Comcast Purchases Ad-Tech Firm Visible World

Comcast has agreed to buy Visible World, a New York ad-tech firm that helps marketers tailor commercials to specific audiences and geographies, the companies confirmed. The move would help the Philadelphia media company, best known for its large cable business and its NBCUniversal operations, extends its reach into the burgeoning world of helping advertisers navigate a better-defined path to consumers using data and technology. A Comcast spokesman did not respond immediately to an e-mail seeking comment.

A Visible World executive, Bill Katz, confirmed the transaction and referred a query to the companies’ statements. Comcast has been making more noise about using its vast stores of viewership data culled from viewers set-top boxes to help advertisers place ads in front of discrete batches of audience. During a recent “upfront” presentation in May, Linda Yaccarino, who oversees ad sales at NBCUniversal, told marketers the company would be able to use Comcast set-top box data to help them tailor ad placements and mine better-defined audiences. Visible World also uses set-top box data, among other sources, to help place commercials. Terms of the transaction could not be immediately learned.