LONDON — British satellite TV and telco operator BSkyB hopes its AdSmart technology – one of the world’s largest real-world deployments of addressable TV – will soon extend to more TV channels and more countries.
Launched in January after lengthy gestation, AdSmart sees different ads served to different viewers by storing alternate ads on their respective Sky+ connected set-top boxes, triggered by refined customer profiling techniques.
“Sky AdSmart is the culmination of five years … and about £100 million ($162 million),” Sky Media deputy MD Jamie West tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “It’s the single biggest project that I think Sky has ever undertaken. Over the coming months, we’ll be announcing more channels … and, hopefully within time, we’d like to be able to announce some third-party channels as well.”
On linear TV, AdSmart is currently enabled on Sky’s owned-and-operated channels plus Fox Channels and A+E Networks. Audi has used the technology to show ads for its high-end cars only to affluent consumers, as determined by known characteristics that are more detailed than conventional demographics.
At IBC recently, West announced 224 brands have run 640 individual campaigns using Sky AdSmart, yielding, 577 million views in Sky homes. BSkyB is also mulling taking AdSmart to Germany and Italy if it gains regulatory approval for acquiring its sister companies there.
This is part of the State of Video, a series sponsored by AOL Platforms. The video was recorded in London. Please visit this page for all the videos from the series.