iHeartMedia partners with, and invests in, Unified for data and targeting

iHeartMedia logo june 2015iHeartMedia and Unified have jointly announced a long-term partnership to develop audience-targeting datasets that can be applied across iHeart’s sprawling radio, streaming, mobile, and event portfolios.

The deal includes an unspecified investment by iHeart in Unified, “to accelerate the company’s growth and expansion.”

Unified is a data and analytics company serving over 600  clients through offices in five U.S. cities. The company’s Social Operating Platform provides data to marketers, campaign planners, and community managers on social sites. “Since its founding, Unified’s vision has been to truly ‘unify’ marketing data across all consumer touchpoints and marketing channels,” said Calvin Lui, President of Unified.

That multi-directional analytics flow will fit with iHeartMedia’s broad footprint that includes over 800 radio stations, 87-million monthly unique users, and 75-million social followers.

iHeart is marketing the partnership as a first for broadcast: “The combination of iHeartMedia’s data and Unified’s analytics technology brings the power of attribution, audience identification, and impact analysis associated with digital marketing to the unparalleled scale of broadcast media,” said Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO.

The end goal is to help advertisers plan optimized campaigns, reach targeted audiences, and monitor results. New audience segments are promised as a yield of this partnership, and the announcement also mentions creating new creative advertising products.

 

Brad Hill