Microsoft’s aggressive campaign to increase its position in digital advertising took another step this week as it announced the acquisition of Navic Networks, a television advertising provider. Terms were not disclosed.
The deal, announced Tuesday, will give the software giant ownership of Navic’s sophisticated campaign-management tools for digital advertising. Those tools optimize where and when interactive television ads are placed. One tool, called Admira, offers a unified ad network so that selected audiences can be targeted across all ads in a campaign.
The Waltham, Mass.-based Navic has about 80 employees.
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Microsoft said Navic’s tools will allow its own advertising platform to “facilitate enhanced digital advertising across online and offline environments,” integrating online and on-air. With Navic’s system, users can click on an ad to see a video or a phone number for a product.
Brian McAndrews, senior vice president of the advertiser and publisher solutions group at Microsoft, said TV advertising has the largest percentage of major advertising budgets. With Navic as a wholly-owned subsidiary in his group, McAndrews said Microsoft will be able to “deliver addressable television advertising solutions” to increase advertisers’ reach and return on investment.
Navic’s addressable technology was primarily built to serve the cable and direct-broadcast satellite industry. Navic’s tools use real-time audience measurement data and target addressable interactive TV and advertising applications that live on more than 35 million digital set-top boxes in the U.S. and Canada.
Microsoft’s collection of businesses and tools, some home-grown and some acquired, encompasses 42 markets globally and 21 languages. It includes digital advertising for such platforms as MSN, Windows Live, Microsoft Office Live, Xbox, Microsoft Live Search, Facebook, and tools that include Atlas, AdECN, Microsoft adCenter, DRIVE pm, Massive and ScreenTonic.
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