Leading Verification Technology Now Available Alongside Real-time Video Ad Platform

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–LiveRail, the first real-time video ad technology platform for publishers, networks and agencies, today announced that comScore’s validated Campaign Essentials (vCE) is now natively available to the over 200 publishers, networks and agencies that use LiveRail’s video infrastructure technology.

The vCE video validation solution is based on a JavaScript technology that allows LiveRail’s network and agency partners to block video ads from appearing in placements that may be damaging to the brand. In addition to the ad blocking controls, comScore vCE provides LiveRail’s video clients access to optimization tools and metrics like In-View and Engagement.

The integration comes as part of LiveRail’s Video Brand Safety Alliance, a coalition of leading context verification, content analysis and privacy vendors to provide a unique, multi-dimensional view of online video. comScore vCE and the other technology integrations supplement LiveRail’s existing URL whitelisting and syndication management capabilities, ensuring that video ads do not appear in environments that buyers deem unsafe.

“LiveRail is dedicated to providing clients with complete brand safety and transparency in online video,” said Mark Trefgarne, LiveRail CEO. “By integrating technologies like comScore vCE, we’re giving publishers, networks, and agencies the tools they need to make advertising decisions that help achieve their campaign goals and ensure brand ads do not appear in questionable environments.”

“comScore vCE helps major brands prevent their video ads from appearing next to questionable content, while at the same time letting brands and agencies know if their video ads were seen and engaged by users,” said Ryan Polley, comScore VP of Corporate Development. “We look forward to working with LiveRail to bring advertisers the confidence they need in leveraging the impact of video advertising.”

About LiveRail

The online video ad ecosystem runs on LiveRail. With over 3 billion monthly impressions (25% of all video ads) delivered via our platform each month, LiveRail is the technology behind many of the most sophisticated video advertising and media companies online. We help connect the video ecosystem, enabling publishers, ad networks, and agencies to transact more effectively and efficiently. Founded in 2007, LiveRail’s senior team is led by its founders, Mark Trefgarne (CEO) and Andrei Dunca (CTO). LiveRail Inc. is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with offices in New York City and Romania. LiveRail is backed by Pond Ventures.

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–LiveRail, provider of the world’s largest real-time online video ad platform, announced today that if has formed a partnership with TRUSTe, the leading online privacy solutions provider, to help video advertisers achieve reliable, scalable, and cost-effective compliance with the DAA Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising.

Endorsed by the Digital Advertising Alliance, TRUSTe’s TRUSTed Ads platform is an intuitive and comprehensive OBA self-regulatory privacy platform that features the industry-wide “Advertising Option Icon” on in-ad placements.

Advertisers utilizing LiveRail’s platform can now choose to use TRUSTe’s compliance service to implement the icon in their targeted video advertising via LiveRail’s newly launched Brand Safety Alliance. Agencies already working with both companies can now easily implement TRUSTe’s DAA compliance tools into their video ads via one user interface.

“Brands to be transparent with consumers, but it’s still difficult to navigate the growing video space,” said Mark Trefgarne, LiveRail CEO. “TRUSTe’s expertise and experience in online privacy immediately ensures our advertisers they are meeting OBA regulatory requirements and serving our customer base by adhering to the highest privacy standards in the industry.”

“TRUSTe is excited to partner with LiveRail to help advertisers deliver OBA privacy services,” said Chris Babel, CEO of TRUSTe. “TRUSTed Ads increases consumer understanding about OBA through comprehensive, clear and easily accessible privacy notices. By building transparency and trust, consumers better understand the OBA process and its potential benefits – such as relevant online advertising – allowing the advertising community to leverage new and innovative web-based technologies.”

About TRUSTed Ads OBA Privacy Platform

TRUSTed Ads offers consumers’ access to easy-to-understand educational material and concise advertising notification and opt-out choices. TRUSTed Ads gives advertisers, agencies, advertising networks, DSPs and publishers the ability to provide a branded and customizable consumer landing experience; simple tag implementation in advertising servers; and a detailed reporting and consumer feedback mechanism.

By providing a single integrated privacy platform for all online advertising, TRUSTed Ads further allows the advertising community to:

Communicate responsible privacy practices to customers;
Keep pace with the rapidly evolving privacy landscape and regulatory changes; and
Provide consistent and recognized certification of all privacy practices.
For more information about TRUSTed Ads, interested businesses can go to www.truste.com/ads.

