Key Points
- Locality acquired media planning software firm Deben to enhance its data-driven advertising and cross-platform campaign capabilities.
- The deal adds planning and optimization tools for better audience targeting across broadcast and streaming.
- Deben CEO Prasad Joglekar will join Locality to help lead data strategy and platform integration.
Locality has acquired cross-channel media planning software firm Deben in a move aimed at strengthening its data-driven advertising capabilities and accelerating its push toward unified campaign planning across broadcast and streaming platforms.
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The deal adds planning and optimization technology to Locality’s portfolio, enhancing how advertisers evaluate audience reach and allocate spending across linear television and digital video environments. The companies had previously partnered on the 2025 launch of Collective, a platform designed to support national planning and activation across local TV inventory.
As part of the acquisition, Deben Chief Executive Officer Prasad Joglekar will join Locality as Senior Vice President of Data Science and Architecture, where he will help shape the company’s broader data strategy as it continues to scale its integrated platform.
Locality Chief Executive Officer Michael Collins said the acquisition is intended to simplify how advertisers plan and execute campaigns in an increasingly fragmented media environment.
“Advertisers need simpler ways to reach audiences as they move between linear and streaming and coordinate investment across media,” Collins said in a statement. “Deben strengthens our ability to bring data and precision to broadcast planning, which is essential to making cross-platform strategy work at scale.”
The transaction underscores Locality’s broader convergence strategy, which centers on unifying planning, measurement and optimization tools across traditional and digital channels. By integrating Deben’s technology into its existing infrastructure, including its proprietary Audience Engine platform, Locality aims to improve how campaigns are planned and measured across multiple screens.
Joglekar said the combination creates an opportunity to apply more advanced data-driven methodologies to broadcast television, a medium that continues to deliver large-scale reach for advertisers.
“The opportunity is to bring the data-driven discipline we’ve seen across digital channels to broadcast, helping advertisers better understand how they’re reaching audiences, reduce duplication and make more informed decisions about how to allocate spend,” he said.
Deben’s software will also be integrated with Locality’s Darwin platform, an artificial intelligence-powered solution for local broadcast planning and optimization, as well as LocalX, the company’s platform for planning, buying and measurement across streaming and linear inventory.
Locality, backed by One Equity Partners, operates across all 210 U.S. designated market areas and has positioned its technology stack as a bridge between traditional local television advertising and the growing demand for cross-platform audience targeting.
