Amagi to geo-target HUL ads on Nickelodeon

With the use of Amagi's DART technology platform, Viacom18 will facilitate HUL to simultaneously run different television ads in different regions on their kid's channel.

Amagi Media, Hindustan Unilever (HUL) and Viacom18 have struck a deal which will enable HUL to get geo-targeted advertising on Nickelodeon. Given TRAI's recent 12-minute ruling on advertising, broadcasters and advertisers have been seeking ways to optimise their return on investment and stretch the time within the limited inventory, and this is a step towards it.

With the use of Amagi's DART technology platform, Viacom18 will facilitate Hindustan Unilever to simultaneously run different television advertisements in different regions on its kid's channel. The innovation will allow HUL to micro-target its communication in each region.

There are two ways by which Amagi Media works. Firstly, through local ad buys wherein the advertisers buy ad inventory for each of the regions (say Gujarat, Mumbai, Punjab). For this they pay a fraction of the national price, albeit only for the selected region.

The other method is Creative versioning, which will be implemented in the case of HUL here, where different television creatives in terms of product variants or a different creative rendition of the same advertiser is played in different regions on the same channel simultaneously.

According to Srinivasan K A, co-founder, Amagi Media, in these cases, clients continue to buy their ad inventory from TV channels. With Amagi technology they get the feature to have different brands or messaging across different geographies. They have to pay a premium on their existing national buys to enable this capability.

Srinivasan adds that this is the first time worldwide in television advertising that a single spot bought nationally has been used to communicate different brand messages in different regions. "We are happy that we have been chosen as the partner to enable this innovation. Such micro-targeting is going to be the future of television advertising."

Sudhanshu Vats, group CEO, Viacom18, says, "As a leading broadcaster, Viacom18 has been pioneering several innovations and has been at the forefront of providing newer platforms for improved customer deliveries. This initiative further builds on our strategic thrust of sharper segmentation. We are pleased to partner with Amagi and Hindustan Unilever on this unique concept of micro-targeting."

Amagi claims to provide geo-targeting on 15+ TV channels across news, sports, movies, music, lifestyle and GEC genres. The channels include Times Now, CNBC Awaaz, IBN7, CNN-IBN, UTV Movies, Zoom, Maa Movies, Udaya Movies and Udaya Music.