In a strategic move to enhance its approach to incorporating diverse audience data into commercial planning, Interpublic Group, the advertising holding company, is set to amplify its endeavors through a new collaboration with OpenAP. OpenAP, a consortium comprising major U.S. media entities, specializes in identifying similar consumer audiences across various platforms operated by different companies.
Under the terms of this recent agreement, Interpublic Group’s Magna media investment arm gains the capability to pinpoint distinct consumer audience segments and deploy targeted commercials through OpenAP. Magna will leverage data from Acxiom, a unit dedicated to housing and managing extensive customer data, acquired by Interpublic for $2.3 billion in 2018.
Larene Mantel, Vice President of Strategic Investment for Magna Global, explained, “We have numerous audiences built within Axciom that we want to distribute across all our video endpoints—across linear, CTV, OTT.” Utilizing OpenAP allows Magna not only to devise more effective strategies for reaching specific audiences but also to analyze the performance of ads in terms of recall, action, and other outcomes.
This partnership comes at a time when advertisers and media companies are gearing up for the upcoming “upfront” market, where TV networks aim to sell a significant portion of their ad inventory before the next programming cycle. With marketers increasingly interested in innovative audience measurement methods, U.S. media companies, traditionally reliant on Nielsen, are forging new deals with startups and competitors offering alternative audience measurement approaches.
Dani Benowitz, Global President at Magna, stated, “This partnership with OpenAP simplifies a complex process and provides the actionable data our teams need in the planning stage to maximize our clients’ investments.”
OpenAP, backed by major players like NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Discovery, Fox Corp., and Paramount Global, endeavors to assist advertisers in reaching specific consumer categories that remain consistent regardless of the company’s inventory being purchased. The collaboration aims to establish benchmarks that facilitate easier comparisons across the industry.
