TripleLift and Amagi partner to bring programmatic product placement to life

As the amount of supply shrinks, advertisers need creative ways to reach their audiences on streaming TV.

Enter programmatic platform TripleLift and playout software provider Amagi. The duo announced a partnership Tuesday that will enable advertisers to embed product placements seamlessly within episodes of a TV show.

Amagi enables media companies to distribute their shows to multiple streaming platforms at once, for example, helping publishers such as Tastemade send shows to The Roku Channel, Samsung TV+, Hulu and other ad-supported platforms. TripleLift, on the other hand, is a programmatic exchange that helps publishers monetize their inventory.

Through their integration, TripleLift analyzes the episode of a show to find the opportune moment to insert a branded product placement, using natural language processing, computer vision tech, audio tracks and more. TripleLift inserts markers in the episode before it's shipped to streaming networks, allowing advertisers buying through its exchange to target specific moments programmatically.

“With this partnership with Amagi, we can analyze the video and see TV programming upstream of any ad infrastructure,” explained Michael Shields, general manager of advanced advertising at TripleLift. “That gives us rich contextual information to insert brands.”

For example, if a brand wants to own moments in a show where a joke is being told, or a team wins a sports game, TripleLift analyzes content and deploys product placements programmatically based on those goals. Product placements sit underneath the episode during specific moments, such as the credits rolling, or are superimposed onto the show’s surroundings.

“We can allow brands to essentially sponsor those moments,” Shields said. “It's a level of contextual targeting the industry hasn't seen yet.”

On the other hand, if there are moments in a program with which the brand does not want to be associated, TripleLift ensures those placements are avoided.

The program is still in private beta, and TripleLift and Amagi are working on expanding the pool of supply before getting advertisers on board. But product placement is a growing market as quality TV supply shrinks, Shields said, and the ability to insert them programmatically is a new capability for advertisers.

As for measurement, the companies are currently looking at branding metrics including brand lift, recall or preference, using eye-tracking and biometric monitoring technology correlated against survey data. So far, TripleLift is seeing double-digit increases in branding metrics, Shields said, but did not break out figures.

TripleLift sees this new technology as an opportunity for brands to play in the subscription video on demand (SVOD) space as well, where commercial breaks are nonexistent. The company is “in talks with” all major streaming players, including SVOD providers, Shields said, but did not go into specifics.

While there are other playout software companies in the market, including Verizon, TripleLift was attracted to Amagi because of its scale with mid-market CTV publishers.

“We're going to provide a better customer experience by reducing traditional commercial load, provide more touchpoints for marketers by allowing them to scale post-production product placement, and increase yield for publishers without increasing ad loads with more opportunities for monetization in the stream,” Shields said.