Every brand wants to out-do its competitors. But, in the advertising services sector that helps brands reach higher, it is increasingly about coming-together rather than competition.

Christa Carone, President of newly-formed Infillion, says she is heading to Beet Retreat San Juan in pursuit of partnerships.

Her company was recently formed out of a merger of Gimbal and true[X]. But, in this video interview with Beet.TV, Carone says the new company still needs to look outside.

‘Total convergence’

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“One of the benefits of us being part of the Beet Retreat, is to tap into the strengths and the credibility and the credentials of others in the industry to see if there’s ways that we can be stronger together,” Carone says.

“We’re seeing total convergence across all of the different platforms where we’re running our marketing or our advertising messages.

“We’re all tripping on each other a little bit, but I realise that, actually, when we pause and we play to each other’s strengths, there’s a power in partnership that has never existed as much as it does right now in our industry.”

Coming together

True[X]  pioneered the creation of interactive ads that can reduce ad load and yield higher viewer engagement. It was previously acquired by Fox and then sat with Disney through its acquisition of 21st Century Fox.

In October 2020, true[X] was sold to Gimbal, a technology company focused on using location information to activate ads.

This February, the pair announced a new single brand, Infillion.

“Infillion is very much focused on is creating connected marketing and advertising experiences that reward consumers for their time, for their attention, and for their privacy,” Carone says.

Growth forecast

Despite a tumultuous business environment, Carone sees optimistic signs.

“In fact, the fourth quarter was the best year on record for our business,” she says. “We’re starting 2022 with a tremendous amount of wind at our back.

“Where we think that there continues to be tremendous growth in the marketplace is this point around convergence and not getting ourselves overly hyped up about ‘CTV is the only play in town’, or ‘let’s swing the pendulum over and start exploring everything that’s happening in the metaverse’.

“We think that there’s growth across all of the different ways the consumers are consuming content and also the ability to tap into more authenticated, usable first-party data to ensure that the investment that marketers are making are really attracting the attention of real human beings in relevant ways.”

Format platform

Infillion technology is used by publishing partners like A&E, Fox, Hulu, Crackle, PlayWorks, Funimation and Chegg to vary ad load to audiences who engage directly with ad creative.

The company has partnered with Innovid to take Infillion’s ad formats into Innovid’s ad serving technology.

Infillion’s Carone will be joining the industry discussion at Beet Retreat San Juan, March 16 to 18.

You are watching coverage from Beet Retreat San Juan 2022, presented by AppScience, Infillion, MadHive, SpringServe, Univision & VideoAmp. For more videos, please visit this page.

By Robert Andrews on @robertandrews