Amobee and ITV Announce Exclusive Technology Licensing and Innovation Partnership

By STS News Desk On Apr 5, 2019

Amobee and ITV Announce Exclusive Technology Licensing and Innovation Partnership

Leading Technology Platform Will Power ITV’s Ambitions in Advanced TV and Programmatic Advertising

Amobee, a global digital advertising technology company, announced a partnership with ITV—the United Kingdom’s biggest commercial broadcaster—for the exclusive UK and Ireland licensing of Amobee’s technology for end-to-end programmatic buying and selling of premium video on the ITV Hub. The agreement will enable ITV to offer advertisers advanced solutions and programmatic access within its portfolio of premium digital video inventory across ITV properties exclusively through the Amobee platform.

Amobee and @ITVmedia—the UKs biggest commercial broadcaster—announce exclusive technology licensing partnership, enabling ITV to offer advertisers advanced data solutions and programmatic access exclusively through the Amobee platform.

The agreement with ITV, one of the world’s leading broadcasters, is Amobee’s most significant move into the television space following its acquisition of Videology assets in 2018. Amobee collaborates with major broadcasters across the globe to deliver best-in-class digital capabilities that bridge the gap between digital and television data and are specifically designed to enhance the television advertising proposition for leading brands and agencies.

The ITV and Amobee partnership will span advertising for all digital video content types, available exclusively through Amobee’s platform, including long-form video on demand (VOD), live-streaming video and short-form video across all consumer devices, allowing advertisers complete control over the planning and purchasing of their campaigns across ITV’s premium VOD service, the ITV Hub.

This new functionality means ITV will now give advertisers the best of both worlds—the ability to deliver mass simultaneous reach across linear channels, alongside targeted, data-driven addressable advertising on the ITV Hub—appealing to a wider range of advertisers and meeting advertisers’ expanding requirements while maximizing the commercial return for ITV. Amobee’s dashboard gives brands and agencies the functionality to plan and buy their digital VOD campaigns whenever and wherever they want.

“ITV is working to deliver the most ambitious programmatic video initiative in the United Kingdom, a testament to their innovative, forward-thinking leadership among broadcasters and commitment to invest in new video technology,” says Kim Perell, CEO of Amobee. “Amobee’s strategic partnership with ITV will unlock the value of advanced TV for both ITV and their customers across the United Kingdom.”

As part of the partnership, Amobee and ITV will collaborate to develop the industry’s next-generation solutions for the convergence of TV and digital media across all devices. Under the deal, ITV will consolidate programmatic access to its media with the Amobee demand-side platform.

“This agreement enables ITV to respond to our customers’ needs of frictionless targeted advertising in a brand safe environment complementing what they currently do on our channels,” says Carolyn McCall, CEO of ITV. “It accelerates the strategic development of our VOD advertising capabilities and provides a technology platform that will enable ITV to create an industry standard for VOD to match the established system for linear advertising.”

“This brings the functionality that’s previously only been available on large social platforms to the ITV Hub – offering addressable, targeted advertising around premium content,” says Kelly Williams, Managing Director of Commercial at ITV. “Our exclusive license to use Amobee’s technology and develop it to best serve the needs of advertisers enables us to create our own platform, and as that rolls out we’ll look to invite other broadcasters to join.”

The ITV Hub has more than 28 million subscribers, with over 79 percent of all 16-34-year-olds in the UK registered on the service, and saw a 32 percent increase in viewing in the past year with over 446 million hours of online viewing. The ITV Hub had its biggest ever day on July 3, 2018, when, thanks to the World Cup and Love Island, the Hub received a record 9.7 million simulcast (live) and catch-up requests. England’s semifinal against Croatia saw 4.3 million simulcast requests, the Hub’s biggest ever number for live programming.