Channel 4
Better serving advertising inventory
Channel 4 was selling advertising space on its video on demand (VoD) platform in the same way that it sold display – as a highly commoditised product with a relatively low cost per million (CPM). But they realised that VoD is no different from linear (broadcast) television where different demographic groups are sold at a premium – so there was a significant opportunity to sell VoD inventory at a higher CPM.
We developed a suite of predictive models to identify registered viewers with a high probability of being ABC1 (social grade), house boss or house boss with kids. This gave a new source of inventory to sell at a higher CPM.
One of the learnings from these initial models was how predictive engagement with different types of content was for identifying different demographic groups. We then built additional demographic targeting models for anonymous (cookie based) inventory – this was a significant win for the business as it released a large amount of additional inventory that could be sold at higher rates.
To ensure the validity of the new inventory, the models and data were audited by PWC prior to the new advertising products being taken to market.