Signaling its renewed focus on targeted TV advertising, AT&T's (NYSE:T) advanced advertising unit, AdWorks, announced an upgrade to its TV Blueprint ad network that will allow brands to target audiences based on key mobile device information.
Anonymous/aggregate data from AT&T Wireless' 70 million subscribers will be combined with TV audience information (also aggregate and anonymous, AT&T insists) culled from AT&T U-verse single-individual households. This data, AT&T says, will allow advertisers to target audiences based on what mobile device they use, what operating system is employed on their device, their data usage plan and their plan expiration date, among other factors.
In October, AT&T announced the shuttering of Mobile Blueprint, which also tracked its mobile users' behavior, letting advertisers target specific types of people with mobile ads.
"AdWorks is refocusing on advanced TV, mobile and online advertising with our owned and operated properties, including U-verse TV, uverse.com and att.net," AT&T told Business Insider at the time. "We are moving away from our previous online and mobile ad networks, which represented only a small percentage of our business. As part of this realignment, we are reducing jobs that were dedicated to those previous ad networks we will no longer operate."
AT&T says the latest TV Blueprint upgrade will allow brands to target more "tech savvy" TV viewers, allowing them to know what networks they're watching, and what times of the day they're doing this viewing.
"AT&T AdWorks TV Blueprint is the most efficient way to buy targeted TV advertising at scale," said Mike Welch, president, AT&T AdWorks. "By adding anonymous and aggregate AT&T mobile subscriber data, we are giving marketers the ability to reach their target TV audiences with greater accuracy."
For more:
- read this AT&T AdWorks press release
- read this MediaPost story
Related links:
AT&T to close and revamp location-based 'Alerts' marketing program
AT&T shuts down mobile part of AdWorks advertising network
AT&T prepping sale of customers' anonymous location information and Web, app usage data