About LiveRail

LiveRail is the core technology at the heart of the online video advertising ecosystem. LiveRail solutions enable and enhance the monetization of internet-distributed video and handle over 2 billion video ad impressions per month for many of the world’s largest media and advertising clients. Founded in 2007, LiveRail’s senior team is led by its founders, Mark Trefgarne (CEO) and Andrei Dunca (CTO). LiveRail Inc. is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with offices in New York, NY and Cluj-Napoca, Romania. LiveRail is backed by Pond Ventures.

About TRUSTe

TRUSTe is the leading privacy management solutions provider and offers a broad suite of solutions that enable companies to safely and efficiently handle the customer data powering their online businesses – including advertising, cloud services, mobile applications, and websites. Over 5,000 web properties from top companies like Apple, AT&T, Disney, eBay, HP, Microsoft, Nationwide, and Yelp rely on TRUSTe to ensure compliance with evolving and complex privacy requirements. TRUSTe’s mission, based on a “Truth in Privacy” framework, is built on a solid foundation of transparency, choice and accountability regarding the collection and use of personal information. TRUSTe’s privacy seal is recognized and trusted by millions of consumers as a sign of responsible privacy practices. For additional information on TRUSTe and its offerings, please visit http://www.truste.com.

Contacts

Media contact:
Amit Sharan, Marketing Director for LiveRail
415-512-7017
sales@liverail.com
or
Tonja Aldis, Storyboard PR for TRUSTe
415-868-5502
trustepr@storyboardpr.com

San Francisco – March 5 2012 – LiveRail, the first real-time video ad technology platform for publishers, networks and agencies, today unveiled the LiveRail Video Brand Safety Alliance, a series of technology partnerships providing advertisers, agencies, publishers and networks with the highest degree of safety available for in-stream video placements.

The launch combines best-in-class offerings from Affine, AdXpose comScore, DoubleVerify, Proximic,  and TRUSTe with LiveRail’s own reporting, analytics, and video ad serving. All of the technology partners are now natively available to the more than 200 publishers, networks and agencies that utilize LiveRail’s video infrastructure technology.

The Brand Safety Alliance gives every player in the video advertising ecosystem access to a holistic view of brand safety. Agencies and networks can now offer their brand partners insight into URLs, semantic page content, and the content of the actual video accompanying ad impressions. In addition, advertisers and publishers can utilize privacy compliance solutions to incorporate privacy notice and choice into their video ads.

LiveRail customers can now take advantage of Affine’s industry-leading image-recognition software to automatically classify and tag the video in which their ads appear. With Affine’s frame-by-frame video analysis technology, advertisers now have the data needed to determine if video content aligns with campaign objectives and brand safety specifications.

DoubleVerify’s technology will provide brand safety targeting data before the advertisement is sent to the video player ensuring brands only run the highest quality environments for all video campaigns.  In addition, advertisers can make use of Evidon and TRUSTe privacy compliance solutions, ensuring they comply with industry self-regulation efforts and maintain consumer trust.

The new technology partners are the latest example of LiveRail’s dedication toward complete brand safety and transparency in online video. The LiveRail Brand Safety Alliance supplements the company’s existing URL whitelisting and syndication management capabilities, ensuring video ads never appear in environments an ad buyer deems unsafe.

“Online video is a complicated space, and it’s very difficult to achieve scale while also ensuring brand safety,” said Mark Trefgarne, LiveRail CEO. “The LiveRail Safety Alliance is the first step toward a complete platform that lets advertisers pick and choose the partners they want to work with to achieve their campaign goals. By working with several of the leading data and technology companies, we’re giving video ad buyers fool-proof brand safety options.”

“Advertisers need a guarantee of brand-safe environments for video advertising, thus ensuring their ad dollars are efficiently spent and delivering the highest ROI,” said C. Eoin Townsend, DoubleVerify SVP Partnerships & Business Development. “We’re excited to partner with LiveRail to give advertisers the best possible targeting in the market and the assurance their video runs in quality environments.”

