RTL Group and Amobee team up for addressable TV

RTL Group has announced a partnership with Amobee to strengthen their ad-tech businesses in continental Europe. RTL Group and Amobee will establish a jointly owned sales and services company called TechAlliance, which will combine the ad-tech services of Amobee and Smartclip in Europe.

The agreement is subject to regulatory approvals and expected to close in the first quarter of 2022.

RTL Group and Amobee will align their product roadmaps to build an integrated ad-tech offering that unites the complementary strengths of their businesses:

• Amobee is a global player in advertising technology for brands, agencies and major broadcasters including Univision, Fox and ITV. Through its demand-side platform (DSP), Amobee will gain exclusive programmatic access to the addressable TV inventory of broadcasting partners from RTL Group and Smartclip.
• Smartclip – part of RTL Deutschland – is a European provider for ad-tech solutions. Smartclip will provide specialist supply-side solutions, such as its supply-side platform (SSP), TV data management engine and addressable TV suite.
• Yospace – acquired in 2019 by RTL Group – provides advanced technologies for server-side dynamic ad insertion (SSDAI), enabling traditional commercials to be replaced by targeted, personalised advertising. Yospace’s technology solutions will be leveraged by the TechAlliance offering.

Thomas Rabe, CEO of RTL Group, said: “Addressable TV advertising offers huge growth potential for European broadcasters. The newly formed TechAlliance is a landmark partnership towards seizing this opportunity. It gives European broadcasters and streaming services access to a technology solution which allows them to combine the high reach and brand safety of linear TV with the targeting solutions of digital advertising. The TechAlliance will set market standards in the European TV industry, giving advertisers and media agencies seamless access to our premium video inventory.”

As addressable TV will grow available inventory, attract new advertisers and deliver higher CPMs, market studies predict that addressable TV could account for 30 per cent to 50 per cent of all TV advertising spend in Europe in the long term. In Germany alone, addressable TV advertising is expected to grow to more than €500 million by 2025.

Rabe continued: “RTL Group’s strategy is based on three priorities – core, growth, and alliances and partnerships. With RTL AdConnect, Bedrock and our new TechAlliance, we offer partnership opportunities to other European broadcasters in the areas of advertising sales, streaming technology and advertising technology – all based on the philosophy of bundling resources to establish open and neutral platforms. We are in advanced talks with several European broadcasters to scale up our international platforms, which complement our goal to lead in-market consolidation throughout Europe.”

Nick Brien, CEO of Amobee, added: “Amobee’s collaboration with RTL Group to form TechAlliance is a pioneering example of our companies’ complementary business strategies: to bring buyers and sellers closer together through mutually-beneficial solutions and technologies that allow for a thriving independent ecosystem. The TechAlliance is a major milestone for the advertising industry in Europe, giving advertisers programmatic access to the most expansive pool of addressable pan-European premium content, underpinned by privacy-compliant and future-proofed audience solutions. It gives broadcasters the ability to combine sales and technology to scale their operations – extracting the most value from their data and inventory assets. The TechAlliance is truly the next wave of ad tech innovation: powering the convergence of TV and digital.” Advanced television