Not long ago, the promise of streaming was an escape from the old world of television ads. But in a landscape now crowded with services and battling for subscribers, a new bargain has been struck. The ad-supported tier has become the undisputed growth engine of the streaming universe.
“I think it’s over 100 million folks have actually decided that ads are okay,” says Brad Quinn, SVP of Enterprise Partnerships at KERV.ai, an artificial intelligence firm at the forefront of this shift.
But acceptance is not the same as enthusiasm. For Quinn and KERV.ai, this new reality presents a critical challenge: if ads are here to stay, they have to be better.
From interruption to interaction
The old model of advertising was a blunt instrument. A commercial break arrived, and viewers were served whatever ads were in the queue. KERV.ai is aiming to introduce a more surgical, context-aware approach.
“Using the KERV technology, what we are doing with our publisher partners is the contextual correlation,” Quinn explains. Their AI understands a video. It identifies objects, scenes, and locations within a show. If a character is enjoying a cup of coffee on a sun-drenched patio, KERV’s technology can seamlessly cue up an ad for a specific coffee brand or a home goods store like Wayfair that sells similar patio furniture.
The next layer of this intelligent advertising is personalization through “catalog integrations.” By allowing users to signal their brand affinities, platforms can ensure the ads they see are from companies they already shop with, transforming a generic ad break into a personalized discovery feed. It’s a value exchange.
Uniting a fragmented world
This vision, however, faces a significant hurdle: fragmentation. The streaming ecosystem is a complex web of different apps, platforms, and technologies. A viewer’s experience on one service can be wildly different from another.
“One bad apple can spoil the bunch,” Quinn warns. “If I’m a consumer viewer and I have a bad shoppable or interactive experience on one CTV app, I’m less apt to do it again on that app or on others.”
This is where partnerships become the foundation of the entire strategy. KERV works to create what Quinn calls a “normalized metadata set” – a universal language that allows different publishers and platforms to communicate seamlessly. When everyone agrees on how to tag and describe the content – from the brand of laptop on a desk to the style of car in a chase scene – it creates a consistent, reliable framework.
This standardized data doesn’t just benefit viewers; it’s crucial for advertisers. “That data has to live somewhere for buyers to be able to transact,” says Quinn. By creating a clear, simple marketplace for this rich contextual data, KERV empowers brands to make more intelligent ad buys and measure their success, ensuring their investment reaches the right audience at the perfect moment.
