SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Richie Hyden is on a quest to make sure video and TV content can be mined, understood, targeted against and relevant.

The co-founder and COO of IRIS.TV, a contextual targeting enablement software company for video, is fresh from having just signed a partnership to continue that journey.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, Hyden explains what ad buyers have been asking for.

Combatting irrelevance

“One thing I think all of us have probably seen over the past two years is how, in some instances, irrelevant advertising can be to both the consumer and the content,” Hyden says.

“A relevant ad next to a relevant piece of content that resonates with the consumer will perform better for all constituents.

“Although we’re addressing market needs from an advertiser perspective, in the end we hope that the consumer is the one who wins by having a more enjoyable experience of content and advertising.”

Tag Team: LiveRamp Combines Contextual, Audience Data For Upfront Pitch

Coming together

IRIS.TV’s technology peers into video content to produce a range of buyable “contextual” targeting cues, to make programming descriptors like ratings, genres and celebrities in-show classifications actionable.

As recently announced, LiveRamp is bundling IRIS.TV’s IRIS.TV ID and its own RampID two together in its unified TV platform, along with an integration with the SpringServe ad server platform. For Hyden, it’s about offering a combination:

  1. Better planning
  2. Marrying contextual and audience targeting.
  3. Activation.

Meeting demand

“One of the pieces of feedback that we’ve been getting is that, while targeting obviously is extremely important to the ecosystem, how do we actually plan more effectively?,” he says.

“We’ve seen a huge increase in supply, obviously due to things like the pandemic and whatnot, in the CTV space.

That’s really started to change the thinking, specifically with the agencies, around how to think about linear budgets versus CTV budgets.”

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.