Silverpush has won 4 awards in a row at MMA Smarties MENA 2020.

Silverpush has won a Gold and 3 Silver awards across multiple categories. It has won Gold for Mobile Gaming, Gamification & E-Sports category, and a Silver for each of the following three categories – Lead Generation, Direct Response, Conversions; Machine Learning & AI; and Innovation.

MMA Smarties MENA awards honor the most effective modern marketing efforts across the Middle East and North Africa region. Smarties awards recognize leaders, brands, agencies, and tech providers that make use of technology to pioneer new approaches in modern marketing. MMA Smarties awards are held annually to honor outstanding innovation and creativity resulting in significant business impact.

Silverpush was honored with Gold for its Euphoria Moments campaign for Rakbank. To bring Barca fans closer to their club, Rakbank launched the FC Barcelona credit card. Rakbank wanted to reach the target audience for its new credit card by tapping into fans’ emotions, passion and pride. For this, it leveraged Silverpush’s real-time moment marketing platform – Parallels. Silverpush identified game’s euphoria moments such as Messi scores, Barca scores and Barca wins, and connected with the fans during these moments by delivering them relevant brand messages. These messages persuaded fans to join the winning team by applying for the card. The campaign delivered highly impressive results. There was 57% increase in leads for the card. Silverpush’s real-time sports sync technology enabled Rakbank to reach Barca fans during the moments they were most likely to engage.

Silverpush won a Silver for the Lipton Stay at Home campaign under the innovation category. Lipton wanted to run an ad campaign on YouTube with the idea of encouraging people to spend time with their loved ones and increasing mental well-being awareness during the pandemic. For this, Lipton leveraged Silverpush’s Mirrors – the world’s first AI-powered in-video context detection platform. Mirrors detected in-video contexts in YouTube videos – text such as anxiety related content, activities such as exercise; objects such as a glass of juice; etc. – and served contextually relevant ads. The campaign drove massive reach and brand awareness, along with a significant increase in market penetration.

Silverpush is revolutionizing the advertising industry with its technological innovations. Its ad tech solutions are helping brands to strongly connect with consumers and boost brand awareness, conversions and sales.

The year 2020 was an unusual year that turned both health and economy upside down. The pandemic has led more and more businesses, both small and big, to go online. This has resulted in an increase in the investment in digital marketing, including video advertising.

In 2020, 85% of businesses used video as a marketing tool and 83% of video marketers acknowledged that video helped them in generating leads. This article discusses top video marketing trends to watch for in 2021.

More and More Marketers will Move Away from Behavioral to Contextual Advertising

The rise in users’ awareness about their privacy on the internet and the coming into effect of data privacy regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) have made it difficult for marketers to track consumers through the use of third-party cookies. Some major web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari have already dropped third-party cookies, and Google is on the path of phasing out these cookies from its Chrome browser by the year 2022.

Marketers have already started moving to contextual ad targeting that offers a cookie-less way of ad targeting, which is both effective and compliant with the data privacy laws. This trend will increase sharply in 2021 as more and more brands will adopt contextual advertising.

Connected TV Advertising will Grow at a Fast Rate

The pandemic has accelerated the connected TV viewership across the globe. According to eMarketer February 2020 prediction, there will be more than 208 million connected TV users in 2021 in the United States only, i.e., about 84% of digital video viewers.

According to the eMarketer forecast released in October 2020, connected TV ad spending will increase to $11.36 billion in 2021 against $8.11 billion in 2020, and it will reach $18.29 billion by 2024, i.e., double the amount spent on connected TV advertising in 2020.

For the US connected TV advertising, YouTube is currently the biggest source of supply. According to the eMarketer forecast, YouTube’s gross US CTV ad revenue will reach $4.30 billion in 2021, and by 2022, it will increase to $5.45 billion, accounting for 38.7% of total US CTV ad spending. In 2021, more and more brands and their partner YouTube marketing companies will run YouTube campaigns on connected TV.

