A hyper-contextualisation solution with the use of A.I.

Fervent readers of our egtabites have undoubtedly seen the myriad of examples of how our members are continually reinventing their commercial offer through forward-thinking strategies, bold creativity and cutting-edge technology.

A great example of this evolution is featured in this week’s egtabite, which puts the spotlight on French sales house M6 Publicité and its latest feat in hyper-contextualised video advertising. The sales house developed a cutting-edge offer, called "visual targeting", for its online TV service (6Play) which uses video artificial intelligence to provide an ideal context for advertisers and their brands to advertise in. M6 pioneered the first campaign with this in-house algorithms in August, with Decathlon and Havas Media as launching partners.

Evolving the offer

“In a very fragmented media landscape where maintaining the attention of viewers is ceaselessly becoming more challenging, we keep on innovating in context marketing, as we are convinced that the quality of TV context is a significant asset for the impact of advertising. Thus, we set out to advance our commercial solutions to offer a context which is not only absolutely premium and brand safe, but also provides clients with a better level of attention during ad breaks and therefore a stronger brand recall.” says Kim Younes, Director of Marketing, Innovation and Communication for M6 Publicité.

The development of this cutting-edge tech with visual targeting is in line with 2 pillars of the sales house’s strategy : the development of contextualisation and the growing use of data.

Kim Younes explains: “In the last years, we have consistently innovated with this in mind. When we noticed, after launching for example the “mid-break” (a small interstitial to ‘wake up’ viewers during a break) or the “contextualised EP1” (personalised first spot in an ad-break), that renewed attention means an increase of up to 20% brand recall, we decided to continue investing in tools to improve viewer attention. Our online video inventory offers much more flexibility than our linear one, in terms of ad placement. That is why we decided to invest in A.I and a hyper contextualisation solution.”

How does it work?

Using an artificial intelligence software by Computer Vision and a proprietary algorithm developed by the sales house, every second of the M6 program inventory is visually scanned and categorised into 6 micro-moments: scenes of conviviality, leisure, sports & fitness, care & beauty, moments of sunshine, moments of bad weather. Those moments are guaranteed brand-safe (crime, drugs or other problematic scenes are excluded).

The A.I then automatically programs the spots to be inserted after scenes and situations in the program which are in line with the advertiser’s products, thus providing an ideal context (for example an ad for a food product after a scene of a family dinner).

M6 wants to roll out with this new offer widely: two-thirds of their online inventory is made available to contextualised campaigns. The benefit for the sales house is twofold: it allows to renew conversations with clients, around the concept of personalisation and brand safety, as well as increase CPMs by 30% for this highly innovative solution.

Results

The innovative offer was launched together with Decathlon, who chose visual targeting in the category “sports & fitness” for its campaign "Rentrée des sportifs" (Athletes back to school) which was broadcast from August 24 to September 13 on the 6play platform. The initial launch already yielded very promising results.

The concept was very well received by the public because of its deep integration within their viewing experience. A survey of the combined results of the tests showed that 80% of respondents preferred to see advertising which was in line with the programme in which it was broadcast. 74% of respondents stated they remember this contextualised form of advertising better, which also proves to have a positive effect on the brand image (+23%) and the attractiveness of the brand (+12% purchase intent for products).

" We’re convinced that hyper-contextualisation is a win-win situation for everyone. The audience enjoys a greater viewing experience and brands take advantage of from this positive effect to build brand awareness and increase purchase intent." says Kim Younes, Marketing, Innovation & Communication Director at M6.