Ad-tech firm Tremor International, now Nexxen, struck a deal in October 2021 to gain exclusive access to the ACR data of VIDAA, a subsidiary of TV manufacturer Hisense. In 2022, Nexxen announced that it was investing in VIDAA and extending the ACR partnership.
While Vizio has more ACR deals than its competitors—with companies such as Nielsen, iSpot and VideoAmp licensing data—it hasn’t shied away from the exclusivity game.
In April 2021, Vizio entered into a partnership that let Yahoo’s demand-side platform be the exclusive DSP to access Vizio’s ACR data. Despite the Walmart deal, a Yahoo spokesperson told ADWEEK that the company will retain access to Vizio’s data and is exploring ways to grow its partnership.
Other sources of data
If Walmart limits the availability of Vizio’s ACR data to partners, other manufacturers could step up to fill a need in the market.
For example, LG Ad Solutions has only done strategic deals with its ACR data so far with Nielsen, iSpot and Magnite, according to a source familiar with the company. Samsung does not license its ACR data, and Roku—in addition to sharing ACR data with its own advertisers—is seemingly just sharing with Nielsen.
“LG is going to have more opportunities than [it] did,” Morgan said. “Samsung will continue to have opportunities with what [it] wants to do [with its ACR data].”
Existing players could expand their data offering, but the ACR business isn’t exactly territory for a startup. For ACR data to be valuable, it must have a massive scale, meaning access to millions of households, which is only available to incumbent manufacturers. Publishers have data about how many people saw what ad, but not at the scale of TV manufacturers, and they are usually fairly selective about sharing it, Morgan said.
There is no great alternative in the market.
Yan Liu, CEO of TVision
Plus, ACR technology requires sophisticated artificial intelligence to figure out what’s playing on a TV screen, and it’s not an inherent part of TV manufacturing. So existing TV manufacturers not already in the ACR game would have to either build or acquire to begin to have access to this data. Indeed, Vizio itself was able to get into the ACR business via its acquisition of Cognitive Media Networks, later renamed Inscape, in 2015.
Buyers and measurement firms looking for data about viewership have other sources, like panel data that comes from surveys and set-top-box data from cable and satellite providers like Dish and DirecTV. But none is an exact substitute for the technically precise and streaming-specific ACR data.
Of course, Walmart might decide to continue selling Vizio’s ACR data as a revenue stream, instead of siphoning it off for its own ad businesses.
If Walmart turns off the ACR spigot, precise measurement of streaming could continue to be an unrealized dream for advertisers.
“[Vizio is the] go-to-solution,” Li said. “There is no great alternative in the market.”
