As Advertising Week kicks off in New York, Genius Sports has launched Fanhub, a new omnichannel marketing platform designed to help brands target sports fans more effectively. Fanhub enables advertisers to place programmatic and social media ads across various channels, including connected TV (CTV), display, audio, and digital out-of-home (DOOH) formats.
Touted as a groundbreaking platform for the sports industry, Fanhub offers access to the same ad inventory used by other major programmatic firms like The Trade Desk. What sets Fanhub apart is its use of live game-time data to inform ad-buying strategies. This allows advertisers to tailor their campaigns based on real-time sports action and fan preferences, creating more personalised and relevant content. Genius Sports says clients will be able to scale digital and video ad campaigns using this approach.
“Fanhub finally lets marketers create sophisticated sports-based media strategies, track and manage the full-funnel fan journey from season to season, and leverage our live game-time data to drive hyper-personalised campaigns,” said Manny Puentes, Genius Sports' General Manager of Advertising, in a statement.
The launch comes at a challenging time for marketers, with ongoing debates surrounding consumer data use and privacy. Apple’s 2021 privacy update limited ad targeting for iPhone users, and while Google has delayed similar restrictions, concerns over data privacy remain significant. Additionally, brand safety continues to be a major issue, with advertisers wary of their ads appearing alongside inappropriate or controversial content.
Fanhub is the latest in a series of advertising tools developed by Genius Sports. The company previously introduced Trend Genius, a platform created in partnership with X/Twitter to analyze social media trends and place targeted display ads. This tool was first used during the Olympics and has been employed throughout the current NFL season.
The Fanhub announcement follows Genius Sports' recent addition of Robbie Bach, a former Microsoft executive who played a key role in the development of the Xbox, to its board of directors.