Cadent enhances its addressable TV solution and core system

Wednesday, July 19th, 2017
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Cadent’s Addressable Linear TV Solution Unlocks Scale, Analytics, and True Cross-Platform Reach for Advertisers

  • Recently Awarded Patent Places Cadent in Unique Position to Deliver Adaptable Addressable Technology for the Pay-TV Industry

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Cadent, a leading provider of media, advertising technology and data solutions, today announced its technology arm (formerly BlackArrow) has made extensive enhancements to its addressable TV solution and core system, alongside a granted patent for their unique technology. The company’s addressable TV solution streamlines targeted advertising across traditional linear television, rounding out their unified multiscreen advertising system that helps the pay-TV industry monetize video delivered to any screen at any time. The company is currently engaged in deploying its technology platform with two tier 1 pay-TV service providers to unify advertising execution capabilities across addressable linear, OTT and VOD. Cadent expects the customers to be live by the end of 2017.

Pay-TV service providers worldwide have been under pressure to not only provide addressable advertising across traditional television, but to match the scale, advanced reporting and analytics that are offered on digital platforms. Additionally, advertisers are demanding cross-platform reach, which requires service providers to connect multiple viewing platforms in a single infrastructure. Adapting new technologies that provide digital-like capabilities and centralized operations among currently siloed viewing platforms in a service provider’s legacy infrastructure has historically been challenging.

Cadent’s recently enhanced addressable TV solution allows the pay-TV industry to go toe-to-toe with digital’s reporting and analytics. The network based addressable TV solution is built on top of the same core components used for deploying the company’s existing multiplatform advertising technology, where its unified ad control plane offers real-time access to reporting data that enables optimization of campaigns on the fly, such as pacing, metering and rebalancing across all screens. Other existing addressable TV deployments have limited feedback capabilities, and take weeks to get performance data.

“Tackling the industry needs for cross-platform optimization and solving some of the technological hurdles tied to deploying addressable tech were our main objectives,” says Stephanie Mitchko-Beale, CTO and COO, Cadent. “Understanding the nuances of existing traditional TV infrastructure and the specific needs of agencies and advertisers for addressable TV has enabled us to deliver a sophisticated and diverse piece of technology that moves addressable TV advertising into the digital era.”

Core System Enhancements

As a standard function of the network based solution, Cadent performs its ad decisioning on the server side (in the cloud), which limits the strain of requirements on the set-top box, enabling agile deployments for service providers, promoting addressable TV scale worldwide.

Cadent’s core system has recently received two significant enhancements that enable the addressable TV solution to 1) connect with the company’s flagship unified multiplatform advertising system, and 2) seamlessly integrate with third-party ad systems through open standards (SCTE and IAB) and flexible APIs. These enhancements have also enabled TV service providers to seamlessly integrate with content providers’ preferred in-house advertising systems.

Both enrichments to the core system allow service providers to aggregate inventory and audiences from every consumer viewing platform; enabling them to execute true cross-platform campaigns for their advertising partners. Cadent’s multiplatform portfolio now consists of traditional VOD, IP VOD, network DVR, OTT, OTT linear and addressable linear platforms. With the solution now folded into Cadent’s family of video platforms, service providers and content providers can execute multiplatform campaigns in a single campaign line with unified reporting and analytics.

Additionally, the core system’s progressive functionality can connect with new video platforms as they emerge.

New Operational Dashboard

The operational dashboard provides an unprecedented opportunity for service providers and content providers to have a single, holistic, visual representation of the end-to-end dynamic ad insertion (DAI) platform. The dashboard provides a dynamic and comprehensive set of metrics for service providers to immediately assess the health of the platform. Some available metrics include granular visibility into asset acquisition, configuration status, addressable advertising signaling and measurement statistics. These proactive analytics enable the operator to optimize their advertising platform to maximize DAI revenue streams.

The operational dashboard can select specific set-top boxes (STBs) across multiple regions to light up, rather than having to push market by market. This functionality promotes the expansion of available addressable households.

“Transitioning to Cadent’s network-based decisioning offers service providers multiple approaches to real-time dynamic ad insertion,” said Les Carter, VP, Chief Architect, Cadent. “The network-based intelligence defined in our addressable TV patent has also allowed our tech to adapt to legacy infrastructures, integrate with various ecosystem tech players, and has laid the foundation to accommodate future technologies.”

Moreover, the granted patent further substantiates the unique properties of Cadent’s astute solution. The Addressable Linear Digital Advertising System Utilizing CPE Splicer patent outlines the technology’s configuration options for ad insertion that adapt to service providers’ varying legacy infrastructures. This is the eighth patent granted to Cadent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, with additional patents pending.