HbbTV Association launches targeted advertising spec

The HbbTV Association has released its specification for targeted advertising. 

The association promises that the HbbTV specification for targeted advertising (HbbTV-TA) will “set a standard for broadcasters and the advertising industry” which will enable the creation of new business models and the generation of new revenue sources which have to date been restricted to OTT services.

The standard has been created in collaboration with DVB and it enables broadcasters to provide specific audience groups with customised advertising during commercial breaks, with the regular ads being replaced by targeted ones. HbbTV-TA also enables personalisation and localisation along with improved accessibility options.

Vincent Grivet, chair of the HbbTV Association, said: “The release of the HbbTV-TA specification marks a new chapter in the digital transformation of broadcasters. While keeping their unique asset of addressing a large mass market, they can now also address highly differentiated audiences, opening up new prospects for business growth.

“HbbTV-TA is the first open standard dedicated to targeted advertising in live broadcast TV, and it has a huge potential of adoption in Europe as the market is currently highly fragmented with several proprietary solutions. The development of the specification follows requests by broadcasters, once again confirming the close alignment of HbbTV with market requirements and business needs.”

DVB is also releasing its targeted advertising specification to complement HbbTV-TA with a standardised way of signalling the advertisement substitution opportunities in the live TV broadcast.