Comcast, Charter, and Cox band together in hopes to build advanced TV adtech pipeline
Charter Communications, Comcast Corporation and Cox Communications, owners of NCC Media has announced the creation of a new division within NCC to design, deploy and sell unified advertising solutions across NCC's participants' national footprint.
Comcast, Cox, and Charter band together for to create a unified advertising solution for television advertising / Steve Johnson via Unsplash
Using non-personally identifiable data and targeting capabilities, the group made from the three largest broadband providers in the US has plans to create advanced video advertising products that deliver greater scale, audiences and measurement to meet current and future demands of advertisers.
Comcast has assigned its Media 360 (CM360) national advertising sales team to make up the foundation of the new group, along with talent and resources from NCC Media, Charter and Cox. The group has been assigned to build products that deliver targeted audiences across linear and video on demand (VOD) platforms. It will also be tasked with driving research, data and analytic capabilities to provide consistency in how the advertising industry measures the effectiveness of an advertisement and simplify how agencies manage campaigns.
Andrew Ward, who currently serves as vice president, CM360, will head the new group as general manager. Ward, who previously spent 15 years at NCC Media, has more than 30 years of experience bringing new advertising solutions to market. At Comcast’s Spotlight division, he launched the company's addressable advertising platform as well as new data and analytic capabilities.
Ward said: "In today's rapidly changing media marketplace, advertisers are looking for scale, reliability and proven results to reach audiences across devices and time. Charter, Comcast, Cox and NCC Media are uniquely positioned to lead this industry evolution with integrated advertising solutions driven by non-personal data, precise audience delivery and robust performance measurement."
Thomas M. Rutledge, chairman and chief executive, Charter Communications said: "This new group within NCC Media has the ability to make a major impact for all players within the advertising landscape," "It has the power to transform the way we measure advertising effectiveness across linear and VOD through best-in-class data and technology."
Pat Esser, president of Cox Communications, added: Together with Charter, Comcast and NCC Media, we have the scale needed to provide even better value to our customers, and we are committed to defining clear standards around measurement that will help marketers better plan, buy and execute campaigns,"
David Watson, president and chief executive officer of Comcast Cable said: “Today's announcement is a natural extension of the great work we are already doing with Charter, Cox and NCC Media in cable advertising. Together with our partners, we have new opportunities to build advanced advertising solutions that deliver scale, consistency and reliability,"
Greg Schaefer, NCC Media's president and chief executive officer, who recently announced his retirement, effective December 31, 2018, added, "We are eager to bring together the people and platforms that will power this new division of NCC, and help drive the future of video advertising."
The planned group has been slated to launch later this year, and will be spearheaded by NCC Media's board of directors: led by David Kline, executive vice president and president of media sales at Charter Communications; Billy Farina, senior vice president at Cox Media; and Marcien Jenckes, president of advertising at Comcast Cable.