Sky and ITV cosy up further for data-driven ad boost

Brand owners will now be able to scale up their addressable TV campaigns through a “new and improved” partnership between ITV and Sky, paving the way for ads that tap into ITV’s first-party data to run on Sky through the Planet V programmatic platform.

The partnership, which builds on the previous advertising and carriage agreement between the companies, covers all existing and future Sky products, with the two media firms insisting it will also provide new opportunities to collaborate and innovate.

This includes enabling ITV to launch addressable ads on Sky platforms across both VoD and linear viewing, tapping into the CFlight TV measurement tool. This scheme, which is also used by Channel 4, is designed to provide advertisers with a clear understanding of a campaign’s full reach and frequency across ITV, Sky and C4.

The current integrated ITV Hub service on Sky+ and Sky Q will be supplemented with the launch of the ITV Hub app on Sky Q during 2022. It is claimed this will provide Sky Q customers with more choice and flexibility, including the option to watch all of ITV’s programmes within the ITV Hub user interface. The ITV Hub currently has over 34 million registered users and around 452,000 Hub+ subscribers.

The broadcasters insist brands will now have increased opportunities to advertise through the data-driven video on demand platform, Planet V, which was launched late last year.

Planet V allows both advertisers and agencies to control the planning, purchasing and reporting of their campaigns on ITV Hub, and to optimise and monitor campaigns in real-time. It is driven by ITV’s first party data, which an be augmented with advertisers’ own data.

The addition of ITV content on Sky’s platform will also boost Planet V’s addressable inventory pool, offering advertisers additional targeting options and increased campaign reach, the companies insist.

ITV chief executive Carolyn McCall said: “We welcome the way Sky has continued to improve its product offering because viewers and commercial customers are at the centre of what we do as a business. This new and enhanced agreement to extend our relationship with Sky benefits both groups.

“This new commercial partnership brings many advantages for our advertisers and delivers on our objective of building a scale advertising-based video on demand proposition across the UK market and ensures ITV’s ability to deliver addressable advertising at scale on ITV Hub with Planet V.

“For ITV’s viewers, the partnership ensures that they have easy and widespread access to our breadth of programmes, ensuring that they can view ITV’s content in the most convenient and appropriate way to them.”

Stephen van Rooyen, executive vice-president and chief executive of UK & Europe at Sky, added: “ITV have been a longstanding partner to Sky and we are pleased to be deepening and extending our relationship. The great content provided by ITV will sit together with all the apps and content our customers love, and the ever-expanding slate of award-winning Sky Originals, all in one place on Sky Q.”

TOPICS:addressable TV data strategy data-driven marketing first-party data ITV programmatic Sky