Amobee, a wholly owned subsidiary of Singtel and global leader in advertising technology, and smartclip, RTL Group’s leading European provider for ad-tech solutions, together announced their agreement to form TechAlliance, the European industry’s first end-to-end, broadcaster-centric, cross-screen advertising platform. This platform will provide advertisers with exclusive programmatic access to the linear ad break, including digital ads on linear TV inventories, as well as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), privacy-compliant audience and content viewership data across the region.
With monumental changes seen across the advertising industry—accelerated by shifting consumer preferences and new ad-supported connected TV players—this landmark partnership will empower broadcasters to take advantage of this quickly-evolving inventory landscape by tailoring the buying experience for advertisers. This will enable marketers to employ the same degree of data-driven tactics used for digital campaigns across their TV strategies.
By bringing together the advanced video and TV capabilities of Amobee’s demand-side platform (DSP) with the first-party relationships and yield optimization tools natively integrated into the smartclip supply-side platform (SSP), this new venture will proactively tackle the uncertain future of identity resolution within programmatic TV, the most sought-after addressable environment.
Data protection and privacy will be at the center of this joint offering, fortifying European broadcasters’ position against digital competitors and ensuring advertisers’ seamless access to premium video inventory in the rapidly changing advertising industry. This unique offering—supported by Amobee’s suite of cross-channel planning, activation, and measurement solutions—will eventually allow advertisers to combine linear TV, connected TV, over-the-top, and digital video touch points with downstream digital actions by consumers. This will enable brands to quantify the return on investment that these premium formats deliver.
With this planned, integrated ecosystem, European broadcasters will be able to control and curate how their products are offered to buyers as well as offer linear and digital programmatic TV capabilities at scale. This will ultimately make premium TV advertising opportunities available to new advertisers (e.g., niche, small, medium, and large enterprises), driving fresh revenue growth for media owners. Additionally, broadcasters will benefit from the efficiencies of shared planning and booking systems, the inclusion of new audience segmentation options, and better monetization of their inventory.
This transaction is subject to regulatory approvals, and is expected to be finalised in the first quarter of calendar year 2022.
This venture advances our efforts to protect the independence of European broadcasters with a European-built and controlled video marketplace where TV commercials across Europe can be holistically traded. While we initially looked to Amobee for their proven experience and expertise working with the largest broadcasters in the world, like ITV’s Planet V, it was quickly evident that our leadership, technology stacks, company values, and future business strategies were a natural fit for each other. Programmatic TV will be just the first step.”
Thomas Servatius, Co-Chief Executive Officer at smartclip
Maria Flores Portillo, Managing Director EMEA at Amobee: “Amobee’s planned collaboration with smartclip will allow brands to get much closer to the media and audiences that are most important to them with privacy-compliant cross-screen advertising solutions, especially as the industry moves beyond identity strategies that rely on third-party cookies. RTL Group and smartclip offer an expansive ecosystem for advertisers with the most premium content in Europe, combined with deep insight into cross-channel consumer behavior. This extended partnership shows the industry how Amobee and smartclip aim to tackle the next generation of TV and digital adtech innovation together by focusing on data privacy, inventory quality, and control to both ends of the supply chain.”
About Amobee
Finally, there is a technology that understands how people consume content today. Only Amobee makes it easy for you to find your audience—no matter where they are, no matter what they're viewing. We help brands, agencies, and media companies unify audiences to optimize advertising results across all linear TV, connected TV, and digital, including social media to deliver the results that drive customer growth. Amobee is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singtel, one of the largest communications technology companies in the world, which reaches more than 675 million mobile subscribers. The company operates across North America, Europe, Middle East, Asia and Australia.
About smartclip
At smartclip, we are shaping the future of video advertising—delivering advanced online video and TV advertising solutions. Our proprietary technology and services empower brands with true cross-screen storytelling on all devices, and enable broadcasters and publishers to monetise their content in the most efficient and effective way possible. We are committed to delivering the most innovative video ad experiences—spanning in-stream, out-stream, connected TV, addressable TV, and gaming. As a subsidiary of RTL Deutschland, smartclip is part of RTL Group—Europe’s leading free-to-air broadcaster group. Headquartered in Hamburg, smartclip has offices in Berlin, Munich, Düsseldorf, Gütersloh, Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Milan and Rome.