Dive Brief:

• Warner Bros. Discovery has launched a proprietary first-party data platform, called Olli, that will power a new Data-Driven Video offering, enabling advertisers to more efficiently create and target campaigns across the media company’s content and brands, according to a release.
• Olli’s data is derived from direct consumer relationships from more than 100 million households and over 700 million devices across the United States. Using first-party data from active users, it constructs detailed audience profiles for targeting and campaign optimization.
• Warner Bros. Discovery has already lined up companies including OMG, RPA and Wayfair as partners for Olli and its Data-Driven Video solution. IPG Mediabrands is set to begin testing in the third quarter of this year.

Dive Insight:

Despite Google’s recent stay of execution for the cookie, preparations continue for what many in the industry see an inevitable post-cookie future, with industry players continuing to move forward on possible cookie alternatives, such as first-party data solutions. With the approach of the upfronts — during which advertisers get a preview of media companies’ upcoming content offerings and have a chance to commit ad budget in advance — Warner Bros. Discovery has an opportunity to show it will be ready when the nail is put in the cookie coffin.

Olli integrates marketer data with Warner Bros. Discovery’s first-party audience data to provide unified planning across the company’s entire portfolio, which includes HBO and Max, Discovery+, CNN, TNT Sports, Bleacher Report, Food Network, HGTV and OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. Data clean room solutions from Snowflake support privacy compliance and data security. Measurement partners include ABCS Insights and LoopMe.

As the engine behind the company’s Data-Driven Video offering, Olli will help advertisers identify and connect one audience across all endpoints. Other features within the Data-Driven Video offering include enabling clients to exclude heavy linear TV viewers early in the planning process (and then redistributing the focus to maximize reach and frequency) and in-flight optimization to reduce unneeded exposures.

“Our goal is to ensure that every connection between brand and audience is reached in the most efficient and effective way across our vast expanse of digital and traditional platforms,” said Ryan Gould, head of digital ad sales at Warner Bros. Discovery, in a release. “We’ve already seen early success with this offering, and we look forward to bringing it to the wider marketplace working with marketers looking to activate advanced audience segments to achieve their advertising, sales and marketing objectives.”

With Olli, Warner Bros. Discovery joins a media conglomerate arms race around building up first-party data infrastructure as part of efforts to attract advertisers. Competitor NBCUniversal launched NBCUnified in 2022 and has continued to build out integrations around the first-party identity spine. Disney’s Audience Graph, also launched in 2022, is at the core of how the company is working to supercharge its advertising offerings and better monetize its portfolio.

Olli’s introduction is a further indication that the industry is moving forward with the understanding that it will eventually face a cookie-less digital advertising future. Last week, Google yet again revealed it was delaying the deprecation of the web tracker in Chrome due to “ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators, and developers.”

The setback is the third such delay for the death of the cookie. Most recently, the tech giant had said it would phase out cookies for all Chrome users in the second half of 2024, following a test for a small segment of users that began earlier this year. However, concerns about the company’s Privacy Sandbox proposals from various industry groups have pushed back the timeline, according to the company.