NEW YORK, April 30, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- placemedia, the fully-automated national programmatic TV advertising exchange, today announced a new solution for local spot advertisers.  The new platform, called Local Engage, is an easy-to-use online platform that lets local advertisers use third party data sets to plan, buy, traffic, track and report on campaigns targeted at specific audiences in their local markets.

Local Engage is built on placemedia's industry leading self-serve programmatic TV advertising platform – Engage and leverages Viamedia's past investments in technology including: a centralized traffic and billing system customized to optimize delivery in near real time; and, a state-of-the-art copy distribution system that ensures timely copy delivery. The product will launch with the support of Viamedia's vast local sales infrastructure with more than 300 advertising sales reps across 68 DMAs.

"The industry is demanding more automation, and a true end-to-end programmatic solution for linear TV, said Derek Mattsson, President of placemedia.  "Because of Viamedia's relationship with multiple cable systems, and placemedia's technology already deployed nationally we're able to offer a unique solution for the industry at a local level.

Mark Lieberman, President and CEO of Viamedia, says "We're creating a unique solution.  Local Engage is a fully-automated, end-to-end solution.  And, it's a local advertising solution.  It creates huge opportunities for our clients and other advertisers in our market. We hope it's a successful market for a local programmatic solution across all cable and satellite systems."

Like the placemedia Engage platform, Local Engage will use actual household viewing behavior from Rentrak's 14 million set-top boxes combined with consumer data from Experian, Axciom, Polk and others to create highly targeted campaigns.  Advertisers will be able to select from several demographic and psychographic characteristics to target an audience and build a campaign.

"Making sense of micro targeting in local markets requires access to large volumes of viewing behavior data," said Bill Livek from Rentrak.  "We're excited that placemedia is leveraging the actual viewing data from our 14 million set-top boxes to create effective programmatic plans at the local level."

Viamedia will be launching Local Engage alongside a select group of MVPD partners this summer. Viamedia expects full deployment across all represented MVPD partners before the end of the year.

ABOUT PLACEMEDIA
Based in Salt Lake City, placemedia gives advertisers the undisputed brand building power of TV with improved audience measurement and accountability they've come to expect online.  The result is broad national reach with highly effective targeting, and a better return on investment.

ABOUT VIAMEDIA
Headquartered in New York, NY, and Lexington, KY, Viamedia is a leading provider of outsourced local advertising sales services. The company specializes in selling DMA-based advertising to local, regional and national advertisers on behalf of U.S. cable and telecommunications service providers, utility companies and municipalities. For more information on Viamedia, visit www.viamediatv.com.

ABOUT RENTRAK
Rentrak (NASDAQ: RENT) is the entertainment and marketing industries' premier provider of worldwide consumer viewership information, precisely measuring actual viewing behavior of movies and TV everywhere. Using our proprietary intelligence and technology, combined with Advanced Demographics, only Rentrak is the census currency for VOD and movies. Rentrak provides the stable and robust audience measurement services that movie, television and advertising professionals across the globe have come to rely on to better deliver their business goals and more precisely target advertising across numerous platforms including box office, multiscreen television and home video. For more information on Rentrak, please visit www.rentrak.com.

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SOURCE placemedia