With Today’s Announcement, Xandr Could Be Bigger For AT&T Than Streaming

Combining the reach and impact of traditional TV advertising with the targeting of digital has long been the Holy Grail for brand marketing and the focus of investment and research by everyone from startups to media giants. Today one of those efforts appears to have broken through at scale as AT&T’s advertising unit Xandr announced it will be bringing data-based precision ad-buying tools to media giants including Walt Disney, AMC Networks, and AT&T’s WarnerMedia division. The new tool could be a game changer in a US media market worth upwards of $240 billion in 2019, with TV advertising account for a large but shrinking share of that total.

The company announced the rollout of its enhanced Xandr Invest buying platform, a self-service tool that allows media buyers to perform precise, data-driven targeting of audiences for linear ads such as 30-second television spots across networks. According to Xandr, the solution reaches 76% of all US households, with a potential reach of 208.2 million total viewers per month. Xandr Invest will be available for TV buyers through an open beta for the 2020 upfronts.

Xandr, which was formed in 2018, uses data gathered from AT&T’s platforms, including mobile, internet and TV services, to identify target audiences across different touchpoints in a single buy. According to the company, that adds up to 170 million direct-to-consumer relationships. This vast data set helps advertisers better understand the connection between their high-level brand advertising, lead generation and sales conversion, demystifying some of the uncertainties surrounding the ROI on linear media ad buys. Xandr says the tool also allows for more automated, data-driven TV buying, bringing the television ad space closer to the efficient and instantaneous programmatic models that predominate in digital.

“Providing relevant advertising to interested consumers in a premium content environment is a top priority for the industry. Xandr Invest provides powerful technology and unique consumer insights that enable advertisers to reach consumers in an engaging way,” said Brian Lesser, CEO of Xandr. “Working with marquee media brands like AMC Networks, Disney, and our sister company WarnerMedia, will help us create a unified, data-enabled solution for advertisers, which is the future of TV buying.”

“Working with a technology partner like Xandr will further accelerate our advanced advertising capabilities,” said Rita Ferro, President, Disney Advertising Sales. “Having the right technology platform will enable us to offer buyers unique data sets, unified audience segments, and a self-service tool to improve the experience of buying data-driven linear across the Disney platform.”

AT&T’s decision to make the tool available to partners including Disney, which competes with WarnerMedia in a number of areas across broadcast, streaming and content development, demonstrates that the parent company sees greater value in monetizing its tool broadly across the industry as opposed to retaining a competitive advantage for its owned platforms. That strategy reflects AT&T’s complicated identity as a carrier, media company, platform, and a consumer brand in its own right with an interest in targeting customers every bit as compelling as that of any other prospective user of Xander’s tools.

“We’ve always sought out innovative advertising solutions that can reliably deliver the results our brand needs, and this new effort – with its scale and audience-based approach – is just that,” said Fiona Carter, Chief Brand Officer, AT&T Communications. “We look forward to working with Xandr to consolidate our spend across these premier programmers by using Xandr Invest.”

Considering the scale of the launch and the capabilities that Xandr promises, this could end up being a very big deal for a brand marketing space that is increasingly hungry for answers about audience targeting and advertising effectiveness and diverting larger and larger shares of media spending toward data-driven digital platforms like Facebook and Google.

In a media universe where all eyes are on AT&T’s WarnerMedia and the impending launch of its HBO MAX streaming service, this wonky piece of behind-the-scenes technology might end up being a surprisingly important story, providing debt-laden AT&T with a big winner in a revenue-rich corner of the business.