Crackle Plus will continue to use iSpot.tv’s cross-platform TV ad measurement capabilities for its AVOD streaming services, with the partners signing on for a renewed relationship through 2023.
It marks the third year the companies are working together. Stu Schwartzapfel, SVP of Media Partnerships at iSpot, noted that “Crackle was among the first streaming publishers in the market to integrate cross-platform ad verification as a tool for demonstrating the unique value and audience it can deliver, something that also helps brands feel confident in their investments.”
As part of the extended relationship, iSpot.tv will continue to provide its Unified Measurement product to brands working with Crackle Plus on CTV to quantify incremental reach delivered over linear investments and will also provide support for select programmatic direct campaigns. Crackle Plus this year intends to use iSpot’s ability to measure segments in order to quantify the targeted reach and frequency for Crackle campaigns.
Darren Olive, EVP of national advertising sales strategy for Crackle, said the company is thrilled to offer its growing cohort of brand marketers direct viewership data that reinforces the value of premium content.
“In-market campaigns resulted in driving not only incremental but efficient reach across the increasingly fragmented video landscape,” Olive stated. “We look forward to our continued collaboration with iSpot.tv to identify new strategies for optimizing campaigns targeted towards specific audiences.”
Crackle Plus, owned by parent Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, has streaming services that just reached a distribution benchmark of 85 touchpoints in the U.S., including platforms Amazon Fire TV, Roku TV, Apple TV, smart TVs from Samsung, Lg and Vizion, gaming consoles PS4 and Xbox One, Plex, iOS and Android mobile devices.
As for iSpot, the measurement company has integrations with over 300 streaming publishers, 500 brands, ad delivery platforms and 95% of the TV networks in North America.
iSpot has been moving along in gaining prominence in the alternate measurement space, including being chosen as a provider for alternative currency initiatives for NBCUniversal and other currency pilots with major media companies. At the start of the year iSpot announced a multi-year landmark deal with NBCU, making the measurement company one of its preferred partners across NBCU’s One Platform. It included support for NBCU’s audience verification initiatives for ads and program ratings, with a pilot currency test during the 2022 Olympic Winter Games and Super Bowl LVI.
The deal was part of NBCU’s effort to use a broad range of performance metrics to update the way video is valued, bringing advertisers more accurate and timely insights on the way audiences consume content, according to iSpot. At the time, iSpot said the “test-and-learn” approach (with NBCU also tapping Comscore and VideoAmp in April for side-by-side performance comparisons) would lay a new foundation for how NBCU transacts during the 2022-2023 Upfront cycle. In March NBCU said it would be transacting off of iSpot data during the upfronts, though Nielsen was also still involved.
Just last week NBCU said it closed a record-breaking Upfront season, and disclosed the highest adoption of new currency models as 40% of its upfront business was conducted outside of traditional age and gender currency guarantees.
In recent months iSpot also got a $325 million investment from Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which acquired a significant minority stake in April and highlighted the move as coming at a time when iSpot’s utility as a TV currency was gaining adoption. At that point iSpot had completed 60 currency pilots, such as with NBCU along with agency holding companies and brands surrounding not only the two sporting events as previously mentioned, but also Q1 inventory across NBCU linear and streaming.
WarnerMedia and Paramount also used iSpot as a currency pilot for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
In iSpot’s first 10 years of business since its 2012 founding it raised $58 million, and now generates over $100 million in annual recurring revenues.
“We believe iSpot’s industry-leading scale in viewership data and its ability to deliver cross-screen audience and performance measurement in real time uniquely position the company to support the TV advertisement ecosystem in advancing the industry’s measurement standards,” said Joon Park, managing director at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, at the time of the investment.