Targeted TV ad developer Visible World and interactive TV vendor FourthWall Media announced this morning that they have joined forces to create an addressable advertising platform for one-to-one set-top box targeting.

Addressable, or targeted, advertising has been a slow train coming for cable operators, ad agencies and advertisers, but the deal between Visible World and FourthWall will helps enable delivering the right ad to the right viewer. Terms of the partnership weren’t disclosed.

Specifically, FourthWall is extending the capabilities of its EBIF platform to support Visible World’s addressable advertising offerings. FourthWall’s platform runs on Motorola, Cisco, and Pace hardware and is deployed in millions of homes with numerous cable operators, including Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications and Bright House Networks.

“Platform technology and set top box viewing data are critical for marketers to better reach their customers with the right message at the right time,” said Bill Feininger, general manager, MassiveData and senior vice president, media measurement for FourthWall.  “We are pleased to be further connecting the dots from our platform, to census-level measurement, and now to addressable advertising with Visible World. 

Through the partnership, Visible World can turn on addressable advertising for the operators running the extended FourthWall platform and dramatically improve advertising effectiveness for the participating operators.

“Being able to target the right message to the right home is the single biggest opportunity awaiting the television advertising industry,” said Seth Haberman, CEO of Visible World.  “Cable operators further benefit as they use significant local inventory for marketing their own products to existing subscribers.  In a study we recently completed, examining 144 cable operator marketing campaigns covering an 18 month period, we found that ads that targeted their message to the right subscribers got a 70 percent better conversion rate than their overall campaign results.  

“We are pleased to partner with FourthWall to deliver a powerful targeting solution to our operator partners that allows them to drive ROI across all subscriber homes today.”