Kevin Arrix 1
DISH Media announced that its set-top box Video On Demand (VOD) ads are available for purchase programmatically and in real time. Now advertisers can bid on this premium linear inventory through private, real-time auctions set up with demand-side platforms, such as The Trade Desk, and deliver ads and receive impressions immediately. “DISH Media is continuously innovating to develop new capabilities that help advertisers make the most of their investments” said Kevin Arrix, Senior Vice President, DISH Media. “Enabling our set-top box VOD inventory drives programmatic video ads into traditional linear households, a previously untapped audience for digital buyers.” With its new VOD offering, DISH Media can now sell ads programmatically across both DISH and SLING TV platforms for the first time. Programmatic purchasing on SLING TV in 2019 contributed to more than 10,000 individual brands airing advertisements on inventory, growing from 7,500 the year prior. “We are agnostic toward whether brands use our managed services or programmatic advertising, and strive to ensure both solutions are equal in value,” said Arrix. “With programmatic execution growing across all mediums, we created this VOD offering to easily integrate into the existing environment, while introducing a new set of impressions to the market.” DISH Media’s new VOD inventory gives advertisers access to more than 60 premier TV networks on broadband-connected, set-top boxes, reaching millions of viewers. Ads are inserted via dynamic ad insertion (DAI), optimizing campaign creative and targeting criteria for buyers. The implementation of DAI allows DISH Media to expose its inventory to programmatic advertisers, attracting digital ad budgets that weren’t traditionally spent on TV. “Advertisers innately want to create bridges across the entire television ecosystem so they can reach their desired audience in every environment,” said Tim Sims, Senior Vice President of Inventory Partnerships, The Trade Desk. “DISH Media’s VOD capability gives advertisers a new set of inventory to buy in real time and way to scale their audience. This is a major milestone that showcases the massive opportunity happening right now in connected TV.”
