Interpublic Invests in Analytics Firm Samba TV

In the US, marcoms group Interpublic has made an undisclosed minority investment in television data firm Samba TV, whose technology will be integrated into IPG Mediabrands' proprietary Audience Measurement Platform (AMP).

San Francisco-based Samba TV has developed technology which is built into connected devices such as smart TVs, set top boxes, smart phones and tablets. This allows the company to recognize what's on screen, understand what consumers like, and then connect them to relevant shows and actors to deliver a personalized television experience. Samba TV also enables data-driven advertising across all screens, and provides aggregated and anonymized device usage and content viewership trends through its real-time analytics service.

Interpublic's holding company IPG Media Labs initiated the relationship with Samba TV, and has overseen the integration of the latter's data and tools with its own existing platforms. As part of the deal, IPG Mediabrands will integrate Samba TV's data and intelligence to identify undervalued or over-valued media, as well as audience insights, to support its media, planning, buying and research teams. The data will also be used to build attribution models for direct-response television.

Ashwin Navin, co-founder and CEO of Samba TV, comments: 'We have always built products that reflect the rapidly changing consumer behavior around television. It's no longer appropriate to think of TV as an off-line medium independent of what's happening in digital platforms. In IPG we have a great partner that shares our vision that media measurement needs to be holistic and media plans need to be planned and executed across platforms.'

Web sites: www.interpublic.com and www.samba.tv .