Targeting Growth with Data-Driven, Cross-Screen TV Advertising

In today’s fragmented TV landscape, it’s not easy for brands to reach specific target audiences wherever and however they’re watching. Cadent helps advertisers and media companies overcome this challenge with data-driven solutions that identify, target, and reach the right viewers in the right places, across cable, broadcast and digital media, in hundreds of millions of households.

For more than a decade, Cadent has partnered with 3Pillar Global to expand their technical resources and develop advanced capabilities to not only compete in an evolving media environment but also scale their business and grow.

Challenge:

Enhance Ad Delivery and Generate Revenue

Getting ads in front of the right audiences has never been simple, even when traditional, linear TV was the only show in town. But it became even more complex when streaming media platforms like Netflix and Hulu revolutionized viewing habits, prompting many households to “cut the cord” and splintering “must-see TV” audiences across a kaleidoscope of screens.

That’s when Cadent engaged 3Pillar to help them enhance their solutions and make it easier to buy, sell, and deliver advertising and reach target audiences across channels and screens — from linear television to connected TV (CTV) to on-demand video. Each viewing mode requires different standards and features to support dynamic ad delivery, so new functionality was needed to serve ads to viewers based on their specific preferences.

Solution:

Enabling a Dynamic Media Marketplace

The 3Pillar team worked in close partnership with Cadent to help them develop technical functionality and digital products such as Aperture, a purpose-built platform that powers advanced TV advertising and monetization. Cadent customers can buy dynamically from anywhere and collaborate with multiple ad exchanges to target highly specific TV audiences by segment, household, and device.

Aperture’s Multiscreen Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) functionality enables brands to deliver ads to hard-to-reach, high-value audiences wherever they are watching and provide more relevant, behavior-based ads for a better consumer experience across viewing platforms.

Thousands of ad campaigns can be running at the same time on the same program, with data determining which ads a targeted audience will see. This makes it possible to increase reach while not serving the same ad to the same customer too many times.

Advanced ad media features include smart ad routing, pacing, forecasting, ad separation, optimization of ad reach over frequency, local ad replacements, support for HTTP interfaces (VMAP/VAST), and many more.

We’ve also built new capabilities to support additional platforms like IPTV, linear TV, EPG, addressable linear TV, etc.

In addition to the Aperture Platform itself, 3Pillar teams have helped Cadent with a variety of technology and digital product initiatives, including:

• Subscriber information system: Developing an advanced analytics platform that collects, manages, and productizes audience data, enabling cable companies and content providers to trigger ads based on target audience specifications.
• Platform modernization: Migrating core systems to the cloud to enhance security, reduce operational costs, and facilitate faster innovation.
• Data lake: Engineering solutions for a new data lake connected to Aperture, including QA testing for data models and business reports.

“I never considered 3Pillar as an external vendor; they are an extension of Cadent. We rely on this team to release the features we need frequently because they are important for business growth.”

– Vinod Vijyan, Vice President, Cadent

Outcome:

Powering the Evolution of TV Advertising

Bringing our Product Mindset to drive continuous innovation, 3Pillar has worked alongside the Cadent tech team to develop better products, enabling them to increase reach on different platforms, acquire new customers, and generate more revenue. This in turn has allowed Cadent to help their customers to better manage their audience, reporting, and reach — and move to the forefront of the ad media industry.

Our platform modernization efforts have significantly extended the longevity of Cadent’s platform, transforming it into a cloud-ready, highly scalable system that can be deployed in the cloud or on-premises.

The technical improvements we implemented have enabled the Aperture platform to integrate with other platforms — helping to grow Cadent’s business organically. And they’ve made it possible to operate more cost-efficiently, handling greater loads with less maintenance while requiring fewer people.

This ongoing work provides a solid foundation for the next phase of innovation, including a demand side platform that will enable a forecasting model for more accurate predictions and advanced reporting and contextual targeting capabilities. Acquired by Novacap in August of 2023, Cadent has all the pieces in place to develop a blockbuster season of growth, backed by an experienced team they can trust to deliver.

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