Sky extending AdSmart to on-demand services

Andrew Griffith

Sky is planning to extend its AdSmart targeted advertising platform to on-demand services, and to market it more extensively to third-party content providers as well as providing it on Sky’s own channels, according to Andrew Griffith, chief financial officer and managing director, content business.

In a blog posting, Griffith said that AdSmart would be launched on its set-top box-based video-on-demand services in the spring.

“The service began with ad insertion into linear broadcast. But, as we know, viewing habits are changing fast and we’ve seen an explosion in On Demand as more of our customers take advantage of the opportunity to watch their favourite content as and when they want. So it makes sense that we’ll continue to develop the Sky AdSmart capability across all screens and platforms. The first of these will be video on demand on the set top box, coming later this spring,” he said.

Griffth said that the platform, which launched on Sky’s wholly-owned channels, was now available on 34 channels. He said that Sky would continue to extend it to “additional media partner channels and third parties”. Griffith said that Sky also planned to “add further capabilities to the way we target ads, meaning both viewers and advertisers will continue to benefit from an even more tailored service”, without giving details of these.

AdSmart delivers a range of ads to set-top boxes in its subscribers’ homes and then uses publicly available information to identify groups of demographics, selecting the ad best suited for that particular home. The company has added postcode targeting to the range of options available in a bid to attract more local advertising on its channels.

Griffith said that Sky had delivered 1,000 campaigns from 357 advertisers in the year since the platform launched.