Micro and Shoppable Videos will Rise

Video marketing experts predict that short-duration and shoppable videos will become more common in 2021. Micro-videos are short-length videos that deliver the brand’s message within five to six seconds. If long-duration videos like videos of events such as online workshop or questions and answers sessions are required, micro-videos can be utilized to promote these video events.

A shoppable video ad takes customers directly to the advertised product’s web page, and thus, facilitates buying. YouTube offers a direct response shoppable ad format that makes a video ad shoppable by adding browsable images of products below the ad. A viewer can directly reach the product page after clicking on the product image.

Use of 360-Degree Video Ads will Increase

360-degree videos are redefining the consumer viewing experience. Brands are expected to increase the use of these videos for advertising their products. These videos provide an immersive experience along with greater control over product view. Data shows that 360-degree videos have a greater video completion rate than regular videos.

Brand Suitability will Gain Momentum

A study published by GroupM in 2020, which involved a survey of about fourteen-thousand consumers in different countries, concluded that majority of consumers form a negative opinion of a brand when its ads appear next to inappropriate content. This and other similar studies make it highly important for marketers to make sure that their ads are not being placed against harmful or inappropriate content.

In 2021, marketers will increase their focus not only on brand safety but also on brand suitability. Marketers will not only put more efforts in ensuring that their ads are not placed against content that comes under generic unsafe categories, but also in making sure that an ad’s environment is suitable for that ad. A brand can determine the suitability of surrounding content for its ads by considering the nature of its business. For instance, it is suitable for an insurance brand to place its ads against a car accident news, but it is highly unsuitable and brand-damaging for a car manufacturer to do that.

Marketers should take into consideration the above-mentioned trends while creating their digital video advertising strategy for the year 2021. This will help them create highly successful video advertising campaigns and maximize return on investment.

Marketers are well aware of the advantages afforded by YouTube advertising. YouTube ads help in generating and spreading brand awareness, and in increasing sales.

From time to time, YouTube updates its platform by adding new features. Adopting these new features in video advertising campaigns on YouTube can help marketers in connecting with users more meaningfully and effectively, and in boosting the performance of their campaigns.

Below are discussed some of the new features incorporated into the YouTube advertising platform –

Direct Response Shoppable Ad Format

In June 2020, YouTube announced a new ad format known as the direct response ad format. This new format will help brands by making video ads on YouTube video more shoppable. This new format adds browsable images of products beneath the video ad. This helps in driving traffic directly to the product pages. This new format comes at a time when people are increasingly shopping through e-commerce platforms to avoid chances of getting infected by shopping through physical stores.

Video Action Campaigns

YouTube also announced video action campaigns in June 2020. This feature offers a cost-effective and easy way to marketers to increase the number of conversions. It works by showing video ads that drive action automatically to the following – home feed, watch pages, and Google video partners. All of this happens within one single campaign. Any future inventory that becomes available will be included by YouTube. This new feature will help marketers in saving their precious time for focusing on important tasks such as building the right creative.

Video Reach Campaigns

Video reach campaigns provide an easy and efficient way to marketers for achieving their video advertising goals on YouTube. With this feature, marketers are able to upload multiple video creatives into just a single advertising campaign. It saves them from managing separate campaigns for different types of ads such as bumper ads and skippable / non-skippable in-stream ads. A machine learning (ML) algorithm, developed by Google, automatically displays the most efficient combo of the video ad formats in order to help marketers reach their audiences at scale.

YouTube Masthead

YouTube Masthead allows marketers to showcase brands, or their products or services, in the YouTube Home feed. The ad gets displayed across all devices. YouTube Masthead offers a highly effective solution for driving massive reach and allows marketers to plan their buys in advance without depending on auction. As this ad is placed on the YouTube’s home page, it provides an extreme opportunity to marketers to show off their brands.

