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Comcast (CMCSA) Brings Addressable Advertising to Local Markets

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Comcast (CMCSA - Free Report) is making a major push into addressable advertising with the expansion of its Audience Addressable solution to local and regional advertisers, as recently announced by Effectv, the sales division of Comcast Advertising. Previously only available to national brands, this move opens up CMCSA's deterministic viewership data to a much wider pool of advertisers.

What makes Comcast's offering stand out is the use of authenticated viewership data rather than less reliable IP address matching. This results in much higher initial audience match rates of up to 95%, according to CMCSA. The ability to reliably identify audiences opens the door to more cost-effective ad campaigns by limiting wasted impressions.

Early testing has shown that effective CPMs for addressable campaigns outperform traditional linear TV buys, pointing to efficiency gains. Comcast believes categories like political and auto advertising could see major benefits from the granular household-level targeting capabilities.

While addressable advertising is not new, CMCSA's ownership of the full TV viewership stack from distribution to ad sales gives it a unique position. By opening up its data trove, Comcast can offer targeted advertising at a national scale — a potent combination resonating with some agencies already.

As data-driven, multi-screen ad campaigns become the norm rather than the exception, Comcast is arming itself to be a major gatekeeper in the addressable future of TV advertising. Whether advertisers will be willing to pay a premium for such targetability remains to be seen.

Comcast Flexes Its Advertising Muscle, but Faces Formidable Rivals

Comcast's expansion of its addressable Audience Addressable advertising solution to local and regional markets represents a major offensive in the battle for advanced TV ad dollars. The cable and broadband giant is leveraging its unique assets to stake a claim as a gatekeeper in the addressable future.

At the core of CMCSA's pitch is its unprecedented viewership dataset covering more than 28 million households across its footprint. By combining deterministic TV viewing data with digital identity graphs, Comcast can offer advertisers laser-focused audience targeting across multiple screens through a unified ad buy. This level of targetability and consolidated cross-screen delivery is a major advantage as advertisers grapple with the fragmentation of TV viewership.

However, Comcast is not without its competitive challenges in this lucrative but increasingly crowded market. Shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have plunged 10.7% compared with the Zacks Consumer Discretionary sector’s decline of 2.3% year to date due to tough competition. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Foremost among its rivals are streaming giants like Netflix and Disney (DIS - Free Report) , which are rapidly building out their own data-driven advertising capabilities. With its broad consumer touchpoints spanning streaming, linear networks, theme parks and more, Disney's own data holdings should not be underestimated.

Traditional media rivals are making major addressable pushes of their own. Paramount Global (PARA - Free Report) is aggressively pitching its unified advertising capabilities after consolidating its streaming and linear ad stacks. Warner Bros. Discovery is touting its own deep well of premium video inventory.

Meanwhile, companies like The Trade Desk (TTD - Free Report) have been working to create interoperable standards for unified cross-screen campaigns using aggregated data from publishers and MVPDs.

On the device front, major streaming platforms and smart TV manufacturers are angling to insert themselves into the addressable supply chain through ACR data and preferred advertising offerings.

In this fiercely competitive landscape, Comcast will need to continually defend its position as an advertising innovator and its value proposition as a one-stop shop for premium addressable video inventory. Its deterministic viewership data is a key advantage today, but competitors are quickly evolving their own data and identity solutions.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CMCSA’s 2024 revenues is pegged at $123.16 billion, indicating year-over-year growth of 1.31%. The consensus mark for earnings is pegged at $4.21 per share, which has remained unchanged over the past 30 days. The estimated figure indicates year-over-year growth of 5.78%.

The addressable TV advertising market is still nascent but poised for explosive growth as advertisers follow viewers into the streaming age. While Comcast has potent strengths and an early lead, maintaining its momentum will require continued investment and strategic foresight as deep-pocketed rivals increasingly encroach on its territory.

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