“Combining Affine’s video scanning technology with LiveRail’s existing transparency tools gives brand marketers a clear look at where their ads appear online,” said Mike Sullivan, CEO of Affine. “By combining the offerings of multiple partners, brands now have a multi-dimensional view into video safety.”

“As advertisers increasingly tap video to target and optimize marketing campaigns, they need to ensure that consumers have transparency into these practices,” said Chris Babel, TRUSTe CEO. “We are encouraged by LiveRail’s move to make privacy a priority in the online video market by giving advertisers a frictionless mechanism to implement TRUSTe’s industry-leading consumer preference management platform.”

In addition to the announced partners, LiveRail’s platform is fully interoperable with other ad safety technology, letting ad buyers integrate their existing partners into the LiveRail platform. Learn more at Videobrandsafety.com.

The story was first featured in VideoNuze:

San Francisco – February 27, 2012 – LiveRail, provider of the world’s largest real-time online video ad platform, today announced that it has added three new hires to its team of online video advertising experts, including two who will help build relationships with leading publishers eager to capitalize on video advertising.

Marc Gaccione has joined as Executive Director of Publisher Services. Gaccione, the former SVP of Business Development at Kantar Video, is a 20-year veteran of the media industry and will play a critical role in maintaining and growing LiveRail’s relationships with top video publishers.

Ward Flock has also joined the team as Senior Director, Publisher Development. Flock’s previous experience working with digital publishers includes time at Pubmatic, where he most recently served as Senior Director of West Coast Sales, and The Rubicon Project, where he was Director of Publisher Development.

In addition, Christine Pereira has joined LiveRail as Senior Director of Demand Services. Pereira joins LiveRail from Adap.tv, where she served as Director of Network Partnerships. Prior to Adap.tv, Christine worked for Yahoo! as a Director of Sales.

“LiveRail’s mission is to be the core technology at the heart of the video advertising ecosystem” said Mark Trefgarne, LiveRail CEO. “we’re seeking and adding the industry’s best talent to continue delivering best-in-class video advertising solutions across the ecosystem and are excited to be adding these industry leaders to our team.”

About LiveRail
LiveRail is the core technology at the heart of the online video advertising ecosystem. LiveRail solutions enable and enhance the monetization of internet-distributed video and handle over 2 billion video ad impressions per month for many of the world’s largest media and advertising clients. Founded in 2007, LiveRail’s senior team is led by its founders, Mark Trefgarne (CEO) and Andrei Dunca (CTO). LiveRail Inc is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with offices in New York, NY and Cluj-Napoca, Romania. LiveRail is backed by Pond Ventures.

LiveRail for Advertisers Gives Agencies One Platform to Target, Deliver and Track Video Advertising

LiveRail, provider of the world’s largest real-time online video ad platform, today announced the launch of LiveRail For Advertisers, a new ad serving product that makes video campaigns easier to execute, more effective, and more measurable.

LiveRail For Advertisers (LFA) is a brand new platform designed from the ground up for online video and eliminates many of the complexities associated with traditional, legacy technology. LFA streamlines workflows with its video-native tools and interface, dramatically reducing the workload and time associated in trafficking, launching and managing large, multi-publisher video campaigns. Agencies can now leverage LiveRail technology for consistent campaign delivery at scale across their entire media plan; including major broadcasters, portals, ad networks and exchanges.

Advertisers and agencies can also take advantage of LiveRail’s native data integrations (with partners like Affine) to target their video ads to the appropriate audience, content or domain within the publishers they buy from. LFA’s “zero wasted impressions” technology enables agencies to control and pace their campaign’s delivery, reducing wasted spend and ensuring that publishers only deliver within the plan. For the first time, agencies can now dynamically analyze media environments for every impression request, ensuring brand safety and appropriateness of the content/media, and restricting delivery in real-time where needed.

LiveRail for Advertiser’s MRC-accredited reporting and analytics give video ad buyers insight into how their ads are performing through a multitude of filters, dimensions, and video-specific performance metrics. LFA empowers marketers with the data to truly understand the impact and ROI of their video ads, across all the placements, on all publishers, networks and platforms they buy from, helping demonstrate the value of media spend and inform future media purchasing decisions.

