Simplified Ad Planning & Buying: Cadent Rolls Out a Cross-Screen TV Platform

Of great importance to Eoin Townsend, Cadent's Chief Product Officer, is Aperture's flexibility in pinpointing the target audience that a particular campaign intends to impact, no matter where or how the audience watches.

Processes that used to take two or three weeks can be accomplished by Aperture users in a day, Townsend said.

When user's login to the Aperture platform, they are presented with an intuitive dashboard for TV media buying, planning and measurement across channels featuring three tools: Connect, Activate and Enable. The platform is a fully independent and open ecosystem – equipped to work with any inventory supplier, which Townsend deems crucial for making addressable TV sales. "You have to break down walls, not create walls," he said.

The user can use the Aperture Viewer Graph to onboard their first-party data, so they can leverage what they know about their existing customers.

Third-party data accessible through the Aperture Data Marketplace is matched at the household level, so that what makes up a targeted consumer base, like car buyers or frequent fast-food restaurant visitors, can be defined with greater accuracy. Further, these audience segments can be mapped back to traditional demographics, helping to bridge the gap between linear and addressable TV targeting.

"You can create new sets of data on the fly [and] search anything you want," Townsend said. "We can do everything within our platform, or we can make connections outside of our platform."

The data sources also can assist advertisers and agencies in learning where specific types of viewers watch more frequently -- whether their TV destination is one network, or a multichannel bundle reached through cable systems or smart TV devices.

With Activate, campaign formats, schedules and budgets can be structured and deployed on chosen TV services. A user can enter a variety of information and create a specific TV campaign within minutes. Aperture allows for the implementation and negotiation of rate cards within the platform and empowers users to adjust campaigns by certain thresholds including number of impressions reached, budget and geotargets. Users then sign off on all elements of the workflow through the platform's order approval.

Aperture technology also enables multichannel video program distributors (MVPDs) and publishers to manage and monetize their inventory in smarter, more effective ways. Publishers can onboard their own first-party data and make it available within the marketplace, providing deeper audience insights and driving demand.

Cadent's clients, which include a number of top national advertisers and major publishers, are impressed with how the tech is dramatically reducing workflow time and costs, according to Townsend.

"Everything [before] was done on spreadsheets. You had to talk with multiple people. There was no tracking or reporting. It was all done in a fragmented way," he explained. "We want advertisers and publishers to work together and simplify their workflow to sell more advertising."

Townsend believes that because of Aperture and other innovations, TV advertising will be dramatically different in five years. "These systems will become gateways to the home for any kind of content. The role Cadent plays is making every kind of TV ad easier to buy," he said.

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