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Barb extends total campaign planning to include discovery+ and Netflix

Barb, the ad industry’s standard for understanding what people watch, has upgraded its pre-campaign planning tool, Advanced Campaign Hub. This upgrade enables advertisers and media agencies to plan campaigns on a wide range of streaming services that now includes discovery+ and Netflix. Prime Video (including Freevee) has been included in the Advanced Campaign Hub since June.

For the first time, media buyers can plan and optimise campaigns on discovery+ and Netflix ad-tiers alongside linear channels and on-demand services operated by Channel 4, Channel 5, ITV, Sky, UKTV and Warner Bros. Discovery.

As part of this development, Netflix has worked closely with Barb to ensure the estimate of TV set households on its ad-tier subscription is available and updated daily in the panel viewing data. This is not required for discovery+ whose subscription plans all include ads.

Barb is also in advanced conversations with Disney, which more recently launched its ad-tier on Disney+, about its inclusion in the Advanced Campaign Hub.

Initially launched in June 2020, Advanced Campaign Hub combines Barb panel data and first party data, with census level impressions supplied directly by the participating VOD services. It complements CFlight which provides post-campaign reporting on campaigns running across broadcasters’ linear and VOD services.

Barb also announced today the start of a tender process for its Total Campaign Reporting Suite. The specification for this new development will include access to both Advanced Campaign Hub and CFlight. Both services are widely used by UK broadcasters and media agencies to support full-cycle campaign evaluation across linear and on-demand services.

Luca Vannini, Head of Campaign Audiences at Barb, said: “Our total campaign reporting continues to evolve in response to users’ needs, and we’re delighted these latest developments reinforce that Barb has gone beyond reporting broadcaster services only.

“Netflix has been incredibly engaged in the process for this latest update. Thanks to this active collaboration, we are also starting to display its ad-tier audiences as part of our daily-audience reporting for Barb subscribers. We also welcome Warner Bros. Discovery’s commitment to extend our reporting of its VOD service, discovery+, for planning purposes.

“By developing tools for independently assessing ad-tier adoption, this is yet another break-through moment in the evolution of Barb’s audience-centric data. This upgrade will complement CFlight to deliver a virtuous cycle of campaign optimisation across linear and VOD services.”