LOS ANGELES – The ads seen on streaming connected TV channels could be about to get smarter, following a deal between IRIS.tv and Amagi.

Amagi, which helps bring streaming channels to CTV platforms, is partnering with IRIS.tv, whose technology mines video for data that can be passed as ad targeting signals, to enable contextual targeting for some of its channel partners.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, IRIS.tv co-founder Richie Hyden explains what is happening, and what they future looks like.

Enabling contextual CTV

“The partnership is built to enable transparency between both buyers and sellers, simply as to the content that a consumer is watching on a connected TV device, and most importantly, what they’re watching at the time in which an advertisement is shown to that consumer,” Hyden says.

The deal means Amagi channel partners – which currently include the likes of Vice Media, Bein Sports and Fremantle – will get to use IRIS.tv to pull out video-level contextual and brand safety signals, information that describes the inner meaning of their content. (Announcement).

This can then be activated through the streams enabled by Amagi, which delivers to like destinations like Samsung, Roku, Vizio, Xumo and Pluto TV, plugging in SSPs and DSPs to enable programmatic advertising.

In other words, it enables contextual advertising for linear and on-demand TV play-out over connected TV.

Inside video

Amagi recently raised $100 million in new funding.

IRIS.tv is all about peering into the inner meaning of videos, pulling out contextual labels that describe the content and making them available as signals for ad buyers and platforms.

It uses natural language processing to automatically add and structure video metadata.

Hyden says information about videos typically lives in a publisher’s content management system. He aims to make meaning of it, and help distribute that information to ad-tech systems.

IRIS.tv’s roadmap

Usually, these kinds of innovations are offered to sell-side operators. But Hyden’s says IRIS.tv’s roadmap involves embracing ad buyers, too.

“We’ll be expanding that to the buy side, leveraging our persistent ID that we call the IRIS ID,” he says.

“That will enable brands and agencies to enable traditional pre-bid targeting out of their DSP of choice in a very similar way that’s done for page-level analysis and targeting based on text on the page.

“You’ll see more announcements for us working with our DSP partners there, and then also enabling the data to be used for post-campaign reporting and verification, something that we know is really important to the brands and agencies.”

By Robert Andrews on    @robertandrews