Viacom, Fox and NBCUniversal and Unveil OpenAP 2.0 Next Iteration in Collaboration with Accenture and FreeWheel

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- FOX, NBCUniversal, and Viacom today unveiled OpenAP 2.0, expanding the advanced audience platform into a centralized premium video marketplace with workflow automation for national linear and long-form digital video, developed in collaboration with Accenture and FreeWheel. This major development will go live in time for Fall 2019 campaigns.

In a joint statement, Meredith Brace, Executive Vice President of Client Solutions and Portfolio Marketing, FOX; Krishan Bhatia, Executive Vice President of Business Operations and Strategy, NBCUniversal; and John Halley, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Ad Solutions, Viacom, said: "We're thrilled to bring to market our latest iteration of OpenAP, which fundamentally transforms the way that advertisers can transact to deliver holistic advanced audience campaigns from start to finish on both linear and long-form digital platforms, in collaboration with Accenture and FreeWheel. OpenAP was the TV industry’s first open platform for cross-publisher audience targeting and independent third-party posting, and this is a major step in furthering our mission to bring the industry together to make audience buying more transparent, consistent, and effective."

With OpenAP 2.0, buyers will now be able to build consistent, cross-publisher audience segments for both national linear and long-form digital video, and submit orders to activate these segments through a centralized cross-publisher marketplace. Built in collaboration with Accenture and FreeWheel, OpenAP 2.0 will be accessible at OpenAP.tv and via APIs for agency planning systems and approved DSPs. In addition, OpenAP 2.0 will provide cross-publisher analytics for a unified view of advanced audience campaigns, with comprehensive pre-campaign performance projections and post-campaign delivery metrics, including total unduplicated reach, overall tCPM, and total audience impressions.

“Advanced targeting, transparency and simplicity are critical to our clients. OpenAP enables advertisers access to advanced audiences at scale with the highest quality TV content available across screens. FOX and the other members of OpenAP are committed to driving open standards that are essential to the success of our brand and agency partners,” said Marianne Gambelli, President, Advertising Sales, FOX. 

“With competition rising in every industry, marketers need new ways to define their audience and engage viewers across all platforms. Expanding OpenAP can help turn that vision into a reality. Krishan Bhatia and a group of industry leaders are creating solutions that will benefit the entire advertising ecosystem, and that should be commended,” said Linda Yaccarino, Chairman, Advertising and Client Partnerships, NBCUniversal.

“We’re incredibly proud of the pioneering work that our team and OpenAP partners have accomplished in unifying and standardizing the television business. OpenAP’s evolution into a transactional platform is intended to simplify activation for our brand and agency partners, which we believe will significantly impact the scale of advanced advertising moving forward. We couldn’t be more excited,” said Sean Moran, Head of Ad Solutions, Viacom. 

Launched in 2017, OpenAP was founded to make it easier for advertisers to reach unified custom audience segments across TV publishers by delivering consistency and standardization with secure segment sharing and independent measurement. Members of OpenAP include FOX, NBCUniversal, Viacom, and Univision. 

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