GET Interactive is in the process of introducing a new form of online advertising that plays ads associated with the brands that appear in video content as it’s being viewed. If you’re watching a movie trailer and the character is wearing a pair of Lee jeans, you can click a pointer in a second browser window to be taken to an ad for the jeans. The ads play online, on mobile phones and on IPTV. Video ads can be played. Rick Harrison, GET Interactive’s CEO, explains the format’s beta introduction (click on “Get Interactive” at the top) and how it can be used by publishers, who can “increase their revenue opportunity based on content they’ll be showing anyway.”
iSPOT: Can you give us some background on GET Interactive?
Harrison: We set up an opt-in advertising platform that works across the spectrum of content delivery. Any way a consumer is viewing content that’s partnered with us we allow them to search for the brands that are embedded in content and we deliver an interactive one-on-one branding experience to that targeted consumer.
iSPOT: You recently announced the launch of Ad-venture 1.0.
Harrison: It’s the latest iteration of our tech platform that allows us to deliver that advertising and branding experience into every mobile device that operates in the U.S. in addition to an IPTV prototype that we’re customizing for the IPTV offerings in the marketplace.
iSPOT: Can you give us an example of how it works?
Harrison: What we did for our beta with the website for [the feature motion picture] Freedom Writers is we put pointers on products that are used in the film. All the ads were catalog pages, so there was nothing dynamic as far as ad delivery, but what happened was an unqualified success. Of the people who came in, 70 percent took action and shopped the movie, they scrolled over an average of four-and-a-half different scenes of the six that we played and we had a click through of nearly 12 percent, which compares with the typical click through rate of one half a percent.
iSPOT: So the red blips on the page are links to the ads?
Harrison: Yes, our model is built around having ads identifying the products being worn or used in the video content. When a consumer takes action, we deliver that consumer to the destination of the brand’s choice. It can be a purchase page, but it doesn’t have to be. We deliver the consumer to the purchase page or dealer locator.
iSPOT: How did people get to the original ad for the film?
Harrison: We were on the site of the film for 90 days, at www.freedomriders.com.
iSPOT: What are the different ways you can deliver the ads?
Harrision: They play online. They also play on mobile devices that are web enabled. We can enable direct to mobile purchase so we’re partnering with carriers and we can do location-based couponing that’s mobile-based, we can give coupons to the store closest to the consumer’s location. We also have the potential to serve up an interactive branding platform in the IPTV scenario, so a consumer can use their remote. The typical implementation is we have a button with a text link that says ‘Get stuff now’ that can be inserted into the menu guide or a logo inserted in the bottom corner of the screen to allow consumers to launch another browser window through their television. The same branding interaction process with potential in that scenario allows for direct to television purchase using your remote.
The idea is any way consumers watch video–web, mobile or IPTV, there’s this platform that allows them to seek out the brand that’s embedded in the content they care about.
iSPOT: When you say watch the video, what video are you talking about?
Harrison: It can be a music video or any type of video they’re viewing. For any partner GET Interactive has we can enable the process.
iSPOT: And in the beta example, it was the film website?
Harrison: Correct, the more typical implementation will be anywhere a music video is played, anywhere that a movie trailer can be viewed. All web publishers that choose to participate can increase their revenue opportunity based on content they’ll be showing anyway. Any time a consumer takes action not when they scroll over but when they click on the ad panel to go to the brand’s destination, there’s a click that is shared by the web publisher and the content owner.
iSPOT: How far along are you with this?
Harrison: We did the beta in late spring of this year. Since then we signed a contract with Sega video games, we’re about to enter the sports arena, we signed a contract with Universal Music Group, we’re doing Mad Money, a movie that’s being distributed by Overture Productions, and we have a number of other movies. What we’re doing now all starts at the content stage; the earlier we’re involved in the process, the more there is for the content owner from a placement perspective. They can leverage this branding platform to garner more placements for their content, paid placements because now there’s a branding opportunity for every product in the content.
iSPOT: How do you get the brands involved?
Harrison: In the beta, the movie had been shot two years prior so the brands didn’t even know they’re in there, so we called them and said here’s your opportunity to get credit for your product being worn or used.
iSPOT: So it’s your job to get the brands involved?
Harrison: We’re in the brands outreach process and we determine the nature of the advertising they want to appear in that panel, coordinate it with them and deliver the consumer to the destination or interaction of their choice.
iSPOT: iSPOT covers video advertising but all the ads in the beta are static ads. Will advertisers be able to use video ads in the space?
Harrison: Oh yes, the ads in the beta are the most rudimentary kind, but it’s anything they want in that panel. A lot of what we’re getting to go live with will have interactive games in that space or video clips, it’s whatever the brand wants, it’s their ads. Ideally for us it’s not about creating us as a destination site, we’re a b2b play that connects the dots between the content and the brands in the content. We work to provide the best experience for the content owner and the brand.
iSPOT: You just started this year?
Harrison: No, we started working on it close to three years ago and full time for a year and a half. It’s about concurrently doing the technology development and getting as broad a reach as possible in the entertainment arena.
iSPOT: Do you think the market for the advertising is young consumers?
Harrison: It’s driven by demographic of the content so for that reason it’s anyone. If it’s a music video, my mother’s never going to watch, but if it’s a cooking show and it’s IPTV enabled, absolutely. That’s the beautiful thing about it, it’s not something that relies on slick technology, we’re just an unobtrusive link that is associated with content regardless of how it is played or consumed. It enables a secondary browser window to be launched, so consumers can toggle back and forth between the content they care about and the products that are involved in it.
