Blinkx launches contextual online video ad network

Cory Bergman June 25th, 2007

As we previewed last week, today Blinkx took the wraps off AdHoc, an online video ad network that identifies keywords in video through speech recognition and targets ads accordingly. Press release with details below…

SAN FRANCISCO, California, June 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — blinkx,
the world’s largest video search engine, today unveiled AdHoc, the first
contextually relevant video advertising platform. Just as Google’s AdSense
transformed advertising on the Text Web, blinkx’s AdHoc platform will
revolutionize video advertising by matching compelling, customized,
TV-style ads to your audience on the Video Web.

Search technology performs two useful functions - finding content, and
also matching that content to meaningful, relevant advertising. blinkx’s
distribution strategy has established it as the de facto standard for video
search on the Web, so the natural evolution was to apply that proven
technology to the automatic selection of ads. AdHoc leverages blinkx’s
patented speech-to-text transcription and visual analysis technology to
understand video content more thoroughly and effectively than any other
service today, and can therefore dynamically place the most pertinent
advertising against it.

Online video presents an extremely attractive opportunity for
advertisers and media companies: targeted distribution with the potential
for immediate action, and the availability of real-time metrics to assess
the effectiveness of a given campaign.

blinkx’s AdHoc platform offers content partners and advertisers a
unique value proposition — video advertising which combines the emotive
power of TV promotion, with the relevance and utility of contextual search
advertising. This is an exciting prospect, not only in terms of enhancing
viewer experience, but also in increasing the effectiveness of campaigns.

In addition to its unrivalled relevance, the AdHoc platform offers
media companies and advertisers the most flexible solution for customizing
the timing and appearance of video ads, with options that include pre-,
post- and mid-roll placement, as well as dynamically-selected banners,
in-video mini-banners and a unique, post-roll catalog view. Partners can
even select which ad databases to leverage - their own, the blinkx AdHoc
platform, or even external ad systems, such as Google’s AdWords.

“Until now, online video advertising was a kind of Frankenstein’s
monster - an attempt to cobble together technology that was built for Text
Web banner advertising and apply it to an entirely new medium - the Video
Web,” said Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO, blinkx. “The AdHoc
platform is revolutionary because it was built from the ground up to
address rich media, resulting in higher monetization for media companies,
more effective marketing for advertisers and, most importantly, a useful,
non-disruptive experience for users.”

“As video choice continues to explode, consumers desperately need tools
that help them easily find what they’re interested in,” said Tim Hanlon,
Senior Vice President at Denuo, the media futures unit of ad giant Publicis
Groupe, S.A. “At the same time, marketers clamor to reach interested,
though ever-fragmenting audiences with judicious and relevant ad messaging.
AdHoc’s contextual video approach deftly bridges those two forces, allowing
information and advertising to flourish in a mutually beneficial way.”

The AdHoc platform is available to advertisers, media companies and
other partners effective immediately.