Dentsu To Target Sports Viewers Working With Sports Innovation Lab

With sports being such a hot item for television advertisers, media agency Dentsu said it is working with Sports Innovation Lab to target addressable sports audiences for its clients.

Sports Innovation Lab creates audience segments for all NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, WLBA, MLS and NWSL teams and major sports betting platforms based on deterministic transaction-based data.

The Sports Innovation Lab data has been linked to Merkury, Dentsu’s global data, identity and insights platform .

“Merkury’s more than 10,000 consumer data attributes combined with the data-driven fan intelligence from Sports Innovation Lab, generate the most advanced and precise sports audiences in the industry,” Gerry Bavaro, chief strategy officer for Merkury at Dentsu, said. “Through the partnership, our clients can confidently develop custom audiences, enabling personalized, real-time experiences for sports enthusiasts across channels while adhering to the highest standards of consumer data protection.”

In this year’s upfront, advertiser demand was highest for sports programming and advanced advertising, including addressable advertising.

Some examples of the types of audiences Dentsu clients will be able to reach now that Merkury is integrated with Sports Innovation Lab include Fans of Women’s Sports, eSports Gamers Fans, Heaving International OTT Viewers & Subscribers Youth Sports Parents and NBA Official Merchandise Buyers.

Merkury clients can customize their own audiences from an expansive database with an unrivaled level of specificity.

The can also develop sports-related insights and target addressable sports audiences among the 268 million reachable U.S. adults in Merkury’s database.

“This is an amazing opportunity for Dentsu clients to gain direct access to purchase-based sports data that can be leveraged for planning, insights, and activation,” Jennifer Pelino, chief commercial officer and president, Data Cloud, at Sports Innovation Lab, said. “Sports audience data has historically posed a challenge for brand advertisers because it is limited or bundled as part of media publishers’ promotions and sponsorship deals. Now brands can use this data to meaningfully enhance their advertising strategies during key events like the NFL season or the holiday shopping rush, driving increased engagement and ROI. The potential for more powerful business outcomes is significant.”