Ampersand, an advertising sales and technology company co-owned by Comcast, Charter and Cox, introduced a new self-serve feature in limited beta release.
The new functionality is being built into The AND Platform, the company’s multiscreen TV planning, buying and measurement platform launched at the beginning of 2020. The company said its platform provides marketers with reach across 85 million households, more than 120 cable networks and more than 60% of all U.S. addressable households.
The beta is expected to run through the end of 2020 with general availability expected in the first quarter of 2021. Ampersand will still provide its managed service for The AND Platform.
"We launched the AND Platform earlier this year as a managed service platform solution for both local and national advertisers, to better target, buy, measure, and optimize their multiscreen TV campaigns in a unified and more effective manner," said Ampersand CEO Nicolle Pangis in a statement. "The launch of our self-serve Beta for the AND Platform is a meaningful step in Ampersand's mission to help evolve the TV industry to be audience-first with scale of inventory, insights and superior measurement across multiscreen TV."
RELATED: Cable-backed Ampersand to sell Verizon Fios addressable TV ads
"We're excited to be an early adopter of Ampersand's self-serve offering of the AND Platform as it marks the next evolutionary moment in our business to become audience-first," said Jenifer Peischel, senior vice president and director of local media at RPA, in a statement. "The AND Platform not only gives us the planning tools we need to execute on an audience first strategy, but the audience and market level reporting that we need to truly optimize our local TV investments."
Ampersand said that local TV advertisers will now be able to define their target audiences using their own first-party data or by choosing from audience segments built with data provided by Experian, Polk and other partners. Local TV buyers will also now have access to always-on, audience-based campaign reporting including impression delivery, unduplicated audience Reach, frequency of exposure and audience lift index.
For national TV advertisers, The AND Platform now offers access to audience-based campaign viewership insights.