AT&T Plots New Marketplace for TV and Digital Video Advertising

AT&T's advertising chief said the company’s acquisition of AppNexus is part of a strategy to build a first-of-its-kind marketplace for television and digital video advertising and give it more firepower against industry juggernauts Google and Facebook. AppNexus offers technology that helps advertisers buy ads, using automated software, across a range of websites and apps. The company also supplies technology to publishers so they can manage and sell ad space on their websites. Its marketplace, which connects both the buyers and sellers of ads, extends into the video and web-connected television space. The technology could help AT&T capitalize on the media content it added through its recent purchase of Time Warner Inc., owner of CNN, TBS and TNT. But Brian Lesser, the CEO of AT&T’s advertising and analytics group, said that the company’s ambition is not just to help boost ad revenue from its own content but to create a platform that also connects advertisers with audiences from rival media outlets, across television and digital video. AT&T also wants to offer data to allow advertisers to measure the “real performance” of their ad campaigns, such as whether someone who saw an automobile ad on their connected TV walked into a car dealership, Lesser said.