Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising company, today announced the release of a new feature on its platform, described as content metadata for video. The new feature aims to help publishers improve monetisation of their premium video supply through standardised content descriptors.

Whilst contextual solutions for programmatic have historically been built for the web, where a text-based environment makes it easy for anyone with a URL to understand and classify content, streaming environments do not provide the same advantages. In video, content changes frequently even as the URL or app remains constant. As each publisher has different ways of labelling content, buyers find it challenging to forecast, target, transact and report at scale across premium video inventory. Xandr’s new feature will standardise content metadata making it simple for both publishers and buyers to better represent and identify video content.

The new feature will ensure publisher’s metadata is standardised into Xandr’s taxonomy. This means that Xandr will take the thousands of unique genre values and simplify these into standardised categories using its fields including duration, delivery type, genre, program type, rating, network, and language. Xandr also offers multiple integration options to make it easy for publishers to send their metadata, including automated live content mapping to ensure there is comprehensive coverage. Currently, over 50% of transacted CTV impressions on Xandr Monetize include content metadata.

“As video continues to grow, Xandr is leading the way in standardising content metadata to help our customers across both the buy and sell-side better understand premium video. Content metadata for video will allow publishers to capture unique spend as it unlocks demand for contextual audiences and will give buyers insight into content so they can make informed decisions. All while matching ads to relevant content to create a better experience for viewers,” comments Lynn Chealander, director, product management, Xandr.

“We’re always finding ways to make our video inventory more appealing. Xandr’s new feature gives us the ability to execute more accurate and streamlined deals for buyers by enabling contextual targeting and reporting on video content. The integration was seamless and allows us to provide more transparency in the marketplace to drive additional spend,” adds Eric Fitzpatrick, vice president, strategy, Glewed TV.