• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, May 17, 2016

As part of its “datafront” event later today, Viacom will announce a first-of-its-kind deal with American Express that will integrate actual consumer purchasing data into a “predictive” targeting engine that advertisers and agencies can use to reach the audiences they want.

Dubbed “Vantage Intent, Powered by AmEx,” the new platform will combine American Express’ customer data with Viacom’s Vantage system to target people on Viacom’s TV and digital properties based on the products they purchased.

Viacom will demonstrate the new platform during its presentation later today and will announce that the targeting system will be eligible for its 2016 upfront TV advertising deals.

“AmEx’s unique closed-loop analysis will give [us] the ability to do something unprecedented -- forecast commercial intent before it has formed and target the right moment in time to reach people,” Kern Schireson, executive vice president-data strategy and consumer intelligence at Viacom, said in a statement provided to MediaPost.

Viacom described the new platform as “an advanced analytical model” leveraging “the vast majority of the $1 trillion in transactions on its closed-loop network, which have been aggregated and anonymized.”