Variety: Warner Bros. Discovery Aims to Help Advertisers Redirect Commercials to Best Audiences

Story from Variety:

Warner Bros. Discovery has a new tip for TV advertisers: Stop beaming so many of your commercials at older viewers of traditional TV.

The company, which owns boob-tube mainstays like TNT, TBS and Food Network, is launching a new data platform called “Olli” that it says will help sponsors figure out how to put commercials in front of consumers most likely to be interested — without putting the bulk of them before a less-defined mass of viewers binge-watching, say, daytime TV — and instead examine both digital and linear audiences.

“We can take a look at the whole audience and build the linear and digital schedule simultaneously, rather than buidling the digitla after creating the one for TV first,” says Ryan Gould, head of digital ad sales for Warner Bros. Discovery, in an interview.

The company unveils the new offering just a few weeks before the start of the industry’s annual “upfront” market, when U.S. TV companies try to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory ahead of their next cycle of programming.

Warner Bros. Discovery is currently partnering with Omnicom Group’s OMG, the independent agency RPA and the online retailer Wayfair. Interpublic Group’s Mediabrands will start testing the new system in the third quarter of 2024.

“What we are going for is optimal reach, reaching the optimal amount of people the optimal amount of time rather than reaching a small group too often,” Gould says. Many advertisers have grown concerned about how many times a consumer sees the same ad within a single viewing experience, particularly as more streaming services offer packages that cut back on the number of commercials show per hour compared with traditional TV.

Others are also trying to re-orient the way they sell their inventory so that advertisers can place commercials more precisely based on data that shows when and where their most likely consumer targets watch particular pieces of content.