Roku targets addressable TV primacy with Nielsen deal | WARC | The Feed

Roku targets addressable TV primacy with Nielsen deal

Roku is buying Nielsen’s Advanced Video Advertising unit in a deal that will turn the US streaming platform into a significant addressable advertising player.

The deal, first reported by Variety, means Roku will acquire Nielsen’s automatic content recognition (ACR) and its dynamic ad insertion technology (DAI), giving advertisers better targeting and measurement capabilities, allowing them to place highly targeted, household-level advertising spots. The capability will allow Roku to work with linear TV programmers and turn regular TV ads into digital ones.

• Nielsen’s Advanced Video Advertising unit had reportedly struck agreements to carry out addressable ad tests with a number of big TV brands, including Disney, CBS, Discovery, Fox, NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia, A+E Networks and AMC Networks. Roku says it will now have “renewed conversations” with these programmers and others about working to enable addressable ads.
• Roku’s big advantage is its scale – it had 51.2 million active accounts by the end of 2020, and its Roku Channel reached some 61.8 people in the US in the fourth quarter. 
• Immediately after the Nielsen deal was announced, Roku revealed it aims to sell as much as $1 billion of its shares as part of a plan to grow its business, using the cash for “working capital and general corporate purposes, including sales and marketing, research and development, repayment of debt, capital expenditures and acquisitions or investments”.

Key takeaway

Spending on addressable TV advertising in the US is still only a tiny part of the total TV ad market, but is forecast to reach $3.6 billion by next year, an increase of 75% from August 2020. This deal puts Roku in a strong position to grab a slice of that market, while delivering streaming advertising to traditional TV networks.

Sourced from Variety