Instant Review / Instant Reserve

YouTube’s Instant Review tool allows marketers to reserve ad space for up to one hundred and twenty days in advance. This happens through an automated process and does not require any minimum spend. By using this tool, marketers can book campaigns in advance with a defined budget. Using this tool to reserve ad campaigns in advance is similar to scheduling ads on TV, enabling marketers to secure spots beforehand for future important events.

Augmented Reality (AR) Try-On Ads

Augmented Reality (AR) involves superimposing digital content such as sound, images and text onto the world we see. YouTube’s AR Try-On ads are shown to users in a split-screen format. Video plays on the top part of the split-screen while camera view appears at the bottom. A user can then see what he or she looks like after trying the make-up featured in the video.

By using these new YouTube advertising features, marketers can run more effective campaigns and gain a competitive edge.

The brand safety crisis that first caught the attention of advertisers in a significant way back in 2017 is even more accurate today! 

With millions of user-generated visual content added to video-sharing platforms daily, brand safety has taken center stage in advertising.

Like any crisis, this situation has also led to practical and effective solutions that have given advertisers varying degrees of control. 

Some of the most commonly used brand safety measures, such as blocklists, approved channels/pages, third-party measurement, and brand safety experts, have their own advantages and disadvantages. 

To understand how leading marketers and brands perceive and mitigate brand safety risks, we have collected survey responses from 160+ agency heads, business leads in media, and brand marketers in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, and India). 

Keep reading to find the key takeaways from the survey, highlighting the most significant findings related to brand safety challenges in the SEA region. Make sure to download the report for a more comprehensive understanding of the subject, including its growing importance.

Key Highlights of the SEA Brand Safety Survey

Here are some major highlights from the survey:

1. Video platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube offer brand safety controls but still have unsafe content. A recent study found that 8-9% of videos on video sharing and hosting platforms in Southeast Asia contained harmful content, including violence, smoking, and adult, and extremist content.

2. Industry professionals believe that hazardous exposure negatively impacts brand perception and can lead to revenue loss. In fact, 60% of respondents believe that brand safety risks can result in reduced buying or even a complete boycott of the brand.

3. Blacklists and whitelists are still the most popular brand safety measures, but contextual targeting techniques involving NLP-based technologies and in-video context detection are becoming more prevalent. However, 60% of industry professionals say that using current brand safety measures makes it difficult to reach a specific audience.

4. The biggest brand safety challenge is the need for customized exclusion filters that can meet unique brand needs. According to the report, 63% of industry professionals stated this as the most pressing issue, highlighting the importance of brand suitability.

5. The report also discusses how the challenges of current brand safety measures have negatively affected reach and monetization during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, it emphasizes the growing importance of brand suitability, the solutions that brands and agencies are seeking, and the emergence of AI-powered context detection technology.

Summary

There is a significant risk of video ads appearing alongside inappropriate or harmful content, with as many as 1 in 10 ads affected. This can have serious consequences for brands, causing confusion and even leading to loss of revenue. Download the report to gain insights into how industry professionals are addressing this issue in today’s complex digital landscape.

2019 has been an amazing year at Silverpush. Awards, recognitions, and accolades have come our way while we continued to serve our clients. Our technology continued to make a difference in the world of digital campaigns and online media for some of the largest brands globally. Join us as we look back at the ride that 2019 has been for us.

MMA Smarties India: Silver in Innovation and Product and Services Launch

Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), a global mobile trade association, in fact, the only one of its kind is a hub for marketers, sellers and technological innovators in the media industry. MMA Smarties acknowledges the best brands, agencies, and tech enablers that exceed expectations by driving business growth via mobile campaigns.

Silver in Innovation

ThumsUp, a leader in the soft beverages industry in India was targeting millennials for its new 2019 variant- ThumsUp Charged in Summer. Their concerns of brand safety and engagement optimization were resolved with Silverpush’s Mirrors Platform. The AI powered contextual video advertising platform helped the brand reach their most relevant audience.

