connected-tv
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JWX wants every story to earn its keep
A video player grew into a bet on the economics of publishing. JWX now connects the work of making content, finding an audience and getting paid.
The E.W. Scripps Company bets on free.
A newspaper company built for working people now wants to make live sports easier to watch. The antenna is cheap. The business behind it is anything but.
Channel Factory bets on the video around your ad
A cheap impression can become an expensive mistake. Channel Factory built a business around choosing the company an advertisement keeps.
Cadent wants your screens to talk.
The audience moved. The advertising budget got stuck. Cadent is stitching TV, streaming, digital, and YouTube into a system that can follow the money - and change where it goes.
GumGum wants to read the room
The company that started with photographs now sells advertisers a better sense of timing. Its wager: what you are paying attention to can matter more than who you are.
Centro found the work hiding behind the ads.
Buying an ad takes a moment. Everything around it can take weeks. Centro, now Basis Technologies, built its business in that gap.
Imagine Communications: Change the system. Keep the show.
Television has to reinvent its machinery while the pictures keep moving. Imagine Communications sells the bridges between old and new - and the software that helps pay for the crossing.
Integral Ad Science makes ads prove their worth
An ad can load perfectly and accomplish nothing. Integral Ad Science built its business around the awkward questions that come after “delivered.”
Outbrain bought a bigger stage.
It built a business on what you read next. Then Outbrain spent roughly $900 million on Teads and took its name. The next act reaches from article feeds to television screens.
Amagi put the TV station in software
A request to replace two hours of television helped turn an Indian advertising startup into a global broadcast business. Its real product is the work viewers never see.
Unified makes the ad budget legible.
Buying digital ads is easy. Understanding where the money went is harder. Unified built a business around closing that gap, pairing campaign specialists with software that keeps the receipts.
Fubo fought Disney. Then joined the team.
It began with a $7 soccer subscription. Eleven years later, Fubo is a Disney-controlled TV business testing whether fans will pay for a bundle built around the teams they actually follow.
Choozle puts the buyer back in charge
Buying an ad is easy. Knowing what you bought is harder. Choozle has built its business around giving smaller agencies a clearer view of the machinery.
Connatix Found the Money Behind the Play Button
Publishers had stories. Advertisers had budgets. Connatix built the machinery between them - and its evolution into JWX reveals why a video player was only the beginning.
Applicaster builds streaming apps that can change their minds
A volleyball service wanted control. An app builder had spent years learning how to give it away. Inside Zapp, Applicaster’s bet that streaming teams should be able to change the screen without rebuilding the machine.
Uniper turns the television into a place to belong
The remote control is an unlikely instrument of social change. Uniper uses it to bring classes, conversation and care into the homes of older adults who want to stay put.
NBTV wants your television to close the sale
A bottle, a golf club, a jar of sauce: NBTV puts the checkout inside the entertainment. Its bigger wager is that a good story can earn a sale before the viewer reaches for a second screen.
Beeswax let advertisers bring their own brains
Most ad platforms sell you their judgment. Beeswax rented out the machinery and let buyers supply their own - a distinction that carried a New York startup into Comcast’s television business.
Digital Remedy and the case of the missing credit
A $42,000 advertising test offers a clue to Digital Remedy’s business: the channel that closes a sale may owe a debt to the one that started it.
NextRoll wants your ads to talk to each other
The company behind AdRoll grew by bringing retargeting to smaller businesses. Its next bet is that marketers need their channels, data and sales teams to agree on what actually works.
Affinity Global finds money in the overlooked click
A browser shortcut. A misspelled address. A broken shopping link. Affinity Global has built a business around the small moments that advertising tends to overlook.
Motimatic buys ad space for the students who went quiet
A college can win an application and still lose the student. Motimatic uses behavioral science, paid media, and carefully timed prompts to turn unfinished intentions into a next step.
OpenX bets better advertising starts before the bid
The ad exchange moved its machinery into Google’s cloud, then moved more decisions toward the publisher. Its wager: the route to an audience can matter as much as the audience itself.
MNTN wants your first TV ad to earn its keep
Television used to be a place to look important. MNTN wants it to be a place to count customers - and has built the buying, creative and measurement tools to make that argument.
Madison Logic and the buyer who wasn’t ready
A whitepaper download is a tiny act of curiosity. Madison Logic built a business around what happens between that moment and a buying committee finally saying yes.
ZypMedia and the Value of Knowing the Local Salesman
Streaming scattered the television audience. ZypMedia made a business of helping the people who already sold local ads follow it.
The App Install That Wasn’t There
FeedMob makes a business of finding mobile customers beyond search and social. Its more interesting job begins when the numbers look too good to be true.
The Remote That Came With the Phone - and Stayed Too Long
Peel escaped a $100 piece of hardware by putting a universal remote inside the phone. The distribution trick worked spectacularly - until software people had not chosen began asking for more attention than they wanted to give.
The Agency That Learned to Stop Buying More
Most agencies ask how much attention a budget can buy. Little Rock's mhp.si asks a more awkward question: how much of that attention had any chance of becoming business?
Junction 37 and the Three-Cent Media Plan
A New York media agency built its reputation by distrusting the obvious channel, following the shelf, and charging toward the strange result. Sometimes the winning ad is six minutes long. Sometimes it costs three cents to watch.