These days, the term “premium” typically accompanies the word “video.” But premium must also apply to viewer engagement with ads and the results that should accrue to advertisers, according to Pooja Midha. The new President of true[X] will share the company’s insights on how viewer interaction will transform the video ad business in a presentation at Beet Retreat in the City, scheduled for June 6 in Manhattan.

According to Midha, upon its founding in 2007 true[X] “never meant to build a measurement system” as it sought to give TV viewers a choice of commercial options with interactive ads priced on cost per engagement. Rather, it was built out of necessity, she explains in this interview with Beet.TV.

“What I think is important is that this was something that when you explained it to an advertiser or an agency and you said this is what you can accomplish in this environment, people lean in they think this is great,” says Midha. “And then you get down to talking about pricing, because again you have to make sure you account for what you’re missing, and it becomes a bit harder.”

The company considered simple commercial delivery—measured with the help of entities like White Ops and Moat—to be “our baseline metric.” The answer was to be able to prove impact. “There was no solution that existed in the marketplace that could measure impact of the ad,” Midha adds.

That’s why true[X] developed Uplift to measure brand benefits at scale, across platforms, in real time and in a consistent manner. “Today we run Uplift across every single true[X] campaign on every platform that we exist on and we’re measuring brand lift, which we think is such a fundamentally human metric and actually the metric that matters most.”

At the upcoming Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Pooja will explain how true[X] plans to bring engagement ads into live digital streams and how the company plans to expand measurement options.

Beet Retreat in the City will be held a the Luce Auditorium at Meredith Corporation, 225 Liberty Street.  Participants include:

Phil Cowdell, Global President, Client Services, GroupM

Laura Desmond, CEO, Eagle Vista Partners

Kristin Dolan, CEO, 605

Christopher Geraci, President, National Video Investment at Omnicom Media Group

Walt Horstman, SVP Advanced TV, TiVo

David Kline, President, Spectrum Reach, Executive Vice President, Charter

Allison Metcalfe, GM LiveTV, LiveRamp

Rob Norman, Advisor

Babs Rangaiah, Executive Partner, Global Marketing iX at IBM

Nancy Reyes, Managing Director, TBWA/Chiat Day/NY

Lyle Schwartz, Managing Director, TBWA/Chiat Day/NY

Doug Ray, Chairman, Dentsu Aegis Media

Mike Rosen, EVP, Advanced Advertising and Platform Sales at NBCUniversal

Ashley J. Swartz, CEO, Furious Corp.

Vikram Somaya, SVP, Global Data Officer & Ad Platforms, ESPN

Ben Tatta, President, 605

Jamie West, Deputy MD, Sky Media UK & Group Director of Advanced Advertising Sky PLC

Ben Winkler, Chief Investment Officer, OMD

This video is part of The Road to Cannes, a preview of topics to be addressed at Cannes Lions. The series is presented by the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.  FreeWheel is a Comcast company.

By Steve Ellwanger on    @steveellwanger