Concurrent and Clearleap have entered into a formal partnership and are now in the process of integrating the former’s video-on-demand systems with the latter’s network-based media management and distribution system.
Clearleap specializes in integrating both programming and advertisements sourced from the Web into hosted on-demand systems.
For service operators, the advantage of the combined Concurrent/Clearleap products is gaining increased visibility into on-demand content from the point of origin to the point of playout. The ability to track viewing behavior end-to-end provided by the combination of Concurrent’s and Clearleap’s management systems provides invaluable data for addressable advertising in the on-demand environment.
Content from other sources – TVN, Comcast Media Center (CMC), HBO – is frequently delivered via satellite, explained Clearleap CEO Braxton Jarratt. “By the time a VOD server sees it, it’s been through three or four blind hops,” he said. With the combined system, that content can now be tracked by operators in real time.
The capability to track content – and thereby viewing behavior – is common on the Web, and even, to some extent, on linear TV. “But on the Web you can see that in real time,” Jarratt said, “and we’re trying to bring that to TV.”
When it comes to targeting advertising on TV, real-time reporting “opens interesting opportunities beyond time-of-day and what program they’re watching,” Jarratt said. The same capabilities will be useful for recommendation engines, he said.
The Concurrent and Clearleap systems definitely work together, though the two have four to six more weeks’ worth of integration work ahead of them before the combination of Concurrent’s Media Data and Advertising Solutions (MDAS) and Clearleap’s network-based platform for media management and distribution will be available for customers to try.
“Concurrent’s partnership with Clearleap is another step in executing on our strategy,” stated Paul Haddad, Concurrent’s vice president and general manager for MDAS. “The combination of Concurrent’s and Clearleap’s expertise and solutions provides the industry with a unique and fully integrated video solution supporting a wide array of content distribution, interactivity, cross services data collection and correlation, and advanced advertising within the video services.”
“If we can combine targeting and profiling,” Jarratt added, “but deliver it on a big screen in a rich media environment – that’s where a lot of the money is being spent. You look at where TV is versus the Web when it comes to ad spending, and TV just dwarfs it.”
The partnership is not exclusive. Jarratt said Clearleap would like to integrate its products with those of other VOD vendors, as well.
