NextMedium To Host First-Ever Upfront For Brand Integration
NextMedium today will usher in a new era in advertising when it hosts the first-ever brand integration upfront and unveils Embed™, a new online marketplace where content creators can offer marketers new inventory to execute brand integration campaigns across the entire entertainment landscape of television, film, music and videogames.
The NextMedium brand integration upfront, themed "Brand Integration 2.0," will be held at 5 p.m. today at the Le Parker Meridien Hotel in New York. Representatives from Atlantic Records, Vivendi Universal Games, Scout (producers of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy), Reveille (producers of The Restaurant, The Office), and others will discuss best practices and their brand integration inventory. Additional invite-only participants include brand integration innovators from leading media buyers and marketers, as well as executives from top entertainment companies.
In addition, Nielsen Media Research - who has been collaborating with NextMedium - will discuss ongoing research in the industry and offer new perspectives on standards and measurement for brand integration.
"In partnership with the industry, we're leading the transition to the next era in advertising, when brand integration becomes a critical component of an advertiser's media mix," said Hamet Watt, CEO of NextMedium. "Advertising is breaking out of the confines of 30-second breaks and instead becoming an integral, embedded part of content. Consumers are enjoying that content in new ways and on new devices, so advertising has to make a quantum leap if it's going to travel with that content wherever it goes. We are developing the technology and standards to make that leap easier for marketers and entertainment companies."
More than 75 percent of people with DVRs say they skip commercials. As disruptive technologies like DVRs and Internet distribution reshape how audiences view programming, content creators and marketers require a much deeper understanding of the inherent embedded advertising opportunity. With ongoing research and development focused on the brand integration space, NextMedium's goal is for its platform to assist in the understanding and utilization of content as a new medium.
NextMedium is integrating ongoing industry research that shows there is significant efficacy in brand integration. The company is rooted in science to create a new, measured brand integration platform - Embed™ - that will allow companies to explore a new ad unit approach when entering this medium.
Embed™ brings scale to brand integration, a fast-growing form of advertising that enhances the realism of the content and increases brand visibility. With Embed™, brands are able to explore a broad spectrum of content for contextually relevant placements. It also provides rich analytics and business intelligence to help marketers make well-informed buying decisions.
This platform gives entertainment companies the opportunity to present their available brand integration inventory, and provides marketers and their agencies a single source to monitor brand integration avails. Embed™ also allows marketers to secure opportunities and purchase them directly.
For information regarding today's upfront event, please contact Corie Pierce at corie@sutherlandgold.com or events@nextmedium.com.