“Community”, the platform created by AT&T’s Xandr ad-tech unit, will support buying ads in content owned by A+E Networks, AMC Networks and Cheddar, Xandr announced.

Community debuted in May, a new marketplace allowing advertisers to place video ads in AT&T-wide brands and across different screen types. That includes WarnerMedia’s CNN, TNT, TBS, truTV, B/R Live, Otter Media and Warner Bros.

But the signs are that Xandr wants to expand the inventory available to ad buyers beyond the AT&T portfolio. It already claimed integration of inventory from VICE, Hearst Magazines, Newsy, Philo, Tubi and Xumo. The addition of A+E Networks, AMC Networks and Cheddar represents another step taken.

In a video interview with Beet.TV in June, Rick Welday, Xandr Media president, explained the strategy.

“Both buyers and publishers, sellers of advertising, are not happy with all of their options today,” he said. “There are a lot of challenges that they’re facing from brand safety to measurement to transparency.

“So we have been very pleased to pull together a marketplace that is a premium marketplace, that addresses those concerns, where an advertiser can feel more confident about what they’re getting for what they’re paying.”

Xandr says Community taps in to first-party insights from AT&T’s footprint, including 170 million consumer relationships, to help advertisers target audiences based on intent, interest and lifestyle attributes.

Applying those powers to third-party inventory means AT&T is starting to show how the platform part of its equation can fuel marketing services even outside of its own content operations.

Those ads can be bought across connected TV, because Xandr’s cross-screen addressable technology is integrated with its Community.

Xandr, AT&T’s unit for advanced TV advertising, is barely nine months old, itself coming after a period in which AT&T has gobbled up WarnerMedia.

But, in May, it debuted Community, a new marketplace allowing advertisers to place video ads in all its brands and across different screen types.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, Rick Welday, Xandr Media president, explains why.

“Both buyers and publishers, sellers of advertising, are not happy with all of their options today,” he says. “There are a lot of challenges that they’re facing from brand safety to measurement to transparency.

“So we have been very pleased to pull together a marketplace that is a premium marketplace, that addresses those concerns, where an advertiser can feel more confident about what they’re getting for what they’re paying.”

Advanced ad targeting efforts of the major telco/media operators, whilst powerful for advertisers, are also rising in prominence amongst consumer advocates who see cross-device tracking as sinister.

But Welday thinks Community will be a boon.

“After the acquisition of Time Warner, we’re incredibly pleased with the scale of premium content within AT&T,” he says. “It includes all of our owned and operated inventory over time. You’ve got this amazing content out there, sports and news and kids. It’s just great fan engaged content, so that’s all in there.

“We also have the DirecTV content that’s in there. Both linear and satellite, and also digital like DirecTV now.”

This video is part of the Beet.TV preview series titled “The Road to Cannes.”  The series is sponsored by 4INFO. Please visit this page for additional segments. 

Roughly four months after AT&T unveiled Xandr, the company announced in early January an integration with WarnerMedia’s Turner to improve the relevancy of advertising, fueled by data and content connections.

In this interview with Beet.TV at CES 2019, Welday talks about the new collaboration with Turner along with the high-level aspiration of Xander to make advertising more relevant while leveraging nearly 200 million consumer billing relationships that yield fertile data for both buyers and sellers.

And then there are viewers of premium video content, whose needs are a high priority. “Consumers should not have to tolerate sixteen minutes of un-targeted advertising for every hour of programming,” Welday says. “That’s a widely agreed upon problem. We think we can help with that.”

The Turner and Xandr ad sales teams have been working on the following four initiatives, with several enhanced products now available from Turner:

• More relevant advertising across Turner’s TV brands, with AT&T first-party set-top-box data

• Using Xandr’s data capabilities to fuel more relevant advertising on Turner’s digital properties

• Expanding the reach of branded storytelling to addressable TV

• Proving the impact of advertising through attribution

Elsewhere within the AT&T fold, Xander is using some of its audience targeting segment capabilities to inform both CNN digital and Bleacher Report across linear and digital. Meanwhile, it’s assisting the LaunchPad branded content solution extend into addressable. “So we can take the same audience they’re targeting with the branded content and find them on our addressable footprint,” Welday says.

Asked about Xandr’s desire to be a supply-side platform for competitors, Welday says it’s “very, very grateful” to be representing both Altice USA and Frontier Communications, with which it has agreements to aggregate and sell national addressable TV advertising inventory.

“Our intention is to build a marketplace where we can provide premium content in a brand-safe environment with visibility and transparency into how the campaign is being delivered across platforms. That by definition is open. We want all comers to be able to access that marketplace,” says Welday.

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

“They’re all spending millions and millions of dollars to produce this content – so far, they’ve recouped that investment by gaining new subscribers,” Modi Media president Mike Bologna tells Beet.TV in this panel interview. “They’re going to have to start to deploy some type of advertising model to recoup some of the revenue that they’re spending on this programming.

“While I don’t think it’s going to be a traditional television model … I do think it will be an addressable model. They have the ability right now to insert at that one-to-one level. We will look at Netflix just like we look at Roku today or Samsung tomorrow as another MVPD (multichannel video programming distributor).”

Citi senior media manager and SVP Kim O’Connor thinks the kinds of advertising run by these new players will look pretty familiar.

“It’s going to be addressable video – I don’t think we’re going to be talking about TV. When you look at the Hulus and the Amazons and Netflixes of the world, there are going to be dayparts. Maybe not tomorrow, but not too far in the future.”

This sessions was moderated last month by LUMA Partners CEO Terence Kawaja, at an event about the future of addressable TV presented by AT&T AdWorks in association with Beet.TV  Please find more videos here

But what humps are still in the road to an addressable future? In a panel on the topic, these executives discussed the topic…

Modi Media president Mike Bologna

“Almost 50%, 47 million households, of the United States now has the ability to insert an ad at the household level.

“Demand is where it gets a little bit tricky. To truly benefit … the advertiser needs to know who they really want to reach… a really granular segment. This requires advertisers to think about, ‘Do I want to reach drivers of a specific vehicle?’ That requires pooling together different data sources.”

Starcom MediaVest SVP Steve Murtos

“As we start to scale, we need more automation. Agencies need to help advertisers understand how to think about this, what the right sequencing of messaging is.”

AT&T AdWorks Rick Welday

“It’s such a different mindset from an agency perspective. This is very different (from traditional ad-buying). There’s an evolution that still has to occur within the agency space to help customers understand that we’re no longer purchasing premium content – we’re pursuing the audience; the audience becomes addressable.”

Citi senior media manager Kim O’ Connor

“On our end, people are way more excited about the idea of being targeted and addressable than the idea that you’re going to run spots in Big Bang Theory

“The challenge is, the space is a little bit fractured. Five different providers, you have to go to each provider to get individual cost, there are five different research studies.”

Programming Note:  Murtos will be speaking at the Beet Retreat next month in Floridaabout this and related topics.

He was interviewed last month by LUMA Partners CEO Terence Kawaja, at an event about the future of addressable TV presented by AT&T AdWorks in association with Beet.TV  Please find more videos here