NAB 2016: Imagine Communications Expands Capabilities of Multiscreen Ad Insertion Solution

Imagine Communications (N2502), empowering the media and entertainment industry through transformative innovation, expanded its xG AIM Ad Insertion for Multiscreen solution with the addition of Placement Opportunity Information Service (POIS), Ad Decision Router (ADR), and Ad Decision Service (ADS) functionality. 

The addition of these software-based modules expands the dynamic ad insertion capabilities of Imagine Communications’ comprehensive advertising management systems, which span the entire revenue-enablement workflow, from proposal through fulfillment, and delivers to service providers a single, integrated solution designed to improve the precision of ad targeting and maximize the value of their ad inventories.

As the television viewing experience continues to evolve toward an anytime, any device model, content aggregators and distributors are challenged to supply consumers with relevant and timely ads regardless of when or on what device they are viewing video content. By strengthening and broadening the reach of its ad insertion ecosystem into nonlinear environments, Imagine Communications is better positioned to help video service providers deliver relevant ads in real-time across various stream types, including live, VOD and cloud DVR, and on subscribers’ preferred viewing devices.

”Addressable ads, when delivered to the right person on the right device, command premium prices for media sellers,” says Sarah Foss, vice president of product management, Advertising Management Systems, Imagine Communications.  ”Enabling the monetization of ad inventory across the multiplatform environment has become one of the most important and urgent challenges facing service providers today. Content distributors require sophisticated ad-placement technology that allows them to follow the eyeballs and present viewers with ads that are fresh, relevant and precisely targeted based on location, device type and other contextual factors.”

Imagine Communications addresses the complexity of multiplatform advertising with the CloudXtream Dynamic Ad Insertion platform, which utilizes advanced adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming to deliver hyper-targeted ads to smartphones, PCs, tablets, connected TVs, and virtually any other device that receives live or on-demand video programming.  Field-proven and among the most effective solutions available, Imagine Communication’s multiscreen advertising technology portfolio is further enhanced through the addition of the following functionality:

• Placement Opportunity Information Service. POIS works in conjunction with the xG AIM manifest manipulator and third-party ad insertion systems to identify linear ad positions, alternate content events, slates and blackouts, while providing attributes and constraints for each placement opportunity.  The scalable solution works with the Imagine Communications ADS and third-party ad decision servers and the Imagine Communications ADR and other ad decision routers to pre-fetch advertising placement opportunity information to spread the workload across large-scale operations.

• Ad Decision Router. ADR manages ad decision request distribution across multiple ad decision services to pre-fetch ad and blackout decisions to support peak demand times and to place and distribute advertising.  The system also manages protocol translation and the routing of placement opportunity requests, working in close conjunction with POIS and ADS.

• Ad Decision Service. ADS, a critical ad-targeting tool, creates opportunities for focusing ads at a national, regional or local level, as well as updating commercial messages to prevent them from becoming obsolete. ADS supports targeting by individual or zone, for linear, on-demand and DVR, as well as making alternate content decisions for content blackouts and other program substitutions.

These new components provide a complete real-time, multiplatform ad insertion and decision solution designed to assist service providers in creating new opportunities for advertisers to engage with viewers. The Imagine Communications ad insertion ecosystem provides the following additional benefits:

• Extends a proven, revenue-generating advertising model to TV Everywhere/multiscreen services
• Delivers fresh and relevant ads for all linear, VOD and cloud DVR content with hyper-targeting to individual subscribers, devices or DMAs
• Expedites time to market with an ultra-scalable and cloud-ready solution, supporting pre-, mid- and post-roll dynamic ad insertion
• Provides best-of-breed, pre-integrated ad and alternate content (blackout) solution with integrated geolocation
• Accommodates multiple content distribution network (CDN) configurations, including edge cache routing
• Manages encrypted content mixed with unencrypted ads, as well as network/ad profile matching
• Supports HLS, Smooth Streaming and DASH adaptive HTTP streaming technologies

The CloudXtream dynamic ad insertion platform is commercially available as a complete solution or as individual modules and will be demonstrated at the NAB Show 2016 in the Imagine Communications booth (N2502).