Omnicom Media and Rembrand partner to evolve in-content ad placements

“We try to figure out where does a brand have permission to play, and then we build the experience from there,” said Anna Castro, executive director of Content Collective. Product placement used to be “manual, and you couldn’t really do it at scale in the way that this evolution with Rembrand is now at. [Omnicom works] to identify those shows and programs our audiences are disproportionately engaging with, and then we work with the publishers and streamers to find the right content spaces.”

The process unfolds with Omnicom Media using its RealID audience identification product within Acxiom matched with streamers’ viewership data to pick the right shows for a brand. That’s then mapped against in-content ad opportunities in VISTA. It can often be added onto more traditional ad buys as a means of enhancing those by virtue of being in-content.

For example, a packaged goods client could end up being inserted into an episode of a cooking reality show — after the show has been produced and shot. That advertiser then advertises in ad pods — and both reinforce each other. Although that idea isn’t new, the ability to do so post-production is. 

Megan Pagliuca, Omnicom Media’s chief product officer, pointed out that this partnership represents the first time a tool like this has been incorporated directly into Omnicom’s Omni operational system’s workflow. “This is the first time this capability has been used by the buy side. It has historically been a sell side technology,” she said. “We’ve also secured unique inventory that hasn’t been accessed this way before” from multiple publishers with streaming services, although she declined to identify them at press time.

“In-content advertising has always offered brands the opportunity to show up within content people have actively chosen to watch,” added John Sedlak, Rembrand’s CRO. “Our collaboration with Omnicom Media makes those opportunities easier to identify, plan and activate across premium streaming, bringing a new level of scale and consistency to the category.”

Keagan McDonnell, Omnicom Media’s head of partner innovation and strategic initiatives, added that the tech “helps you identify the places that we’re able to seamlessly integrate. And it’s important to understand, there’s this idea of virtual product placement, but in-content advertising really spans more than just the traditional idea of virtual product placement.”

OM client Cox Auto has already raised its hand to learn more about the new capability. “We’re always eager to learn how we can leverage new, scalable and organic ways to reach our customers within premium content,” said Jillan Davis, director of marketing technology at the company (which owns Auto Trader and Kelley Blue Book).

McDonnell explained that Omnicom Media is looking to use the tech with what it considers premium content. “The higher the perception of the quality of the show, the more impactful the in-content advertising is,” he added. “This idea of us working with the streamers and bringing on newer, higher quality content that we were getting access to is very important because it actually drives outsized impact to just standard in-content advertising.”

Omnicom Media’s Partner Intelligence team conducted research with Rembrand to evaluate the effectiveness of in-content advertising, finding that, when paired with traditional video ads, perceptions of premium content amplified the performance of ICAs, driving a 5.5 times impact on message recall, and a 4x increase in both purchase intent and perceptions of the brand as premium.

So is Omnicom Media charging a premium rate for this offering? Pagliuca would only say that “while we think we have appropriate rates around this that are different by network, this is still a bit of a nascent capability. As as we scale the volume, we then can also get more rate discounts.”