The search behaviour habits now being leveraged can be combined with any of 1,000+ existing AdSmart attributes – from postcodes to life stage, or mosaic groups – to refine campaigns. Ruth Cartwright, Investment Director at Sky Media, believes that, “Being able to embrace the best capabilities of digital but in the brand safe, big-screen world of TV, makes campaigns more relevant and impactful.”

Sky says its latest advertising innovation is driven by industry demand to bring digital and TV campaigns closer together. “Search Behaviour attributes allows brands, for the first time, to target audiences based on specific online search behaviours, including frequency and intent,” the company explains.

Seven search behaviour categories are available at launch: Home & Garden, Travel, News, Job & Education, Arts and Entertainment, Games, and Pets & Animals. As well as mixing this knowledge with existing AdSmart attributes, it can also be matched to advertiser first-party data. “As an example, a custom campaign could see a holiday or insurance company target those who are actively searching for holidays or flights. This could be further refined or creatively adapted to those looking at beach, sightseeing or ski holidays in a specific area of the country,” Sky Media explains.

The Search Behaviour targeting capability has been developed in conjunction with Captify, which boasts of having the largest onsite search dataset outside walled gardens, harnessing 1+ billion searches a day on 2+ billion devices covering 6+ million websites from over 1,500 publishers (and all in five languages!). Captify emphasises how up to date its data is (real-time), demonstrating interests and needs right now. Captify talks of having “the first intent-powered audience platform for the open web”.

The solution enables brands to tailor their campaigns around target locations (from country, county, city, down to the postcode level), as well as the demographics and estimated affluence of the household, and change which content is played for the sponsor media depending on who is watching. For example, Sky Media says that “a car brand could change the car model featured depending on the affluence or life-stage of the household, or change the scenery and voice-over depending on location.”

Smart Sponsorships is powered by the same technology as AdSmart, Sky’s addressable TV solution which launched in the UK in 2014 before expanding to European markets three years later. Sky Media says that brands using AdSmart have seen a 48% reduction in tune-away during ads, a 35% increase in engagement and a 10% increase in spontaneous recall.

Dev Sangani, Advertising Capability and Strategy Director at Sky Media, says: “AdSmart pioneered the use of TV addressability and that same technology will help do the same for sponsorships. With rich data, exciting creative possibilities and trusted and engaging content, this latest innovation will help brands create even more effective partnerships with our shows and channels.”

Sky Media wants to reward the businesses that are demonstrating true resolve and ingenuity. “Businesses of all types are adapting to the current climate but can further thrive with the extra exposure TV can deliver,” the company says. “From local garden centres delivering flowers and materials for the first time, to yoga and dance studios keeping people fit with new online classes, the businesses that are selected to be part of the SME100 will be representative of the whole of the UK.”

Creative execution of the ads will be supported by local creative agencies and through an exclusive partnership with the media library Shutterstock. Shutterstock will assist the 100 businesses by providing complimentary access to high-quality images, video and music to aid the creative process and effectively tell their story with engaging content. “In doing so, the SME100 and Shutterstock will enable local creative agencies to produce broadcast-ready, 30 second ads remotely and cost-effectively and will bring further investment into local and smaller creative industries,” Sky Media declares.

The partnership covers both targeted linear and video on demand TV advertising and details of the rollout were revealed at the Connected TV World Summit in London.

AdSmart enables different ads to be shown to households watching the same programme, letting advertisers tailor campaigns based on audiences and locations.

Once fully deployed, the addressable TV ad deal will let advertisers target potential audiences of more than 30 million viewers across Sky and Virgin Media households.

Virgin Media will use technology developed by parent company Liberty Global as well as Sky’s AdSmart capabilities, while Sky Media will act as exclusive advertising sales agent across the full AdSmart network in the UK.

Virgin Media also plans to launch AdSmart on its own free-to-air TV service Virgin Media One in the Republic of Ireland and is due to start trials of the service there in the fourth quarter of 2019.

“This is a very exciting time as we count down to the launch of the next generation of television advertising across our network,” Virgin Media Television Managing Director, Pat Kiely, told delegates at Connected TV World.

“Our partnership with Sky will ensure that television advertisers, new and old, will have access to an extended reach of 30 million targetable TV viewers in the UK. AdSmart is truly a game changer for our industry and we’re delighted to play our part by adding scale and building on its current momentum.”

Sky’s Group Director of Advanced Advertising, Jamie West, said in a statement: “This partnership with Virgin Media brings advertisers even more scale and opportunity to reach TV audiences in a trusted, brand-safe and measurable way.

“With the recent announcement that AdSmart will be going global with NBC Universal in the US, AdSmart is quickly becoming the one-stop shop for reaching consumers around the world within a premium video environment.”

Sky and Virgin Media first announced their AdSmart partnership back in June 2017.