Explainer: Adventr's Interactive Digital Video Ads

Ad tech is confusing, and brand marketers and agencies alike want to simplify it. There are an overabundance of vendors contributing to the industry's complexity. The ad-tech market will reach $2.9 trillion by 2031, according to Allied Market Research. Adweek is reporting on one rising tech company each month that represents the future of advertising. Adventr, an ad-tech startup backed by John Legend, is creating interactive, shoppable videos designed to convert viewers. It uses generative AI to help video creators—usually marketers—increase clickthrough rates and generate higher purchase intent "in a dramatic way, at scale," said the company's founder, Devo Harris. Most companies still release video content primarily to increase their potential customers' brand awareness. It's still rare to see interactive video content online, and usually it has its limitations. "That's not really how the internet works in terms of conversion. Obviously, that's not a real actionable piece of content," Harris told Adweek. If a brand wanted to increase its video content effectiveness without spending more on production costs, it might work with Adventr to add interactive elements to the video. The strategy can be as simple as making a clickable button that reveals a product's SKU number as the video plays, according to Harris. This technology is novel. Traditionally, marketers viewed video at an upper funnel asset—a tool to educate potential customers about a brand or product, not drive sales. Adventr is changing that, incorporating dynamic technology into each video that allows viewers to interact with video content, thereby choosing their own marketing adventure. Harris, a Grammy-winning producer and songwriter, started the company after digging into YouTube video strategy in 2010 and overseeing product at Vimeo. The startup is generating interest. In 2021 it raised $5 million in seed capital, works with its clients including H&M and 23andMe, and now employs 22 people. John Legend, once Harris' college roommate, invested in the company and last month, Business Insider included Adventr on its list of 12 up-and-coming generative AI startups. At Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, Harris briefed Adweek on the technology and his business model. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Your product is increasing the possibility of conversion by changing a brand marketing asset into a lower-funnel asset. Harris: That's the bigger idea. Video on the internet does not need to be an awareness tool. You have the opportunity to actually have consideration and preference, and to go down that journey in the content. What you're describing is exactly the whole point of this product. If you're using it [as] an awareness channel, you're missing the point of what the internet is. We let people go through this journey and we drop you off at the purchase, on that website, on the particular product page, etc. In the future, [the purchase] will be in the experience as well. So you could buy live, via the video? Yes. There's so many different applications. For independent creators, for example, who get affiliate compensation through their videos. Is that something that you're focused on as well? Who is your target audience? Right now in this early stage, we're starting to focus more on advertising, especially on retail media. Use cases that involve access to data allow us to do even more relevant, targeted experiences. So let me show you what that means. [Harris played a video featuring two sneakers, one black and one red. Clicking on the red shoe generated its price and a link to purchase.] None of this is in the video. The video is communicating with the database that's telling it what to show. ... The content is in real time communicating with the back end, with your CRM, with external events, browser history, location, etc. Prices modify in real time. This is what Adventr is about. It's not about interactive video. I get it. 'Choose your own adventure.' That was cool a while ago, 10 years ago when we started. But now, how do we make video more intelligent? This is what we're pushing—this concept of smart video. Your fridge, your car, all these things are smart and connected, but why isn't your video? Obviously technological limitations are part of the reason why not. Technology clearly is there though. So why hasn't anyone done this? Give me some sense of what's holding the market back. There's been a disconnect of the technology, and creating advanced enough technology with creatives and making compelling experiences. They're often disconnected forces. The interactive units are out in the world. We work with lots of great partners like Weber Shandwick [and] Kin + Carta. We work directly with a bunch of brands too: 23andMe, Autodesk, Unicef [and] AWS. So what does the revenue model look like? We're a SaaS platform, so we have a monthly fee. If there's creative services, then that's on top of that. If it's ad-distributed content, then we participate on a CPM basis. We work with both advertising agencies and media agencies. A lot of times you can publish a unit and then you can traffic it in Google Display Video 360, Xandr, etc. But [clients] don't [always] want to take that step. Literally Media, and Its Legacy Comedy Brands, Enter the Video Era Really? So you'll activate the media? Yeah. We're now closing distribution deals where we'll do the distribution for you as well. We're now building out educational programs and certification. In a perfect world, we don't want to make the content. We just want to be the software, but how do we get people to be aware of this and to know how to use it? We need to institutionalize and formalize educational programming. Is there potential for this platform to become fully integrated within an agency's own platform, so that if they buy the technology, they can access it through their own stack? 100%. We want to integrate everywhere. I don't want there to be any surface that we don't touch over time, if the agency's systems use commonly accepted protocols. Whether someone just hit the Share button or it's paid media, we're giving you full visibility into that: every country, browser, device, etc. And our engagement rates are pretty extraordinary. Then you have the content side: What are people choosing? What's working? What's converting? What's not working? Where [do customers] abandon your experience? All of that you have access to here.

Video Marketing

What Marketers Should Know About Adventr's Interactive Digital Video Ads

The ad-tech company raised $5 million in seed capital, including an investment from John Legend

Olivia Morley

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Olivia Morley