We’re putting new advertising trends and perspectives in the spotlight, and this time we’re focusing on new tech platforms that allow smart product placement at scale.
What does that mean?
It means putting your brand where it couldn’t go before – including the past.
Mirriad was founded in 2008 and after floating on the stock market in 2017, they have rapidly scaled up their offering.
The platform creates completely new ad inventory, unlocked by using artificial intelligence to retrospectively enable product placement within existing video.
Picture your favorite sitcom. Then picture the background of the scene. Perhaps the characters are outside, and there is an otherwise-unnoticed 48 sheet OOH banner in shot.
Using AI, this pristine, untouched ‘ad space’ can be manipulated to feature product placement for any number of brands. Other executions include an ad featuring on the back of a newspaper or magazine being read by the lead character.
In some examples, placements and even actual products are being added to a scene where there was previously empty space.
This is something we have never seen before and marks a new era for product placement advertising. Used in conjunction with complementary innovations emerging from the online and digital ad buying practice (see report below), product placement becomes dynamic, active and personal.
The brands which feature in the placements could be tailored to the user’s
interests, location or time of day – or any relevant targeting methodology.
interests, location or time of day – or any relevant targeting methodology.
We could even see this inventory becoming readily available through Demand Side Platforms in the not so distant future.
Content creators may argue that with this evolved method of product placement at scale, we risk distracting an audience from the original creative and damaging the art of content creation. And it remains to be seen how consumers would react to this at a mass scale if this was to become common practice.
But relevant and willing brands who use these new capabilities wisely have an opportunity to be early adopters and reap the benefits.
Product placement at scale:
Thinking points
● Dynamic display of on-screen real estate gives content creators new options for funding and increased negotiating power.
● The entire history of on-screen culture potentially is back in play. What’s old becomes new.
But how will audiences react to advertisements for new services in old programming? How do we use creative design to avoid anachronism and future-shock?
Read the report
We explore more of the perspectives and platforms that are rebuilding advertising and media as a positive force for the new world.
Fill in the form to receive your copy:
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