The company is buying Herolens, a Buenos Aires-based technology provider for dynamic creative optimization (DCO), the craft of assembling das for individual viewers using distinct micro-components of ad creative.
“We’re able to work with the brand advertiser, using their first party data, to be able to version the creative,” says Beth-Anne Eason, Innovid president, in this video interview with Beet.TV. DCO campaigns Innovid is able to deliver include:
Innovid will use Herolens’ Buenos Aires HQ as the beachhead for its own Latin America business, but the 40-strong Herolens team will now join the Innovid team and the Herolens site has been taken offline.
Herolens’ software is used as “a central hub for digital asset management and dynamic creative customization, as well as display ad serving”, say the companies.
This video is from a series leading up to, and covering, the Xandr Relevance Conference in Santa Barbara. This Beet.TV series is sponsored by Xandr. Please visit this page to find more videos from the series.
]]>So why are so many advertisers either spending so little or using addressable for a different purpose?
In this panel discussion at Beet Retreat, a cast of “millennial”-aged companies assembled to discuss issues affecting the pace of roll-out of future TV advertising – and what advertisers really want it for…
The panel heard that what ad buyers really want is audience scale. This may seem to go against the inherent promise of addressable TV, which can make an audience far smaller but also far more relevant…
Mark Gall, Chief Revenue Officer, Alphonso:
“There’s a lot of great data sets out in the marketplace. There’s 199 million homes. Get to half, you really have something. And then the strategy and the media planners will start funding that at a much, much higher rate than it does now.”
Today, connected TV even seems to mitigate against large-scale campaigns. One ad-tech exec said the promises aren’t quite living up to results achieved in limited trials – perhaps one reason so much advertiser spending in OTT is still considered “test-and-learn”…
Hardeep Bindra, Managing Director of Product, Sizmek:
“The general expectation from our digital-first customers is as we expand to CTV, OTT – and then adventuring to addressable and linear – is that we will continue that same (performance) approach in defining attribution. It works to a degree when it’s in a closed-loop testbed … But the minute you try and reach scale with it that’s when these systems start to either fall down or the delay in attribution breaks the existing models that we have in place.”
If connected TV advertising doesn’t yet have big scale, it may offer something else. Beet Retreat heard many executives talk about its ability to help cap the frequency with which viewers see a TV ad…
Frank Sinton, President & Founder, Beachfront Media:
“Connected TV but it hasn’t hit that 50% (penetration) mark yet. So we’re more like 10 or 15% penetration at this point. (In) connected TV, in particular, frequency (of ad exposure) is something that we’re looking really closely at.”
But the panel heard that using addressable TV to reach large audiences is possible. Two companies that have spent the last few years building out a patchwork of advertiser delivery opportunities, in very different ways, weighed in…
Beth-Ann Eason, President, Innovid:
Right now Innovid is 75 million households through nine different streaming devices across 1,000 different apps that are capable of delivering an interactive OTT ad. So the capacity is there. The systems and structure that we’ve talked about today is lagging that a bit. But we are continuing to focus on the largest potential audiences that can be lit up to be able to bring this reality to market.
Mark Gall, Chief Revenue Officer, Alphonso:
“One of the things that we’ve built over the last couple years is this local owned-and-operated station group opportunity which is, going back to we’re in 35 million homes, one out of every three TV homes, so we work with almost all the large station groups.”
Connected TV isn’t just about what happens on the TV. In a multi-touch consumer ecosystem, if you can track viewership and link it to outcomes like visitation and brand CRM data, you have the capacity to deploy sophisticated attribution that can prove the real value of connected TV exposure…
Mark Gall, Chief Revenue Officer, Alphonso:
“We’re literally enabling them to prove that their local TV ads are actually driving to the website or actually driving to the store. We’re able to do that because we are literally bringing live placeIQ data and matching it against our IP and IDs. So, ‘Wou’ve seen the ad for the F150, did you go to the dealership?’ ‘Did you see the ad for Taco Bell, did you go to Taco Bell or to the website for TD Ameritrade?’We literally get live information.”
