Digitalsmiths Demos First Cross-Platform Contextual Video Ad Solution

Digitalsmiths Corporation has demonstrated the video advertising industry’s first completely automated multi-platform contextual video ad targeting solution. First developed as a video indexing solution and later adapted to broadband video ad matching, VideoSense from Digitalsmiths has now been shown to work on multiple content platforms including traditional broadcast, broadband and mobile.

“The one certainty of the future of digital media is that new ad formats and content platforms will continue to evolve,” said Ben Weinberger, CEO of Digitalsmiths Corporation. “From the start, Digitalsmiths has kept one eye on the present and one eye on the future. As a result, VideoSense has evolved to be the most comprehensive contextualization solution to address digital video.”

The current crop of companies working to monetize digital video distribution and interactive advertising - including Joost, VideoEgg, Advertising.com, Atlas, DoubleClick, Roo, ClipSyndicate, Brightcove, AdBrite, Broadband Enterprises, and ValueClick - offer an impressive array of choices for publishers and advertisers alike. Some match ads based on user generated meta-tags or target page data, but none have Digitalsmiths’ ability to monetize video through contextual ad matching based on the actual content of a piece of video.

“The one thing that these companies have in common,” notes Weinberger, “is that implementing VideoSense could improve their ability to create value by contextually targeting ads to video, without disrupting their existing procedures or technology.”

VideoSense is the ONLY solution available in the marketplace today to incorporate Video Image Recognition, Audio and Speech Recognition and Traditional Targeting:

• Video Image Recognition - VideoSense analyzes each frame of video and applies a proprietary suite of image interpretation tools including facial recognition, object recognition, scene classification and other contextual algorithms that identify the video environment and other specifics.
• Speech Recognition – VideoSense uses multiple filters to identify a wide range of cues including speech and subject matter that guide the contextual interpretation process.
• Traditional Targeting - VideoSense starts with widely adopted web targeting techniques and then applies the video and audio elements detailed above to deliver superior contextualization.

At its most basic, VideoSense functions as a plug-in for content publishers or ad networks seeking to better monetize the ad inventory in and around video content. Digitalsmiths also provides fully integrated ad targeting, ad serving and ad inventory for clients seeking a one-stop contextual video ad solution. VideoSense is a virtually risk-free solution for content publishers and ad networks alike. It is easily implemented as a turnkey addition to existing workflows, providing non-disruptive opportunities to realize additional revenue and is available under two basic pricing models: flat-fee software licensing and revenue sharing.

Launched in 2007, VideoSense came to market as the first contextual video advertising solution to automatically convert video streams into accurate time-stamped meta-data files, based on a patent-pending combination of audio and video indexing algorithms and other engineering and real-time data management processes. After interpreting a piece of video, VideoSense contextually targets ads to specific sections of a given video stream, changing out the ads as frequently as desired by the advertiser or publisher. VideoSense uses industry-standard targeting data and yields real-time user analytics for ad optimization.

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, online advertising revenues topped $4.9 billion during the first quarter of 2007.1 Online video content is projected to grow by 89% by the end of 2007. These trends have ad networks and broadband content providers racing to implement automated solutions to capture their share of the online video marketplace and contextual advertising revenues.