s owner wants to replicate the impact across its global footprint.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, John Paul, Liberty Global’s MD, advanced ads and data, described the power of targeted TV advertising.

“(The relationship with) Sky has been very successful and the partnership there really just grows that scale in the United Kingdom,” he says. “We’re doing the same thing in other markets, like in Belgium. So, it’s really about accelerating that business.

“It opens television advertising up to the world. While the CPMs are higher, the total campaign costs can be lower, and because of the targeting ability, which opens up local opportunities, there is an entirely new set of advertisers, which is very exciting.

“I think that it’s not going to replace national brand-building advertising, but it’s this amazing new tool that allows broadcasters and sales houses to go into a brand with a much broader capability in being able to engage customers.”

Liberty Global’s footprint numbers 14 countries, many of which are rolling out addressable advertising opportunities for buyers. They are 12 in Europe and two in Latin America, including Belgian’s Telenet, Germany’s Unitymedia, eastern Europe’s UPC, Netherland’s Ziggo and, since 2014, UK cable operator Virgin Media.

Paul has previously told Beet.TV how the UK’s Virgin Media, one of the largest in Liberty Global’s portfolio, is now going to market with an addressable offering. But, like most of the stars in Liberty’s constellation, the company lets networks sell their own ads in to the inventory – Liberty Global rarely sells on their behalf.

Paul describes it as a “meta-aggregator” strategy, enabling broadcasters on Liberty Global-owned operators to sell their own ads.

“We’ve been able to move the needle with that in Belgium, United Kingdom, Ireland,” he adds. “Now it’s shifted from us trying to convince the broadcasters to them now knocking on our door saying, ‘We really want this. We want it for linear and we want you to help us monetize non-linear as well’.”

This video is part of Beet.TV coverage of CES 2019.   The series is sponsored by NBCUniversal.  For more coverage, please visit this page. 

“It’s (about) picking the right model for the right market,” says Liberty Global MD, advanced ads and data, John Paul in this video interview with Beet.TV.

• Belgium: Liberty Global’s Belgian operator Telenet has already rolled out house-hold-customised, addressable TV ads for channel operator SBS, using technology from INIVIDI.
• Chile: The group has also rolled out similar functionality through its subsidiary in Chile.
• UK: And it just announced its Virgin Media would launch addressable TV ads in the UK early in 2019, partly through a partnership with technology firm Cadent.

“The UK is a very heavily regulated and controlled ad trading environment, so the opportunities that present themselves are very specific. Sky has done a very fantastic job – in this market, we’ve partnered with Sky to deliver addressable advertising,” Paul says.

“We believe that partnering and accelerating these opportunities is critical. It’s moving so fast, so Cadent for us is a very forward-thinking, almost like a leap frog type of partner.”

Paul says the US addressable market, currently with up to 75 million homes now addressable, is moving faster than the UK’s due to regulation in the latter market.

This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the Future of TV Advertising Forum 2018, London. The series is sponsored by Finecast. For more segments from the series, visit this page.

The pair have announced Virgin will use data from Sky’s existing AdSmart addressable TV system, as well as tech from its parent company Liberty Global, to underpin its offering.

The key to the deal is billed as providing a consistent currency, targeting characteristics and capabilities for ad buyers, the pair say. We have recently seen similar moves in the US, with operators teaming to harmonize their customer datasets.

But what the pairing says about the relevant positions of these UK companies is fascinating…

Sky’s AdSmart has been in market now for three years, and works by storing TV ads on satellite set-top boxes for playback in commercial breaks, targeted based on Sky’s deep customer data. It is arguably the world’s leading advanced TV ad targeting deployment, has opened up TV ads to smaller and more local companies, and is currently being rolled out across Sky’s European footprint.

Virgin Media, which is the smaller company, uses a box running TiVo software and is seen as lagging behind. It has long had the capability to dynamically insert ads in to catch-up TV, but has only made its biggest push now that its ownership by Liberty Global, which acquired it in 2013, has bedded in.

Whilst this announcement is of a “partnership”, it does not state that Sky will be receiving any assets from Virgin Media.

Both Sky and Virgin Media both have their own media sales houses to sell ads against their own channels, but last year, John Paul, advanced advertising and data VP of LibertyGlobal, told Beet.TV that Virgin Media would primarily act as the platform for other channel operators to sell  inserted ads in to their own content aired over Virgin.

It is telling that the companies’ announcement singles out online platforms as rivals: “Advertisers will be able to target a potential audience over time of more than 30 million viewers; putting it on par with leading social networks.”

Editor’s Note: This video with Jamie West was produced by Beet.TV in London.  It has been previously been published.  Whilst it gives a thorough overview of AdSmart, it was recorded in 2014 and the platform has been expanded significantly since. 

But Liberty Global’s advanced advertising MD thinks he has found a way to keep things simple whilst also being disruptive and going about things in a way US operators could never conceive.

“We’re doing the opposite of what the US did,” John Paul tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “We’re going in to the free-to-air broadcasters first, not our own inventory, and trying to convince them that this is a good thing to do.”

Liberty Global’s footprint numbers 14 countries, many of which are rolling out addressable advertising opportunities for buyers. They are 12 in Europe and two in Latin America, including Belgian’s Telenet, Germany’s Unitymedia, eastern Europe’s UPC, Netherland’s Ziggo and, since 2014, UK cable operator Virgin Media.

Paul says the program called Liberty AdPlus is innovative but not to the point of complexity.

