BlackArrow Demonstrates National And Local Dynamic VOD Advertising Solutions At CableLabs Advanced Advertising Interop

NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- BlackArrow, a worldwide provider of advanced advertising solutions for New Television platforms, recently demonstrated sophisticated, dynamic-advertising use cases that show how existing Pay-TV business and inventory models can be extended to on-demand viewing platforms.

At the CableLabs ® Advertising and Interactive Services Interop event in Louisville, CO, BlackArrow showcased technical and business solutions for allocating advertising inventory between service providers and affiliate programming networks - on both national and local levels - in adherence with the SCTE 130 standard. The demonstrations leveraged the BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System to highlight important workflow capabilities, including:

• Support for national and local ad splits via Stewardship and Fulfillment Interfaces (SaFI), Campaign Information Package (CIP) ingest, and SCTE 130 real-time ad-routing
• Mid-roll support via the BlackArrow Placement Opportunity Information Service (POIS) and Content Information Service (CIS) product modules
• A modular, scalable SCTE 130-based solution set for advanced advertising

The demonstrations at CableLabs highlighted two approaches that enable multiple advertising inventory owners, such as service providers and programmers, to dynamically execute local and national advertising campaigns within a single VOD program and session.

One approach showed how programmers' national ad campaigns could be flowed through the BlackArrow System for execution via the CableLabs draft CIP 3.0 specification, enabling service providers to exert full control over the ad decision and execution processes by aggregating all ad campaign instructions within their own VOD environments.

An alternative approach showed the execution of programmers' national ad campaigns via real-time routing of ad requests to a third-party Ad Decision Service (ADS) for fulfillment in adherence with the SCTE 130 standard.

"The ability to bring proven Pay-TV models to multiscreen, on-demand TV platforms is essential to foster rapid growth and to build a thriving advertising ecosystem," said Joe Matarese, Chief Technology Officer, BlackArrow. "BlackArrow's CableLabs Interop demonstrations showed how service providers can meet their own advanced advertising objectives, as well as those of national programmers, using solutions that seamlessly integrate with the existing systems and processes of all stakeholders."

In both the local and national advertising scenarios, BlackArrow's POIS component determined the appropriate ad loads and ad avail ownership rights, while the BlackArrow ADS module served as an essential component to fulfill all ad campaigns. The demonstrations also showcased BlackArrow's sophisticated mid-roll technology that is currently deployed commercially by several Tier-One cable system operators in North America. The BlackArrow mid-roll technology effectively grows the inventory available as part of multiscreen, on-demand programming, and enables service providers to employ different advertising-monetization strategies across various broadcast windows.