Silver in Product and Services Launch

As a part of the Amazing Moment Marketing Campaign, Silverpush was the technological enabler of Madison Media working on Asian Paints’ Clean the Air campaign. With the rising concerns around AQI, the campaign revolved around creating hyper localized messaging synced with real-time AQI levels. With quality insights delivered at the right time, Silverpush informed with and showcased 1000+ region-specific informative communications.

WARC Media Awards: Bronze for Effective Use of Tech

Every year, WARC recognises brands that excel in communication planning, driving positive business results via online channels globally through WARC Media Awards. At 2019 WARC Media Awards, SilverPush was awarded bronze for a campaign for Unilever’s Breeze in the category — Effective Use of Tech.

With Breeze, SilverPush leveraged TV sync for Unilever Philippines. With a customer base of housewives aged between 22 to 44 years, SilverPush identified that the buyers were becoming increasingly social media savvy and therefore are prone to multi-screening. The audience was targeted and retargeted with paid advertisements through creating a tv ad sync between the brand’s TV commercials and digital video ads across social platforms.

Festival of Media Awards (FOMA) Asia Pacific Awards: Bronze for Best in Technology

 

Festival of Media Awards is a celebration of brilliant media thinking across Asia Pacific region. The jury comprises of a vast network of creative thinkers and innovators in the industry. At FOMA APAC 2019, Breeze earned a bronze for the category — Best in Technology.

Moreover, collaborating with Mindshare was a unique learning experience that has added immense value to our technology.

Other Campaigns that have Won Accolades and Recognition

• Unilever Wall’s and Mindshare Indonesia won the gold in the Cross Media category for their Wall’s Gold Spirit campaign celebrating national sports heroes, powered by Silverpush’s tv ad sync — Parallels.
• Shortlisted at The Wires APAC Awards for the multi-screen sync platform as the Best Marketing Technology solution
• Nomination at Drum Digital Awards APAC for Best Cross-Platform Campaign on behalf of Rexona
• Shortlisted for MMA Smarties Vietnam in the mobile Mobile Video and Innovation categories
• Shortlisted at Effie MENA awards in the Data-Driven and Healthcare-OTC categories for Sanofi’s Telfast

More about our Winning Campaigns

Breeze

While TV advertising remain a key channel for information distribution in South Asia, women displayed indifference and lack of interest during TV commercial breaks, displaying a cross screen behaviour — paying more attention to social channels. The campaign overcame the clutter and increased brand engagement within the target audience through real-time, TV ad sync advertising.

KFC

KFC’s launch of a new popcorn chicken flavor created the right buzz with AI-powered contextual ad targeting platform — Mirrors. Thirty contextual triggers were identified through Mirrors’ unique capability of detecting faces, logos, objects, scenes, actions and emotions in a streaming video. Coupled with customized creatives, KFC was able to target the right audience, as they engaged with their interests on YouTube. The campaign achieved a VTR of 35 percent; a direct increase of 10 percent against agency benchmark of 25 percent.

Thums Up

Thums Up leveraged contextual ads placements to target millennial buyers engaged in adventure and thrill seeking activities. For the campaign, SilverPush contextually targeted users consuming video content around extreme adventure sports, through AI powered object and emotion detection capabilities. This maximized brand engagement exactly at the moment consumers were engaging with their interests, and not based on past viewing habits.

By seamless brand integration through Mirrors, the campaign gained a VTR of 35 percent with a decrease in CPV of 48 percent.

Oreo

SilverPush partnered with Oreo for their special edition Spider-Man themed pack for Contextual ad targeting. Spiderman themed content was identified with Mirrors technology enabling the brand to unlock the audience engaged in such content at that right moment. Spanning across four weeks, the campaign directly contributed to sales, leading to a 38 percent higher sales for Oreo.

In 2019, we have made a huge difference in the advertising industry. And in 2020, we intend to further expand our product portfolio and help brands understand and reach their customer, like never before.