‘Chocolate’, a mobile programmatic marketplace that lets video ads to be bought and sold across both mobile web and apps is launching in Europe today.
Built by Vdopia exclusively for mobile video, Chocolate is designed for brand marketers and demand partners who want a completely transparent marketplace platform that offers premium mobile video inventory at significant scale – the inventory includes more than 10,000 mobile apps and sites and a reach of more than 200 million unique users.
Unlike other ‘partly-mobile’ programmatic platforms, Chocolate removes any ‘blind’ buying so advertisers can choose exactly what device, what operating system or in what location, ads are served – transparency that aids brand safety and ad viewability. Audience verification is also provided through measurement partner comScore (vCE) with Nielsen (mobile OCR) being added soon.
“The IAB shows mobile video is the fastest growing digital ad format, nearly tripling in size in a year¹,” says Farzad Jamal, Vdopia’s European Vice President. “Chocolate capitalises on three key video ad trends – the shift of TV pounds to online, the rise of programmatic and the emergence of mobile native advertising. It unifies a fragmented mobile video market space and addresses key issues, such as the lack of quality mobile video inventory, standards and brand safety.”
Chocolate is device-agnostic and compatible with all major operating systems including Android, Apple’s iOS and Windows. This is because it uses Vdopia’s unique .VDO technology, which enables video ads to be placed within any type of ad space on webpages or apps – be it banners, native or in-stream – without requiring Flash or plug-ins.
Thus, brands can run video ads that automatically play next to content on virtually any smartphone without disrupting the user’s browsing experience. Jamal says: “This is crucial for increasing reach and keeping users on a page without annoying distractions.”
Jamal notes another unique capability: “Chocolate has an artificial intelligence ability so that advertisers who bid for publisher inventory are only shown relevant inventory based on the success of previous campaigns. This optimises the whole process, saving advertisers time and money.”
Chocolate integrates leading demand-side platforms (DSPs) – uniquely providing real-time bidding (RTB) capabilities to DSPs who only have basic VAST support but no RTB capability.
Other key metrics² for the Chocolate marketplace include:
• 62% Mobile Web, 38% Mobile App
• 64% Android, 36% iOS;
• 145% better average eCPMs vs. other mobile programmatic marketplaces