New biddable ad sales channel could generate extra revenue

Ad tech company Beachfront said it has developed a new system that enables programmatic advertising sales for multichannel video programming distributors' set-top-box video on demand inventory.

Beachfront said the new tech stack has been directly integrated with what it described as a top-ten MVPD, allowing the unnamed operator to be able to execute dynamic ad insertion in the VOD environment in real time, and plug directly into the fast-growing demand side for digital over-the-top inventory.

“This new VOD product is more than a decade in the making. We’ve invested heavily over the years to develop what is now a turnkey system for MVPDs,” said Beachfront CEO Chris Maccaro. “And with an immense amount of complicated development work behind us, we’re pleased with how smoothly our new product was integrated with one of the top MVPDs in the U.S.”

Beachfront has been placing an emphasis on TV advertising. The new product creates a biddable sales channel that can increase demand for set-top VOD inventory.

“Set-top box VOD inventory is some of the highest value inventory in media. We can now offer the market VOD advertising that is easy to buy, fast to market and optimized for a better home viewing experience,” said Maccaro. “Longer term, we aim to impact addressable linear, unifying inventory and impacting ad sales across the MVPD’s stack.”

Letting MVPDs tap into programmatic demand wasn’t easy. Frank Sinton, president of Beachfront and a founder of the company, said Beachfront’s engineering team was engaged with the MVPD for nine months.

“We went live a couple of months ago,” Sinton said, adding that Beachfront could now get another MVPD into the lab phase of testing the software in about 30 days.

Speed is one factor that makes Beachfront’s technology unique. “The first time a campaign goes live in a VOD environment, it’s actually about 15 minutes. It’s extremely fast,” he said. “For every other user it’s real time. It’s actually real-time bidding. So it’s extremely efficient.”

Maccaro said that Beachfront is now in active discussions with five of the top MVPDs “Hopefully we’ll have a lot more momentum to share as we round out Q2,” he said.

II think we’ve removed a lot of the barriers for other MVPDs now to enable similar technology. It’s about working through the process.” he said.

Eventually Beachfront would also like to help MVPDs sell their linear inventory as well. “It’s on the roadmap,” Maccaro said. “We’ve started the initial development discussions. It’s a bit more complicated.”

For now, Beachfront is providing its software on a flat CPM model. “I think we’re fairly flexible,” Maccaro said. "I think the business model is going to figure itself out over time.”