Warner Bros. and CNN are extending audience targeting tools in bid for more CTV share

According to Alex Hodge, senior director, digital ad sales and innovation at WBD UK and Ireland, the platform was intended to provide advertisers with “relevancy” in streaming environments. Brands, he said, “want to put their ads in the right environment, whether that is context or whether it’s in the right intent or the right interest for that user,” he said.

The platform, called AIM, allows Warner Bros. to address audience segments based on first-party data gathered across its media portfolio, rather than being based entirely on the context of its programming.

The audiences are based on information drawn from over 120 different data points, including viewing and web behavior across streaming, app, mobile and web content, said Hodge, who gave the example that combining user behavior from The Food Network content with other datapoints would allow it to create vegan-specific audience segments. “The richness of that data for certain brands is really important,” he said.

Those audience segments will be available through Connect, a marketplace platform built with adtech vendor Magnite, which was unveiled in May

While advertisers in search of say, car buyers, might have previously chosen to buy ad slots alongside media they considered relevant to that interest, they can now buy audiences based on data drawn from right across the WBD portfolio, and target them accordingly – even if they’re not watching something relating to cars.

“Typically it’s been a sell against what the genres are and what contextually you can buy into,” said Hodge. “Now what we’ve done is we’ve laid on the ability to have audience targeting on top.”

According to a Warner Bros. spokesperson, 50% of campaigns being run on discovery+ in the U.K. and Ireland were using AIM since June. Advertisers Adidas, British Airways and Lavazza have been using the platform since July. The spokesperson and Hodge declined to share how much spend those campaigns represented, and the companies didn’t respond to requests for comment at time of publication.

The platform was originally built for CNN in 2015, and has become an integral part of that network’s armory. Rob Bradley, svp, digital revenue, strategy and operations, CNN International Commercial, said it’s used on 90% of CNN’s digital campaigns. 

Behind AIM is a range of adtech vendors — including Snowflake, which provides the “data lake” software architecture underpinning AIM, and DMP provider Permutive.

Warner Bros. isn’t the only firm Permutive’s working with in this space. Morika Georgieva, director of customer success, Permutive, said the company is working with several broadcasters, including Brazil’s Globo, Canadian company Corus Entertainment, and European firm Mediaset on bespoke approaches to advanced contextual advertising. 

“The opportunity in front of us is understanding the behavior of our users on an extremely granular level,” said Georgieva.

The rollout of AIM is the latest update Warner Bros. has made to its digital advertising business, following the launch of Olli — AIM’s counterpart, tailored for the U.S. market, in April — and Connect, in May.

Though Hodge didn’t share pricing data with Digiday, he was keen to emphasize the premium positioning of AIM, which is not available on open auctions. “This is a high quality, premium environment. It’s household brands and franchises. It’s brand direct,” he said. 

Low frequency of ads within WBD’s streaming services, too, meant advertisers would be targeting audiences not over-burdened with advertising messages — increasing their chance of landing a message.

“We only have five minutes of ads per hour,” he said. “It is not the same as traditional TV. These are decluttered ad experiences. By having a solution where you can target users based on interests and intent and behavior, it allows for that experience to be better.”

As linear advertising revenues decline, media companies see streaming advertising revenue as a key part of their future business models. Warner Bros.’ second quarter earnings report showed that reported ad sales across its “direct to consumer” networks, which include both streaming services such as Max and discovery+, and HBO, increased to $240 million, up from $121 million during the same quarter in 2023, and up from $175 million in the first quarter of 2024.

“CTV is one of the fastest growing revenue lines in our business,” said Bradley. The company, which carries a considerable debt burden of $43 billion, is keen to see that increase further.

But until recently, some advertisers considered the measurement and targeting capabilities of media owners’ CTV offerings lacking.

“Targeting and measurement haven’t always been there,” said William Jones, senior director of advanced TV and omnichannel activation at Adform, an adtech company which operates one of the DSPs advertisers and media agencies use to place their ads on discovery+. With products like Olli and AIM now arriving in market, Jones said clients are going beyond dipping their toes into CTV.

Test budgets, he said, had doubled in two years from $16,000-$22,000 per campaign to $33,000-$55,000, while clients were beginning to scale up their use of the channel into significant buys.  “We’re getting regular six figure CTV campaigns,” he added.