Westpac signs up to Verizon DSP

Westpac has positioned its rollout of Verizon’s DSP solution across its portfolio of brands as a step towards sustaining advertising activities without the cookie.

The Group confirmed this week a partnership with Verizon Media’s Omnichannel DSP for all of its brands, a list that includes Westpac Bank, St George, Bank of Melbourne and Bank of South Australia. The deal gives Westpac access to Verizon’s marketing and digital advertising planning capabilities including first-party audience insights, omnichannel activation across digital channels including digital out-of-home and connected TV, and proprietary measurement tools.

Westpac Group senior manager of marketing transformation, Tom Andrews, said the partnership was about future-proofing the banking group’s marketing investments.

“We chose Verizon Media’s solution because it is set up to help navigate the impending challenges facing marketers including the loss of cookies, more stringent data management requirements and the need for more transparency,” he said.

Verizon Media A/NZ head of platform sales, Andrew Gilbert, said multiple departments had needed to collaborate in order to ensure its platform offering could be integrated into Westpac’s digital stack. The adtech provider also had to meet the bank’s security, data and performance protocols.

“This partnership comes at a time when data privacy, consumer experience and marketing ROI are of the utmost importance,” Gilbert said in the statement. “Through our first-party planning capabilities, supply path transparency tools, exclusive inventory and competitive pricing model, the Verizon Media DSP is well-equipped to navigate brands through the changing marketing landscape.”   

Verizon Media’s expanded DSP offering was unveiled globally in May, claiming the ability to manage, optimise and report on programmatic, premium and marketplace inventory, formats, targeting and measurement from one platform. The latest release includes capabilities for tapping Verizon’s native advertising options across its branded media sites including Yahoo, HuffPost and TechCrunch.

The extended adtech functionality has its roots in Verizon’s multi-billion dollars acquisitions over recent years, including BrightRoll, One by AOL, Millennial Media and Yahoo.

CMO understand the deal is the most significant for Verizon’s DSP solution in Australia to date in terms of the size and stature of client.

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