Havas Media taps Comcast’s FreeWheel to scale US CTV campaigns

Comcast’s advanced advertising unit Freewheel has scored an agency win, with Havas Media North America selecting the company as a preferred supply-side platform (SSP) partner for premium video inventory.

As part of the deal, FreeWheel and Havas Media will work together to scale premium CTV campaigns for U.S. advertisers. In addition to CTV, the company said FreeWheel is now one of Havas Media’s preferred SSP partners for premium video inventory across programmatic guaranteed and standard private marketplace deals that the agency holding company buys on behalf of its U.S. clients.

In a statement, Havas Media’s SVP, Group Director of Investment Operations Tom Grant said the agency looks forward to working with FreeWheel to advance programmatic CTV buying, while pointing to qualities of streamlined media supply chain and transparency.

“In our selection of an SSP partner, we sought a company that understood and championed a better approach to driving innovation in the TV ad ecosystem, as well as our commitment to creating and driving meaningful media strategies for our brands in North America,” stated Grant. “FreeWheel stood out as a leader in this respect, through its big picture, future minded approach in delivering on results via premium video inventory for marketers, streamlining the media supply chain, and industry leading transparency.”

In announcing its selection, FreeWheel called out key benefits for marketers with its integration as a preferred SSP, including direct access to CTV programmers and MVPDs across more than 90% of the premium video ecosystem; a commitment to fair auction mechanics and pricing structures for efficiency in programmatic marketplace; and a simplified and optimized media supply chain with strict quality standards and fraud monitoring and enforcement.

“This collaboration brings together two like-minded partners who recognize and deeply value the importance of solving for some of today’s most pressing industry needs, including driving greater scale and transparency, simplifying complexities and delivering for our clients,” said Katy Loria, chief revenue officer at FreeWheel, in a statement.

Loria joined FreeWheel last July as U.S. CRO, tasked with spearheading growth of the sell and buy sides of the unit’s advertising marketplace. FreeWheel has made it a focus to address TV industry advertising needs of simplicity efficiency and scale, in part working to enable addressable and programmatic efforts within the fragmented streaming TV ecosystem.

The unit has marked traction in recent months such as Fox in November, which signed a deal with FreeWheel to better manage direct-sold advertising campaigns via the OneFox advertising platform. Estrella Media in December partnered with the vendor to boost direct and programmatic advertising throughout its streaming inventory.  

Deals have come alongside tech improvements on FreeWheel's part, including a new unified yield set of capabilities for publishers that allows them to automate prioritization of programmatic demand and increase access to premium video inventory that’s normally inaccessible because of guaranteed deals.

Last summer, FreeWheel also took aim at ID challenges facing the TV advertising industry, piloting a new solution to support and provide interoperability with ID solutions from a range of companies. According to FreeWheel, the goal is for advertisers to easily connect first and third-party data IDs from different sources, ultimately providing increased scale, optimal reach and frequency for TV ads.

The latest partnership with Havas comes as investment in CTV is expected to tick up this year even as ad spending growth is projected to slow in 2023, according to a November outlook from IAB. The IAB results, based off a survey of buy-side ad investment decision makers at brand and agencies, pegged media investment via CTV to climb 14.4% year over year, while spend on traditional linear cable and broadcast decreases 6.3% this.