Public Funding for Mirriad Advertising PLC

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Awaiting Public Project Summary

SMART-NIVA is an eighteen-month project to research, develop and demonstrate new methods, metrics and tools for targeted Native In-Video Advertising (NIVA) based on the consumption patterns, interests, trends, influences and community interactions revealed by data analytics from on-line platforms and social media channels. The results will improve audience targeting and media planning for marketing campaigns in digital on-line and broadcast TV shows and music videos by the application of real-time analysis of social media responses on multiple platforms.The project will create new media planning processes and tools based on audience targeting using social media and demographic data analytics, predictive and post campaign analytics, and on-line opinion formation to run campaigns across different platforms. It will develop new methods for valuing NIVA opportunities and interactions, with a specification for a future standard. The project is a collaboration between two research-based SMEs: Semetric is a pioneer of social media analytics and Mirriad is a leader in the development of technologies and processes for brand embedding and video-based NIVA.

The 24-month project will research and develop new ways of identifying opportunities for digital brand integration in online and broadcast video entertainment, previewing the results of placements (‘embeds’) and buying placement services. It will create an online Marketplace that connects the content entertainment programme owner to the advertiser and makes it possible to buy space in videos as easily as buying the banner ads around them. It will also prepare a draft standard for ways of valuing and pricing embedded advertising. TV and video advertising is changing. Digital video recorders catch-up services and connected TV make it easier for audiences to skip; online audiences don’t like banner ads, and find ways to block pop-ups. Embedding brands seamlessly into content offers an alternative that keeps the viewer happy, and is more likely to generate a positive response to the brand. The Marketplace will automate the identification of embed opportunities (‘avails’) and recommendation of suitable opportunities to brands; evaluate the size, duration and value of the opportunity; and provide previews of the embed. The proposal is highly innovative in terms of business process and computer science. It will create a much more transparent and efficient means of selecting and valuing opportunities, and streamline the decision-making process. We are addressing a new and very challenging problem in the automatic suggestion of product categories for video content. Many attributes can be involved in the decision process, including visual descriptors, audio, text (from audio transcription, subtitles) and semantic metadata (locale, show description, genre for a music video, mood and affective associational factors). MirriAd is a world leader in digital brand integration technologies and services. The Marketplace will significantly augment its a unique end-to-end platform to insert brands digitally into professionally produced video content at scale.