Ooyala-owned video advertising provider Videoplaza is teaming up with TubeMogul, which creates enterprise software for video ads, on what it calls a "premium programmatic marketplace" designed to attract large brands and content providers.
Advertisers using TubeMogul's software can access Videoplaza's ad inventory in what the companies call a "secure, trusted and transparent programmatic marketplace." TubeMogul's platform will be integrated with Videoplaza's Konnect service.
While the partnership provides added value to Videoplaza customers, it also gives Emeryville, Calif.-based TubeMogul access to international sales channels.
Programmatic has taken its share of lumps recently: Last year, The New York Times and other outlets revealed that the medium, which automates ad buying and placement, was rife with fraud and difficult to track. The issues have likely pushed larger brands and advertisers away from programmatic buying.
Those are problems that the two companies are looking to solve through a more personal approach, according to Videoplaza founder and CEO Sorosh Tavakoli.
"I think a lot of those issues in a way become less relevant" when taking a premium approach to ad buying and selling, Tavakoli told FierceOnlineVideo. "It's a specific buy you've made, you've met the publisher. That's very different from when you say, go and buy from 10,000 different properties, and you have no idea (where it's displayed), and so on. The nature of our inventory is it's much more safe in the beginning. That's obviously a huge added benefit to buying in this environment."
Ooyala acquired London-based Videoplaza in October 2014. Tying in to Ooyala and its parent, Telstra, has allowed Videoplaza breathing room that it didn't necessarily have as a smaller company, Tavakoli said. "It's allowed us to be a lot more rigid and truer to who we are and where we want to go." That has also enabled it to avoid some of the issues plaguing programmatic.
"We've been very strict. Since we launched (in October) we've been proactive in shutting down some of the publishers that we've had that were more the aggregator type network," he said. "We've been pretty brutal there, and took the hit on our revenues because we were comfortable on the revenue side."
With programmatic digital video ad spending expected to triple this year according to eMarketer, it's clear that Ooyala's ad tech subsidiary and TubeMogul are positioning themselves to grab a significant share of this market segment.
For more:
- see the release
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