There is a stat that has been floating around for the past year or so that says 40 percent of all smart TVs lack any sort of operating system.

It’s an easy stat to ignore if you’re living in the US, where the market is pretty tightly sewn up and where, in addition to all the usual suspects, companies like Roku and VIZIO have a sizable presence.

But that battle for control of the TV operating system is indeed heating up elsewhere and billions of dollars are at stake.

To be clear, similar to the so-called “streaming wars” there won’t be a single victor and multiple vanquished. Rather, there will be gradations of market share, with each half a percentage point being worth millions. 

While much attention has been paid to the two largest categories of operating systems—tech giants like Amazon and Google, and home electronics giants like Samsung and LG—there is a third category out there, one that is becoming increasingly important.

Independent operating systems (“Indies”) have been growing in appeal as they offer many unique advantages, especially to local TV manufacturers who are looking for options that don’t involve casting their lot with global behemoths.

The two big players in the indie space—ZEASN, which acquired Foxxum, and Xperi, which many of you will know as TiVo, were recently joined by a new player, Titan OS, a European company with global ambitions.

During Cannes Lions, Titan rolled out their ad product at a session I both moderated and emceed.

The fact that a TV OS not tied to an OEM has an ad offering at all may seem surprising, but the ability to collect and use data is a feature of all independent TV operating systems—they collect the data. In a privacy compliant manner, via the OEMs that deploy them.

In Titan’s case, that means exclusive first party data coming from more than 4 million monthly active users on Titan OS and the ability to extend campaigns to over 30 million streaming households across Europe via companies like Virgin who are part of the Titan Ads CTV marketplace.

That reach extension is key to the success of all of the Indies. By striking deals with a range of streaming TV providers, they are able to offer a more robust product that lets advertisers hit hard-to-reach consumers across multiple outlets.

The other advantage Titan brings to the table is strong local knowledge of the European market. This is key as Europe is not a single country (something I was jokingly reminded of onstage by Titan CRO Jim Collins. Because Americans, you know…) 

There are 27 local markets and 27 different languages in Europe, and just as many local rules and regulations. Having people on the ground who know the ins and outs of these markets makes it easier for advertisers to execute on a pan-European strategy and for Titan to take on bigger players.

Retail Media and the Independent OS

Retail media, aka “commerce media” (because no one loves confusing the customer more than the marketing industry) was one of the big buzzwords at Cannes Lions this year and the Indies are able to take advantage of that as well.

Titan OS has deals with (among others) Currys and Boulanger, the UK/Nordics and French equivalents of Best Buy, respectively.

This allows them to use first party data from those retailers to better target ads and to ultimately provide advertisers who lack their own first party data with insight into how much product their ads are moving at the retailers in question.

While there is (surprise!) much confusion around what “retail media” actually is and does, the ultimate benefit is to provide better targeting and attribution to advertisers who don’t sell directly to consumers and thus don’t have a lot of (or any) first party data.

So while an auto manufacturer has a great deal of first party data about its consumers and can track visits to showrooms, a brand that primarily sells through third-party retailers does not. 

Hence the value of retail media.

Titan is checking multiple boxes here as well, offering up contextual targeting that makes use of IRIS.TV’s IRIS_ID to identify ads that are relevant to specific content. Those ads are even shoppable (another key Cannes buzzword) via the use of QR codes. 

Which was no doubt why Currys’ Andy Barratt and Boulanger’s Linda Chabane were so effusive about Titan’s ad product during our panel.

Privacy Matters

This is Europe, after all, home of GDPR and other strict privacy measures. So it is unsurprising that Titan’s ad product is taking privacy very seriously as well, making use of what they are calling a “custom-built consent management platform (CMP)” powered by OneTrust, one of the most trusted names (see what I did there) in what is known as “trust intelligence.” They are able to use OneTrust’s CMP for everything from ad targeting to recommendations, thus ensuring they’ve got all their privacy ducks in a row. 

While Titan has gone above and beyond in this regard, it is important to note that having a solid privacy game in place has become table stakes for the industry in general: the cost of not having one is just too great, even in the US, where privacy concerns have not always been as top of mind.

What You Need To Do About It

If you are one of those 40 percent of TV OEMs without a solid TV operating system and the reason you’ve been hesitating is that you did not want to become a vassal state of Amazon or Google, then you ought to look into the Indies. They can offer you a robust operating system that will allow you to bring in additional revenue from advertising—both on the home screen and in-video.

If you are a retailer and you are looking to expand your retail media network, then the indies offer a good choice. As the new kids, they’re going to be more innovative and more willing to be collaborative as you build out solutions together.

They’re also a good bet if you’re a retailer who wants to sell more television sets, as their interfaces and recommendations are also likely to be more innovative and consumer-friendly making it easier to sell the brands that deploy them.

Finally, if you are an advertiser and you’ve had success running CTV ads with LG Ad Solutions, Samsung Ads and VIZIO Ads,  adding Indies to the mix is a smart way to further extend your reach, allowing you to hit viewers you’re missing on the bigger OEM platforms. And since you already know how advertising with a company with a TV OS works, there should not be much of a learning curve.

If you’re the industry at large, you should be happy the Indies exist—greater competition invariably leads to greater innovation, and in the end that benefits everyone.