TVB Releases Programmatic Guidelines
TV station groups are creating standards and guidelines for programmatic advertising, the Television Bureau of Advertising said in a news release Wednesday. Programmatic ads use automated ad buying and selling, data and targeted ads to compete with digital advertising tech. TVB released a collection of suggested guidelines and best practices for the new type of ads in an online document and asked for edits and suggestions. "These guidelines will be maintained as an open and collaborative effort between broadcasters, advertising agencies, rep firms, aggregators and platform providers," TVB President Steve Lanzano wrote. "This document is expected to continue to evolve through successive updates, and is open to input from all companies and individuals who wish to contribute."
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Programmatic advertising is seen as letting broadcasters offer advertisers the same data collection and ad targeting advantages available in digital ads. According to the proposed guidelines, programmatic ads include automated transactions and “leverages data sources” for both buyers and sellers. The technology will allow broadcasters and advertisers to lower the costs of sales, the guidelines said. Lanzano has said programmatic technology could allow advertisers to buy national broadcast ads without having to make individual deals with every broadcaster involved (see 1506250060).
The guidelines have a large section on transparency, including “exposure of information about demand and inventory.” The guidelines suggest programmatic ad tech involve “a common set of non-proprietary [application programming interfaces that] should be available for broadcasters and complementary platforms that is consistent across programmatic buying and selling systems.” The guidelines seek to “establish an open and level playing field while enabling each station to individually determine and distinguish the value of their inventory."
The guidelines aren’t intended to be binding but instead to inform companies interested in programmatic advertising about the considerations involved, Lanzano said in an interview. Though programmatic ads are still nascent, Lanzano said he expects the guidelines to be improved as more transactions take place using the technology and some idea of best practices emerges.