Scope3 inks TikTok sustainability pact, reveals Brand Stories tie-up with OMG

Included in the pre-Cannes Lions raft of announcements is the debut of an agentic AI solution that enables brands to advertise where their narrative will resonate most, dubbed Brand Stories, plus tie-ups with Butler/Till and iHeart’s Triton Digital.

Scope3 CEO Brian O’Kelley claimed the parcel of partnerships is geared toward using AI to enhance sustainability and omnichannel measurement, with early testing showing brand safety results the company claims are a significant enhancement to legacy ad tech.

"TikTok is now a partner… this was a big [sustainability] RFP that they did last year," O'Kelley told Digiday. "All of our customers will be able to have access to accurate, always-on, one-click integration with TikTok, so they can have all of their TikTok numbers in the Scope3 platform."

Similarly, Scope3 is announcing a partnership with Triton Digital, the measurement arm of iHeartMedia, which has expanded its programmatic audio-buying capabilities with the 2024 purchase of Sounder.

Elsewhere, OMG is the launch partner for Scope3’s Brand Stories, an agentic-AI offering that identifies content brands are comfortable with using “human language” to help advertisers better discern suitable environments for placing their ads, a process O’Kelley referred to as “prompt engineering.”

From here, media-buying teams can build fully bespoke targeting segments to engage and influence those audiences. This “calibration process” within Brand Stories contrasts with the use of legacy keyword-blocking systems offered by established players, such as DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science.

Such tools have led many media buyers to drastically reduce spending on news websites in many cases. Albeit, such players are making moves to ameliorate the impact of advertisers’ predisposition to avoid news content.

Speaking with Digiday before Scope3’s agentic platform announcement in March, Ben Hovaness, chief media officer at OMD Worldwide, explained some of the economic pressures incurred by the buy-side of the industry when keyword blocklists are applied en masse. “It can excessively winnow inventory. … Because most of it is priced through an auction, then you get a supply-demand mechanic. If you cut your inventory pool by 50 %, it’s going to boost prices; if you cut it by 80 %, it’s going to boost them even more,” he added.

Meanwhile, Scope3 is also showcasing a case study with Butler/Till demonstrating how it deployed Brand Standards – one of the tools Scope3 launched in March – to realize notable performance improvements for the independent agency’s clients.

"We went from 90 % suitable to 97 % suitable for this pharmaceutical brand," claimed O'Kelley. Butler/Till has a concentration of pharma and healthcare clients. "We can get them very confident that we can find the majority of news content that they're comfortable with. So this is a large opportunity to get premium, high-quality content that you weren't buying before; that's our that's our hypothesis for brands."