How Xandr's Partnership with Altice and Frontier Impacts National Buying Community

Toward the end of an addressable advertisingfocused panel led by Jason Brown Xandr39s Head of Advertising partnerships Mike Welch Xandr39s Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Business Developmentamp160mentioned more news the company had made the day before the announcement of an exclusive national representative agreement for addressable television with Altice and FrontierCurrently of the approximately 30 million households that can be reached with live linear addressable capability Xandr39s DirecTV represents about 16 millionamp160 Adding Altice39s longestablished addressable inventory and the inventory to come from Frontieramp160means that Xandr will control approximately two thirds of that linear addressable inventoryamp160 The rest of that 30 million is currently primarily Dish and Verizon though according to Dave Downey Chief Executive Officer of Addressable Technology firm Invidi and to Welch himself on a subsequent panel at Advertising Week there is momentum in the industry that will rapidly bring that number to the 50 or 60 million householdsamp160that along with the current additional 30 million or so households with addressable video on demand content will create the capacity that will allow for an even larger shift in national buyingFor national media buyers the Altice deal in particular represents delivery on the buying simplicity promised by Brian Lesser Xandr39s Chief Executive Officer in his opening statements at the Relevance conferenceamp160 quotWe are creating a modern media companyquot Lesser who earlier in his career had been the founding CEO of WPP39s Xaxis told the audienceamp160 The new name which reflects ATampampT39s founder Alexander Graham Bell and points to a digital future is a bold leap of confidence from a company with a brand name that has been building equity with the American public since 1885Altice whose own advertising unit recently rebranded to A4 will no longer be selling its addressable inventory on roughly threeamp160million households in the New York DMA amp160to national brands and agencies though they will still be selling that inventory to local advertisers and the NY Interconnect will still be working on regional addressable campaignsamp160 A439s national sales team will now be focused on IPbased digital targeting and multiscreen advertising to be enhanced by access to ATampampT39s firstparty dataamp160 Concurrently Hamid Qayyum who had been running the national sales team was named head of sales for Altice39s national news network i24amp160 Paul Haddad President of A4 at a panel days later said he is optimistic that the new partnership will begin demonstrating returns in the next two quartersXandr representing Altice and Frontier is expected to make purchasing addressable television easier for ad buyersamp160 Tracey Scheppach of Matter More Media who while at Publicis made the first commitments to the DirecTV addressable platform and is bullish about every type of addressable advertising expressed optimism amp160quotIt39s time that addressable became less a secret weapon wielded by insiders like me who know how to activate this powerful tool and becomes something that like OTT today is available even to the greenest of media buyersquot she saidScheppach who represents brands like West Elm and Williams Sonoma neither of which invested in traditional television before becoming addressable TV advertisers said that she is confident that Lesser and his team will succeed in this important quotmove to collaborationquotAt the Relevance event and days later at Advertising Week New York there was much discussion about why Xandr was positioned for success when earlier bold moves by media companies have either not panned out as promised or are challengedamp160 Initiatives discussed included Canoe now known as a leader in VOD insertion but once heralded as the great hope for customization of national television Comcast39s acquisition of NBC Universal and of course Verizon39s Oath which had a management shakeup just days before the Relevance event even as itsamp160own national addressable sales are boomingWhen asked about that during anamp160Adamp160Week panel Welch noted that differences included the assets brought together within Xandr including the quot400 engineersquot at Xandr asset ad tech company AppNexus as well as the timing of such a move today at a time when it has become clear to media companies that bold moves are required to compete with the largest digital advertising sellers like Google Facebook and Amazonamp160 At another Adamp160Week panel David Kline President of Charter39s Spectrum Reach had a similar mindset about collaboration within the industryamp160 quotIf people from Mars were to attack earth tomorrow even earth nations at war today would band together to fight them offquot he saidamp160 quotWe need to embrace new ways of working togetherquotamp160 Industry experts expect Charter to have a more robust addressable program in the near futureWorth noting is that the national rep firm NCC which is owned by Charter Cox and Comcast will continue to represent Xandr locally along with Altice Frontieramp160and other television distributorsamp160 That organization is now led by CEO Nicolle Pangis another Xaxis alumAt the opening reception for the Relevance event keynoted by Arianna Huffington of Thrive Global Jamie Power Chief Operating Officer of Cadent39s One2One Media spoke about how impressive it was that ATampampT had been able to bring together executives from so many different companies in the ecosystemamp160 Power a leader in addressable television and for brands using datadriven linear addressed a shared desire to make precision audience targeting on television a genuine option for marketersamp160 quotATampampT bringing so many together here to talk about advertising that is more relevant for consumers and brands is a big deal for the media communityquot she declaredamp160 quotThese are the people and companies needed to drive real changequotClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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How Xandr's Partnership with Altice and Frontier Impacts National Buying Community

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Kathy Newberger

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How Xandr's Partnership with Altice and Frontier Impacts National Buying Community

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