MIAMI — A European ad-tech firm founded by Adstream executives is examining a US launch for some time in 2018.
Honeycomb TV, operational in the UK, France and Spain, was founded in London to help deliver TV ads to broadcasters for play-out.
And the experience negotiating European regulatory terrain may stand it in good stead.
It is widely considered to have amongst the world’s most stringent regulation on TV ad targeting – but there are some ways in which German operators enjoy space to experiment.
In this video interview with Beet.TV says Honeycomb TV COO Moritz Wuttke describes a TV ad format that looks a lot like digital-device units, and which is relatively unique in the world.
“It’s an overlay technology, where you have smart TVs, and on the smart TV set, you suddenly have like a skyscraper banner popping up and moving the content to the right so the main screen is moving to the right, and then, you have this pop up there,” he says.
“In the ad break, the pop up disappears and is being replaced with a full screen advertising space. I haven’t seen that in the U.S. I haven’t seen it in Europe, in the U.K. especially, because the law doesn’t allow to do so.
“So, Germany is a little bit more liberal in that regard, and Germany allows that kind of ad breaks. So, I think the legal environments definitely have a major impact on these kind of innovations.”
Wuttke says even “programmatic” TV is more manual and less automated than many people realise, necessitating tools to help delivery of ad creative.
“Some broadcasters or OTT platforms still need to actually view an ad before it goes online,” he says.
This video was produced at the Beet Retreat Miami, 2017 presented by Videology along with Alphonso and 605. For more videos from the event, please visit this page.
