Video ad tech vendor Teads has already made waves for introducing auto-playing video ads in between text paragraphs – in its words, “inventing” the so-called “outstream” format. Now it is set to offer interactive video ad units, too, by acquiring Brainient of the UK.
The acquisition is announced on Monday. Terms are not. But Brainient’s service lets advert makers create video ads that are laced with interactive bells and whistles, helping – the theory goes – advertisers boost engagement with consumers.
Now Teads will be offering the Brainient Studio, where those rich media ads are made, to its own customers.
“All our customers – whether it’s a brand, an agency or publisher – will be able to insert, within their video content, interactive elements based on data,” Teads CEO Bertrand Quesada tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “We’ll personalise the video content based on any kind of data.
“It helps brands engage with the consumer and drive results when it comes to brand recall or purchase intent. We’ll be offering, to all the DSPs, all the trading desks … the ability to distribute video programmatically…”
Acquisitions were expected from Teads. It just secured €43m ($47m) in debt financing from a syndicate of five banks in August, telling Beet.TV it would target M&A amongst smaller ad-tech startups and in Asia.
Teads is itself formed out of an earlier merger with Ebuzzing, comprising earlier acquisitions of PromoDigital, Nomao, BeeAd, Trigami and Beezik.
Beside personalised, interactive video advertising, Brainient is also carving out a spot for itself in the uncertain and proliferating world of multiple video formats and orientations.
Whilst Snapchat, YouTube and others all seem to have a different take on which way up and for how long video ads should run, Brainient’s conversion technology offers a solution.
“They can turn any landscape video in to a square video, in to a vertical video, turn any creatives in to interactive within vertical content,” Quesada says. “They’ve done a lot of work when it comes to 360 video.
“We have already worked with them on innovative new video formats which we’ll be announcing in the next couple of months.”
