xG GamePlan playing integral role in custom 9Galaxy ad buying automation platform that is transforming how advertisers reach audiences

Imagine Communications, which provides open, end-to-end ad-tech solutions for broadcasters, content owners, MVPDs and vMVPDs, today announced its evolving role in Nine Entertainment Co.’s breakthrough 9Galaxy automated TV trading platform. As one of the largest free-to-air broadcasters in Australia, Nine is changing the game for how audience buying takes place across its programming, helping media agencies remove 80 percent of the workload associated with trading TV by moving away from spot-based sales. Nine is using Imagine’s xG GamePlan™ cloud-native booking optimizer to take an audience-based approach to ad inventory management to deliver campaigns as efficiently as possible. The rollout expands Imagine’s long-standing work with Nine in support of multichannel playout.

“We know that audience-based buying is the future of TV trading and built 9Galaxy to lead the market to a near-term destiny where platform-agnostic ad buying was a reality,” said Mat Yelavich, CIO at Nine. “Imagine’s xG GamePlan offers the most advanced inventory optimization capabilities and a proven ability to deliver on our evolving roadmap at our desired pace to fulfill our 2020 vision of making all inventory available for advertisers and brands in an automated way that delivers supreme value and reach.”

xG GamePlan is a booking optimizer that helps broadcasters, service providers and content providers work with advertisers to ensure that available ad inventory delivers the highest possible value. It ensures all opportunities are monetized without over-delivery, allowing even last-minute campaigns to be planned simply, accurately and effectively, enhancing relevance by automatically adjusting campaigns when projected viewer demographics shift. Nine is using xG GamePlan to optimize advertising inventory across four channels, each with five regional variations, taking advantage of key capabilities that include:

• Smooth to reduce manual processes by analyzing spots booked into programs against business rules such as sponsorship agreements, product clash, program-based ad restrictions and more to best place a spot within breaks contained in the booked program.
• Inefficient Spot Removal to accommodate ratings predictions changes during the life of the campaign. When this occurs, a spot previously placed for a specific demographic by the optimizer may no longer be the most effective placement; the placement is canceled with campaign targets adjusted to reflect the cancellation and fed back into the optimizer.
• RightSizer to address campaigns that are overdelivering on ratings delivery targets by a certain percentage. The least efficient campaign spots are canceled until the campaign delivery is reduced to within the desired percentage range.

“Nine laid out a clear vision for how it wanted to transform TV trading, and at the heart of this new approach was the bold promise that it would guarantee audiences in what is a complete paradigm shift for ad buying in the region,” said Rob Malcolm, senior vice president of global sales for Imagine Communications Ad Tech. “Executing on such an advanced strategy requires a close partnership, and we are proud to be moving in lockstep with Nine as we expand our joint work in a shared effort to deliver the best and most valuable experience for advertisers that want to reach audiences in new ways.”

The highly scalable and flexible xG GamePlan optimizer is easily integrated into multivendor environments with existing business systems through open APIs to provide comprehensive control and visibility. It will be on display at Imagine’s booth at the 2019 NAB Show (SL1516), where the company will share insights, innovations and customer success strategies from the frontlines of global video transformation.

For more information please visit www.imaginecommunications.com

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About Imagine Communications
Imagine Communications empowers the media and entertainment industry through transformative innovation. Broadcasters, networks, video service providers and enterprises around the world rely on our optimized, future-proof, multiscreen video and revenue enablement solutions every day to support their mission-critical operations. Today, nearly half of the world’s video channels traverse our products, and our software solutions drive close to a third of global ad revenue. Through continuous innovation, we are delivering the most advanced IP, cloud-enabled, software-defined network and workflow solutions in the industry. Visit www.imaginecommunications.com for more information, and follow us on Twitter @imagine_comms.