Name: Innovid

Allows advertising to be incorporated into video content. The advertising is inserted at play time, allowing different audiences to be targeted with the same content. The incorporated material can also be interactive, potentially allowing viewers to purchase, for example, an item of clothing worn by an actor.

URL: innovid.com
Location: New York City
Telephone: (646) 205 0405
Year Founded: 2007
Number of Employees: 15

Executive Leadership:

CEO: Zvika Netter

Bio: Before Innovid, Netter was the vice president of business development and Ness Technologies, a technology services firm. Prior to that he co-founded NTR, a software company.

CTO: Tal Chalozin

Bio: Before Innovid, Chalozin was the co-founder of GarageGeeks, an entrepreneurship networking non profit..

Board Members and Advisors:

Zvika Netter

Tal Chalozin

Jonny Saacks, Genesis Partners

Funding:

Innovid received $750,000 in angel funding from Jeff Pulver and $50,000 from Zvika Kelich. In February 2008, it raised $3 million in series A funding from Genesis Partners.

Technology:

Innovid’s technology allows advertising, including interactive advertising, to be incorporated into video. Video content producers define where advertising will appear, and select the brands that will appear. Advertising–which could take the form of a simple display ad, or a playable video games are inserted only when the video is played. This means the advertising in a video can be changed depending on the audience’s location and interest. Innovid’s analytical can track the user’s activity whilst the video plays, even locating where the mouse is placed from second to second.

Market:

Online video viewing in the US is growing. According to the comScore Video Metrix, 84.8 percent of the total US internet audience viewed online video and in September 2009 alone, nearly 26 billion videos were viewed by more than 168 million internet users. Currently, 85 percent of the marketing dollars spent on online video go to pre-roll advertisement, commercials that appear prior to an online video. Innovid’s CTO, Tal Chalozin, would like to take over this spending and direct it towards what he calls i-roll, a “more relevant, more interactive, more performing” type of ad. For example, when viewing an i-roll add of a movie release, the viewer could interact with it, get more information, such as synopsis, actors, etc and even directly purchase tickets through the video. Innovid has a growing, fast evolving market to seize: online video advertising is estimated to reach $4.3 billion by 2011 in the US alone, according to e-Marketer.

Strategy:

Innovid has targeted two groups: advertising agencies and online video publishers, such as MTV, CBS, and NBC, who sell advertising based on Innovid’s technology to their own clients and in return get a percentage of the sales. Advertising agencies are given all the tools needed to create advertisements for Innovid’s platform.

As advertisers get used to working with Innovid’s tools and as Innovid is certified to be played by +200 video publishers (many of them use only one media player, that developed by Brightcove), Innovid builds a barrier to entry for other on-line advertising companies. For new-entrants the process of convincing video publishers to allow them to tweak their online players to deliver their specific content will become more difficult over time.

Challenges and Next Steps:

With respect to the advertising clients, Innovid needs to improve the ease-of-use of the tools it offers to advertising agencies seeking to create ads. in order to boost its creative offering service. Innovid’s must continue to convince online video publishers them to open their players to its content. In September 2009 this year, Innovid had a big break through as MTV chose it to partner with the company. According to Tal Chalozin, the next publishers it would like to integrate and certify include Hulu, tv.com, NBC, Disney, ESPN, etc.

In the long term, Innovid’s CTO expects Internet-connected television and mobile distribution to evolve and catch up with web site-based video distribution, so the same type of online marketing can be done from the living room or mobile device. Innovid is keeping its platform “agnostic” so that it can be adapted the distribution channels such as the iPhone, android phone, or televisions.

Compiled by Jimena Almendares