Chicago,
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October
2020
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07:00 AM
America/Chicago

TransUnion Accelerates Strategic Focus on Identity-Enabled Marketing Solutions with Agreement to Acquire Tru Optik

Tru Optik’s household identity graph and data marketplace position TransUnion as the premiere data-as-a-service provider across connected TV and streaming audio

Building on recent investments in identity and consumer insights for marketing, TransUnion has agreed to acquire Tru Optik. Tru Optik is the most relied upon data marketplace and data management platform for connected TV, streaming audio and gaming. Their patented household graph of more than 80 million U.S. homes enables household-level identity, targeting and measurement across connected TV, smart speakers, gaming consoles and other connected devices. Tru Optik and TransUnion’s complementary capabilities will provide TransUnion’s expanded customer base with the reach, accuracy and transparency missing in current identity and audience development products.

“Connected TV has quickly become most consumers’ preferred way to access long form video content. With the standard digital identity signals being sunset, marketers and media companies are looking toward a new generation of identity and audience products to reach the right people and households,” said Matt Spiegel, EVP marketing solutions and media vertical, TransUnion. “Tru Optik has been at the forefront of innovation in this area. Their data marketplace is integrated with the leading buy- and sell-side platforms and is available now for streaming TV and audio campaigns. By bringing our two companies together, our combined assets will result in an expanded suite of solutions that modern marketing requires.”

As a global information and insights company, TransUnion’s robust consumer data and identity footprint, data modeling and precision data matching expertise, along with cross-category industry knowledge, are critical to effective people-based marketing and meaningfully differentiated from pure digital-data companies. TransUnion and Tru Optik together will address unmet market needs with a focus on streaming TV/audio as part of an omni-channel identity strategy. The combined offering will provide the depth of consumer intelligence necessary for advertisers to connect people with relevant messages.

Tru Optik’s data marketplace is currently used by thousands of brands, and its data management platform has seen more than 600% growth, year-over-year. Combining both companies' collective data sets, analytic capabilities and market connectivity, TransUnion and Tru Optik will be able to more precisely — and with greater scale — match individuals and households across the physical and digital worlds.

“As hundreds of millions of consumers and billions of dollars of advertising continue to shift to connected and streaming media, it is imperative that the advertising and media industry have a trusted, agnostic and impartial source of truth for identity and audience data,” said Andre Swanston, CEO and co-founder, Tru Optik. “As a part of TransUnion, and combined with our first mover status and existing market partnerships, we are well-positioned to serve the industry as a leading identity solution and data provider for all things streaming, now and into the future.”

In combination with TransUnion’s recent acquisition of Signal and previous acquisition of TruSignal, our commitment to Tru Optik clearly demonstrates TransUnion is a hub of future-facing marketing solutions designed for the digitally-connected era.

The transaction is expected to close upon the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

About TransUnion (NYSE:TRU)

TransUnion is a global information and insights company that makes trust possible in the modern economy. We do this by providing a comprehensive picture of each person so they can be reliably and safely represented in the marketplace. As a result, businesses and consumers can transact with confidence and achieve great things. We call this Information for Good®.

A leading presence in more than 30 countries across five continents, TransUnion provides solutions that help create economic opportunity, great experiences and personal empowerment for hundreds of millions of people.

http://www.transunion.com/business

About Tru Optik

Tru Optik identity resolution powers the streaming media ecosystem. Tru Optik’s patented Household Graph of more than 80 million U.S. homes enables the world's leading brands, agencies, media companies, and platforms to engage consumers across OTT, streaming audio, and gaming with unmatched scale, accuracy and privacy compliance. To learn more about Tru Optik visit: www.truoptik.com.