“It’s easy to get caught up in the hype of data science,” he says. “When we first started this, we thought we were going to have to hire a gymnasium full of Cambridge data scientists to do predictive analysis. But 90% of the value that is being generated is thought he application of very basic data sets.

“By doing just a little and staying focused on the business outcomes, that’s how we manage innovation.”

Paul has previously told Beet.TV how cable operator Virgin Media, one of the largest in Liberty Global’s portfolio, is now going to market with an addressable offering, but, like most of the stars in Liberty’s constellation, the company lets networks sell their own ads in to the inventory – Liberty Global rarely sells on their behalf.

He may not want to disintermediate broadcasters – but Paul’s company is changing the nature of the relationship with ad buyers, that is for sure.

“We’re having many more discussions directly with the advertisers, the budget owners,” he adds.

“I wouldn’t describe it as ‘disintermediation’, but you’ve got smarter advertisers with their own data sets and ideas about what they want to achieve, and now they’re having a dialogue with us and they’re not part of that old sales model.”

This interview was conducted by Ashley J. Swartz, CEO of Furious Corp.

This video is part of a series produced at the Beet.TV Executive Retreat in Vieques. The event and series is presented by Videology and 605. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.

“The industry has been talking about this around the fringes but hasn’t used the data in a monetizable way to either trade or to drive that value,” Liberty Global’s MD for Advanced Advertising & Data, John Paul, says in an interview at the Beet Executive Retreat 2017 titled Video Everywhere: The Transformation of Media & Advertising. “And there’s a much bigger story there.”

Paul likes the term “attention economics” because the bottom line is understanding Liberty’s customers engagement with content, or “What’s really going on behind it,” he says in response to a question from Ashley J. Swartz, CEO of Furious Corp., the inventory and supply chain management company serving premium publishers.

As CNBC reports, Liberty recently announced fourth quarter results that included a 198% increase in revenue in Latin America and the Caribbean, driving the company’s stock price up more than 15% in one day. During 2016, Liberty added 946,000 new European subscribers and 94,000 organic Latin American and Caribbean division subscribers.

While understanding data and its implications in the marketplace is a must given the current competitive environment, it’s not rocket science, according to Paul. “What we’ve learned mostly out of this is that we don’t need to be PhD data scientists to get the value out of this,” Paul says. “Most of the value that’s being generated not just within our activities but what we’ve observed in the United States, is actually fairly basic applications of data.”

The ongoing rollout of Liberty’s EOS set-top boxes will enable addressable in markets where the company has yet to plant its flag. Liberty is up and running in Belgium, plus it offers video on demand and dynamic ad insertion in the UK, Latin America and Puerto Rico.

Latin America is a particularly special market for Liberty because it’s selling other channels’ advertising, “So they have skin the game and a real reason to generate this value,” Paul says.

This video is part of a series produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat in Vieques.  The event and series is presented by Videology and 605.  For more videos from the series, please visit this page.

You also get to experience a sense of shared success—whether the topic is television audience guarantees, addressable advertising, or new offerings from the likes of Hulu, Innovid and Spotify, according to Ashley J. Swartz, CEO of Furious Corp. and the self-described Dean of the Faculty of the annual Beet.TV Executive Retreat, which was sponsored by Videology with 605.

In keeping with longstanding tradition, in this video Swartz gives a brief recap of two days of industry give and take in a venue that eschews divisiveness for camaraderie and shared success.

This year’s Retreat was truly a global affair, with the presence of experts from Liberty Global, Sky TV and others. But for Swartz, there was something more basic at play.

“How blessed I am to have such amazing colleagues,” she says.

This video is part of a series produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat in Vieques.  The event and series is presented by Videology and 605.  For more videos from the series, please visit this page.

Virgin Media, formed out of a merger of regional cable operators in the last couple of decades, is the UK’s second pay-TV provider after Sky. Unlike Sky, which leverages satellite for linear broadcast, Virgin Media’s trump card is fiber.

Back in 2010, the operator helped TiVo re-enter the UK when it selected the equipment maker to be its new set-top box. The commitment, made at the time, to embrace a new generation of apps never quite panned out, with a paucity of services running on a box that had become slow before V6’s arrival – although Virgin Media does, notably, carry Netflix and other TV channel apps, as well as broadcaster content through its own EPG.

But Virgin has, for some time, been offering the ability to serve custom ads in to broadcaster content when viewed as catch-up through that EPG. The new box will do the same, but will benefit from greater emphasis brought by a new sales team.

“Virgin is other star of the show,” says John Paul,  advanced advertising and data VP of LibertyGlobal, which acquired Virgin Media in 2013. “It has has a very valuable data set, a very forward-thinking CEO as well, who has created an entity called Virgin Media Solutions. That’s going to be our sales vehicle across all our addressable inventory across Ireland and the UK.”

What will Virgin Media Solutions be doing? Acting as the sales agency for its inventory on VOD and public WiFi (principally, London’s Underground) as well as Irish TV channel TV 3. But most of the heavy-lifting will be done by UK broadcasters who air over Virgin Media.

“We will be selling some aspects of the addressable ad inventory, but we will primarily be an enabler,” John adds. “Whether it’s ITV or Channel 4, they will do the selling of their inventory, we will match that for inventory we control with Virgin Media Solutions.

“We’re only doing it on VOD at the moment. We have quite a range of attributes that we can do addressable against. Our biggest opportunity to improve is the actual dynamic nature of that activity, the automation of it.”

We spoke with Paul at the Future of TV Advertising Forum in London this week. Beet.TV’s coverage is presented by the 605.  For other videos from the series, please visit this page.