“Because we sit at the hub of the online video ad ecosystem, we understand the needs of all parties involved,” said Mark Trefgarne, LiveRail CEO. “Our full- and self-service options let advertisers and agencies select the level of support they need so they can leverage our video expertise. By combining the world’s best video ad technology with the consultative support of industry experts, we believe that LFA will become an indispensible tool for all agencies serious about video.”

LiveRail For Advertisers is a third-party ad server for video. Advertisers and agencies utilizing LFA must maintain their own direct media relationships, as LFA cannot be natively used to access or purchase inventory. For more information about LiveRail For Advertisers, visit http://www.liverail.com/LFAPR.php

About LiveRail

LiveRail is the core technology at the heart of the online video advertising ecosystem. LiveRail solutions enable and enhance the monetization of internet-distributed video and handle over 2 billion video ad impressions per month for many of the world’s largest media and advertising clients. Founded in 2007, LiveRail’s senior team is led by its founders, Mark Trefgarne (CEO) and Andrei Dunca (CTO). LiveRail Inc is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with offices in New York, NY and Cluj-Napoca, Romania. LiveRail is backed by Pond Ventures.

SAN FRANCISCO–LiveRail, the first real-time video ad technology platform for publishers, networks and agencies, and MediaMath, the first and only enterprise-class DSP, today announced that LiveRail will serve MediaMath as a video ad serving partner.

Through LiveRail’s technology, MediaMath can now empower marketing professionals to deliver more video advertising in real time across a network of top publishers, utilizing the same automatic buying, efficient pricing, and seamless delivery buyers expect from MediaMath’s platform. The DSP will also sell video inventory from LiveRail’s network of publishers.

Through strategic partnerships with the leading DSPs, LiveRail is now powering the industry transition toward automated, real-time video ad buying. With LiveRail’s technology, DSPs can manage their real-time video ad sales alongside their display sales, and also use LiveRail as a video ad server. LiveRail’s direct relationships with publishers also provide DSPs with both the video ad inventory and consumer targeting that buyers are eagerly taking advantage of.

Nearly $50 million will be spent on video RTB this year, but rapid growth in video ad networks, DSPs, and agency trading desks will lead to triple-digit growth in 2012. LiveRail’s technology touches all sides of the video advertising spectrum, helping agencies, DSPs, and publishers manager video ad sales, inventory, and analytics while ensuring multi-platform delivery, support of VAST and VPAID standards, and total buying transparency.

“Programmatic buying is taking off in the display ad space and buyers are increasingly interested in exploring the potential of video RTB,” said Joe Zawadzki, MediaMath’s CEO. “Because LiveRail offers fully automated buying and easy ad serving through its network of publishers, they were the ideal partner to accelerate our real-time video offering.”

“By further expanding its video offering, MediaMath is showing that ad buyers are very interested in the potential and efficiency of RTB for video,” said Mark Trefgarne, LiveRail CEO. “We’ve seen interest in video RTB grow steadily over the past half year, which is a great sign for the video ad segment. More potential buyers encourage more publishers to adopt the technology, opening up more inventory and creating more opportunities to match advertising to targeted viewers.”

The DVA’s – The 2011 Digiday Video Awards honors overall excellence and breakthrough achievement in video media, marketing and advertising. The DVA’s are presented by Digiday, and the hosts of Digiday Video and Digiday Video Upfront conferences which includes hundreds of leading video media and marketing experts, journalists, insiders, brand execs, publishers, and mobile technology visionaries.

LiveRail was honored to receive the Best Video Ad Server Award.

SAN FRANCISCO–(EON: Enhanced Online News)–LiveRail, the first real-time video ad technology platform for publishers, networks and agencies, announced today that it has hired Erwin Castellanos as Executive Vice President. In this role, Castellanos will oversee all of LiveRail’s publisher-side sales and business development efforts, helping the world’s largest video publishers and media companies utilize real-time bidding and private exchange technology to drive higher revenues from their online video advertising.

“LiveRail’s platform is now the primary infrastructure at the heart of the online video advertising ecosystem”
Castellanos joins LiveRail with more than a decade in the online advertising space, including more than four years in the rapidly growing world of online video. Prior to joining LiveRail, Castellanos was Vice President of Business Development at Tremor Video, where he worked with top-tier online publishers to help monetize their streaming video content. Castellanos also built and managed the publisher division of the ScanScout video network before ScanScout merged with Tremor Video in November 2010.

