Nexxen standardises Smart TV home screen ad buying

Nexxen has launched a standardised specification for Smart TV home screen advertising across original equipment manufacturers, aiming to make it easier for advertisers to buy and run campaigns through Nexxen TV Home Screen.

The new framework creates uniform specifications for home screen ad inventory, which has historically varied between manufacturers in ad sizes, formats and click actions for connected TV native placements such as hero banners and tiles.

That fragmentation has made it harder for advertisers and demand-side platforms to run campaigns across multiple Smart TV brands at scale. Nexxen's standardised request structure is designed to let buyers bid programmatically on the inventory through a more consistent process.

The product sits within Nexxen TV Home Screen, which focuses on advertising shown on a television's home screen rather than within streamed video content. These placements are typically visible when users switch on a device or browse for content, giving advertisers access to a prominent part of the viewing interface.

Unified buying

Under the new approach, buyers using demand-side platforms can activate campaigns without dealing separately with different technical requirements from each original equipment manufacturer. The system also works with dynamic creative optimisation through Nexxen Studio, its in-house creative team, so adverts can be adapted to different inventory sources while keeping to the standard format.

Nexxen is positioning the change as a way to simplify one of the more awkward areas of connected TV advertising. Home screen inventory has drawn advertiser interest because of its visibility, but differing technical rules across manufacturers have limited how easily agencies and media buyers can use it programmatically.

Partners already using Nexxen TV Home Screen include demand-side platforms and agencies such as The Trade Desk, Google Display & Video 360, StackAdapt, Basis, Brainlabs and H/L. Programmatic access is available to inventory from original equipment manufacturers including V, TCL and TiVo Ads.

Market context

The announcement reflects a broader push in the advertising market to make connected TV buying look more like other forms of digital media trading, where common standards can reduce manual work and expand addressable inventory. In the Smart TV market, device makers control parts of the user interface that have become advertising real estate in their own right, particularly the home screen.

For agencies and brands, the appeal of standardisation is not only operational. Consistent formats can also make it easier to maintain the same creative treatment across several television manufacturers without building separate versions for each one.

That matters because home screen placements differ from conventional video adverts. Rather than appearing before or during a programme, they are native units embedded in the navigation environment of a television operating system, meaning design specifications and user actions can vary significantly from one platform to another.

Nexxen, which operates both a demand-side platform and a supply-side platform, is seeking to tie together media buying, inventory access and creative adaptation within this part of the connected TV market. The company is headquartered in Israel and has offices across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Kara Puccinelli, Chief Commercial Officer at Nexxen, described the launch as part of a wider effort to reduce fragmentation in the category. "From the beginning, our goal with Nexxen TV Home Screen has been to transform the home screen from a fragmented media environment into a scalable, performance-driven channel for the industry," Puccinelli said. "By standardizing these formats across OEMs, it's another major step toward a more streamlined cross-platform ecosystem that better enables buyers, DSPs and brands alike."