COLOGNE-While dynamic ad insertion is hardly a nascent concept, there is a debate over the merits of executing it solely with server-side technology. Adobe, whose Primetime technology NBC used for the Summer Olympics in Rio, believes it’s not simply an issue of client or server side.
“There are major benefits and tradeoffs with server-side ad insertion,” Campbell Foster, Director of Product Marketing for Adobe Primetime,” said in an interview with Beet.TV at the DMEXCO conference and exposition in mid-September. “One of the major issues with server side is that it isn’t IAB compliant.”
Foster also cited a lack of “real device interactivity,” for example with Roku or on an Android device, wherein “you have really high-value ad units but are using buttons or anything on the client, the device itself.”
This is why NBC opted for Adobe’s hybrid client- and server-side solution “which no one else in the industry is using right now,” Foster explained.
“For real big events, really big concurrent audiences, anything at massive scale using a hybrid server side and client side approach tends to scale really well,” said Foster. “For the first time we’ve seen more than a million concurrent viewers and over a million concurrent ad insertions.”
While dynamic ad insertion is not a new concept, “What’s new is the scale over IP,” Foster said. Replacing broadcast ads on the fly “when you have millions of concurrent viewers is really hard to pull off.”
Adobe also has planted its flag in the virtual reality space, just in case the technology isn’t just another passing fad. It’s adding 360-degree video editing capabilities to its Creative Cloud and, on the delivery and monetization side, new device-side software support for VR environments as well as VR ad insertion.
In addition, it’s readying for dynamic object insertion, wherein objects within the VR environment can be replaced with other objects, for example a can of beer instead of Coke depending on the audience being targeted.
Foster was interviewed for Beet.TV by Ashley J. Swartz, CEO of Furious Corp.
This interview was taped at DMEXCO ’16. It is part of a video series of industry leaders. The series is sponsored by Videology. For more Beet.TV coverage of DMEXCO, please visit this page.
