BARCELONA — Audio-identifying mobile app Shazam is trying to create a business selling data to advertisers by encouraging users to tag content other than music.
“We’re now able to target advertising based on Shazam activity,” CEO Rich Riley tells Beet.TV. “We can do that on Shazam and off Shazam. We can follow a device ID on to Facebook and continue targeting.”
This recently launched feature is an ad “retargeting” service. “If you Shazam one of our Shazam-For-TV spots, we can build an audience for an advertisser and they continue talking to that audience on mobile devices on Shazam and beyond.”
Dependent on automated content recognition (ACR) technology, Shazam started out as a way for people to identify music they hear on the radio. Lately, it has broadened out in to trying to provide the engagement glue between TV ads and online marketing material.
Shazam users identified 1.1 million pieces of audio during January’s Grammies award show and 700,000 ads during the recent Superbowl, Riley says. The latest addition extends this by implementing “retargeting”.
“We want Shazam to be an app that you use evert day to … recognize not just music, not just TV, but movies, live events, retailer environments and whatever is around you,” Riley adds.
Beet.TV interviewed Riley at the big Mobile World Congress convention.