This video was produced in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the Beet.TV executive retreat. Please find more videos from the series on this page.
The Beet Retreat was presented by NCC along with Amobee, Dish Media, Oath and Google.
]]>The new money comes from Goldman Sachs’ Private Capital Investing, a new backer for the company. It is a Series E – the latest of nine rounds now totalling $95.1 million, according to Crunchbase.
Notably this time, Innovid’s press announcement refers to the investment as “pre-IPO” money. That status stands to reason, of course, but may also set tongues wagging about the likelihood of a market listing.
The purpose of the money is said to be “additional capital” and ” to expand its global footprint”.
Innovid’s technology helps brands or their agencies create and deliver video ads, often with interactivity and personalization, across a range of devices, notably the burgeoning range of new connected and over-the-top TV devices that are enabling new digital ad experiences on large-screen TV sets.
Whilst most such vendors in the space see this evolution, from current digital media experiences to the connected TV (CTV) screen, as a growth driver, Goldman Sachs in Innovid’s announcement points back to digital channels.
Hillel Moerman, head of Goldman Sachs’ Private Capital Investing group, is quoted as saying: “Innovid has differentiated video advertising software and technology, and has the scale and the reach to succeed, with access to significant supply beyond CTV, including platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snap and others.
Co-founder Chalozin recently told Beet.TV: “The (TV) environment behaves very differently from desktop or web-based video.”
Last month, Innovid president Beth-Ann Eason told Beet.TV the company was trying to help publishers re-think their advertising experience because, with consumer behavior showing an up-tick for subscription VOD and a growing frustration toward classical advertising, a change is needed.
“With what’s happening right now with Netflix being an option, and consumers not having to necessarily see commercials, the expectation to be able to take care of her in that experience is much, much higher,” she said.
“(Viewers) who chose a more immersive experience are more likely to actually buy the product that they saw within that immersive experience.”
For Innovid, the money caps a year in which it launched a self-service product and gained a notable industry accreditation.
The company launched OTT Composer, a software suite that lets brands, agencies and publishers design creatives for connected TV on a self-serve basis.
And it recently gained accreditation from the Media Ratings Council (MRC) for video ad measurement in a connected TV environment, which it says makes it the first vendor to have gained the designation. That means customers should be able to trust that the figures Innovid gives them on ad views should be reliable.
]]>In this video interview with Beet.TV, video ad-tech firm Innovid says it is working with publishers to explore exactly what the best ad experience really looks like.
“We’ve now moved into the publisher side on connected TV so that we can work with them to find much better solutions for consumers, and really reimagine what this entire ad system can be,” says Innovid president Beth-Ann Eason.
“With what’s happening right now with Netflix being an option, and consumers not having to necessarily see commercials, the expectation to be able to take care of her in that experience is much, much higher.
“We’ve partnered with brands from true[X], to Hulu, to Roku to really rethink what the entire consumer experience is. We’re doing a great deal of work in that area, and exploring what that future of television will be.”
Previously, analysis from nScreenMedia suggests US Netflix viewers, by substituting free viewing for SVOD, are missing 2bn ad views every day, totalling missing ad sales estimated at between $3bn and $6bn annually.
Suddenly, the boom in paid content coupled with diminishing patience for classical interruptive ad experiences is prompting a search for a better balance.
Fox-owned true[X]’s technology rewards viewers who elect to engage with an interactive ad with reduced ad load during a show.
And Innovid, whose technology allows for the creation of interactive ads, has been working with the company.
“Those (viewers) who chose a more immersive experience are more likely to actually buy the product that they saw within that immersive experience,” Eason says. “Another great example is to start to look at the number of ads and the interactivity in those environments.
“Brands who are embracing this type of format are looking to use first-party data or third party data, to make the ad much more interactive. Volvo, for example, might choose to be able to bring in content that they know about that consumer. But also to drive someone directly to a showroom, so that they can get an offer out to them.”
This video was produced in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the Beet.TV executive retreat. Please find more videos from the series on this page.
The Beet Retreat was presented by NCC along with Amobee, Dish Media, Oath and Google.
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