Sky Media unveils range of advertising enhancements

Source: Adobe Stock

Sky Media, the advertising arm of Sky, has revealed a set of initiatives and innovations at its upfronts event on Friday, hosted by Sky Media Managing Director Brett Aumuller and his team. 

Sky Media announced a scaled-up four-million household viewing panel, an enhanced digital proposition including new TikTok, Global and Lad-Bible partnerships, the unveiling of Voice Ads, Sky Live Video Booth, Contextual Targeting and a £1 million arts initiative.

Sky Media is increasing its household viewing panel from three million homes to four million. It says the panel will allow increased match rates and more viewing information across all UK TV channels and includes new viewing platforms including Sky Glass and Sky Stream.

Sky Sports was announced as the first UK partner of TikTok Pulse, a contextual advertising solution on the social platform which allows agencies and advertisers access directly through Sky Media.

Partners of Sky Media will now get advertising access to content from Fremantle, Lad-Bible and Joe Media helping advertisers to engage audiences with video across a broader range of genres, according to Sky Media

For contextual targeting, Sky Media said that for the first time content advertisers will be able to align ad placement with the help of written, audio and visual metadata created using advanced AI. Over 5,000 pieces of VOD content have been scanned and tagged against the IAB content taxonomy so far. Each tag uniquely includes a sentiment score to identify positive and negative moments for advertisers to align their messages with, according to Sky Media. Advertiser tests starting in 2024.

Sky is also developing advertising opportunities where a user can give voice commands via remote or Sky Glass during an ad, signalled by an on-screen prompt. The user is then taken to a page dedicated to the advertiser, hosted in the interface.

Sky is also opening up its recently launched Sky Glass interactive camera to advertisers, starting with Video Booth which allows brands to create custom branded filters for users to interact.

Meanwhile, new eco-conscious attributes for Sky’s targeted ad platform AdSmart allows advertisers to reach audiences that value environmental factors, including climate change, pollution and recycling. Advertisers will also be able to identify individuals that are more likely to consider social matters such as community and human capital concerns, as well as governance issues including workplace ethics.

Sky Media together with Sky Arts have also announced the launch of the ‘Generation Arts Project’, offering up to £ 1 million in media value for brands, agencies and organisations to pitch for.