Origin Beta Trials Commence; Barb Expands Campaign Planning Tool; Pluto TV Partners with French AVOD Platform M6+

by Aimee Newell Tarín on 25th Sep 2024 in News

Today’s news: Origin Beta Trials Commence; Barb Expands Campaign Planning Tool; Pluto TV Partners with French AVOD Platform M6+

UK advertiser trade group ISBA yesterday announced the launch of Beta trials for Origin, its cross-media audience measurement platform. The trial will involve 35 of its members who will use the platform to measure real campaign data across Meta, YouTube and linear TV. This follows Alpha testing carried out by five advertisers (L’Oréal, EE, PepsiCo, P&G, and Unilever), using synthetic campaign data to review the platform’s interface and experience. So far, ten brands have commenced the onboarding process for the Beta trail: Confused.com, HSBC, L’Oréal, NatWest, PepsiCo, P&G, Red Bull, Tesco, Unilever and Virgin Media O2. Tesco has been one of the partners funding the initiative since it launched in 2019. The remaining number of brands will begin onboarding within the coming months. The platform’s full launch is expected early next year.

Meanwhile, Barb, the industry’s standard for TV measurement, has expanded its pre-campaign planning tool to include streaming services Netflix and discovery+. The tool – Advanced Campaign Hub – which launched back in 2020, allows advertisers to plan and optimise campaigns on a range of streaming services alongside linear channels and on-demand services. Netflix has worked closely with Barb so that advertisers can access a daily updated estimate of the number of TV set households on Netflix’s ad-tier subscriptions through the tool.

In other TV-related news, Pluto TV – Paramount’s FAST service, has inked a long-term deal with AVOD platform M6+, recently launched by French TV network M6. The partnership will bring M6 content channels to Pluto TV and a Pluto TV-branded section to M6+. Pluto TV users will gain access to six M6 channels representing around 2,000 hours of content, while M6+ users will gain access to 12 Pluto TV channels with around 3,000 hours of content. Their collaboration will also facilitate an advertising arrangement to scale Pluto TV in France; M6 will become the streamer’s advertising partner and be able to sell its inventory throughout the country.

While Paramount's streaming service puts down roots in France, the future is looking slightly more turbulent at Paramount Global. The company has initiated the next phase of its plan to lay off 15% of its US workforce, with the objective of increasing its annual cost savings. Following the current cut, Paramount Global said the layoffs would be 90% complete.