With the rapid growth of video ad networks, DSPs and agency trading desks, publishers are increasingly deploying advanced video-ad technology platforms like LiveRail to manage, optimize and control who has access to their video ad inventory. At LiveRail, Castellanos’ team will focus on helping these publishers, including many of the world’s largest media and TV companies, deploy LiveRail’s next-generation video advertising tools, including RTB supply-side platform and private exchange products. These tools are designed to help publishers manage their ever growing roster of guaranteed and non-guaranteed video RTB relationships and control where, when, and who their video inventory is made accessible to — all while avoiding channel conflict and ensuring brand quality.

“Consumers are spending more and more time watching online video across web, mobile and connected-TVs. But ensuring successful and painless monetization remains too complex,” said Castellanos. “There has been a fragmented toolset for publishers to properly manage their entire cross-platform inventory pool. With the rise of real-time bidding and agency trading desks, the task has become even more complex. LiveRail’s tools are designed to help all pubs, large or small, succeed, which makes me very excited to join the team.”

“LiveRail’s platform is now the primary infrastructure at the heart of the online video advertising ecosystem,” said Mark Trefgarne, LiveRail CEO. “Our technology now delivers over 2 billion video ad impressions per month for many of the world’s largest publishers, networks and agencies; so there’s no company as intimately familiar with the unique challenges and opportunities of the video ecosystem as LiveRail. Erwin’s experience with premium publishers will enable us to provide powerful tools to the supply-side of the video ecosystem, and help even more publishers capitalize on the huge opportunity of real-time video advertising.”

Real-time bidding (RTB) has quickly become the hottest trend in display advertising, with U.S. RTB spending expected to hit $1 billion this year and increase two-fold next year. The dramatic growth in dollars flowing through agency trading desks, DSPs and next-generation ad networks has tempted even the world’s most premium brand-name publishers into the game. However, to date, RTB growth has been primarily centered on the display ad space.

Video RTB, by contrast, is in its infancy with spending still well under 5 percent of total video ad spend. Our internal estimates put the value of all Video-RTB buys in the U.S. at approximately $40 to $50 million in 2011. This seems set to change significantly in 2012 as sizable demand-side players, including all of the major agency trading desks, have lined up to throw significant budgets into real-time bidding for video next year. Growth, it seems, will be well into the triple digits.

While video RTB spending is expected to more than double next year, its development into a true large-scale market is not without challenges. Video is very technically unique, presenting a variety of complex technical hurdles, from multi-platform delivery to limited VAST-wrapper support. Still, the business side faces challenges that are familiar to those experienced with display.

Publishers are wary of devaluing their most premium video inventory, and they are concerned about other challenges including channel conflict, commoditization and data leakage. For the big premium TV networks, already under pressure from MSOs to limit online distribution of their content, the prospect of opening what limited inventory they have to third-party RTB demand comes with a lot of uncertainty.

Thankfully, emerging private exchange technologies give publishers increasingly granular control over buyer access, granting access only to preferred buyers (such as strategic holding-company partners), as well as the ability to strictly regulate floor prices and channel conflicts while closely monitoring creative quality. When structured correctly, a private video RTB exchange can become a powerful tool for a media sales organization, securing and strengthening premium buyer relationships. In this case, that means granting private exchange access only to those buyers who have made significant commitments via premium sales channels.

As premium publishers get more comfortable with video RTB’s strategic and financial benefits, buyers will increasingly dedicate substantial budgets. The four largest agency holding companies are currently making substantial investments preparing for video RTB, by selecting preferred vendors and integrating these video-DSPs deeply with their audience and analytics platforms.

Spending remains modest, hindered by concerns about the quality and scale of available video inventory, low transparency and an abundance of in-banner inventory masquerading as pre-roll. Yet trading desks and DSP executives are showing clear confidence that these issues are rapidly being solved. But in from the top demand-side companies will lead to a rapid and significant shift of budgets into video RTB, which in turn will further encourage major branded publishers to adopt RTB and private exchange technology. The virtuous cycle has begun, and it’s becoming clear that deployment of RTB in video could happen even faster than it has in display.