JW Player Creates Video Player Bidding, SpotX Exclusive Partner

Header bidding for video is now simple enough and fast enough for the market to adopt. That's the promise of Video Player Bidding, a solution introduced this week by video platform JW Player. With it, publishers can maximize their programmatic sales and buyers can get access to a vast number of premium viewers. SpotX, with its demand marketplace, is JW's exclusive partner for the first year.

With header bidding, publishers offer their inventory to multiple demand sources at once, choosing the best rate before making a call to the ad server. It lets publishers maximize programmatic sales, and replaces the waterfall method where inventory is offered to one channel after another until it's sold. It's used more in display, since implementation in video has been complicated and the market fragmented.

JW Player says it's solved both those issues with its Video Player Bidding system. Publishers using JW's video player (and meeting crucial brand safety measures) can enable the system with one click. Their inventories are then available to marketers buying through SpotX's marketplace, who can use metadata from the player to target viewers.

All the decisioning with JW's system is done server-side, which reduces latency. That leads to viewers watching for longer and seeing more ads. The system exposes publisher inventory to over 65 demand-size platforms.

"We firmly believe that close collaboration and joint development between two video-first technology companies is exactly what the industry needs, and we're thrilled to be partnering with JW Player's talented team," says Sean Buckley, SpotX's chief revenue officer. "Publishers will finally have a more efficient header bidding solution for video, and will be empowered to monetize effectively without the hassles they may have experienced in the past."

One company beta testing JW Player Video Player Bidding is Penske Media Corporation, which owns Rolling Stone and Variety. JW will make the solution available to select customers of both JW Player and SpotX starting March 1.

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net