00:03Welcome back to the Tech Newsroom here at Viva Tech 2023, I'm Thomas Mizraki, and you are joining us live
00:10in Paris at the very center of Europe's biggest startup and tech event.
00:14We'll begin with our next guest, Alex Korma. Thank you so much for being here.
00:18Thank you very much for having me.
00:20You're CEO of Vidmob. You use artificial intelligence to make advertising campaigns more effective. How so?
00:30So, we do use artificial intelligence, but maybe not in exactly the way that everyone's thinking right now.
00:35So, we use artificial intelligence to first understand everything that's happening inside of a marketer's creative.
00:42So, if you think about a large marketer like LVMH or L'Oreal, they have tens of thousands of pieces
00:49of creative in market at any point in time.
00:51And inside every one of those, in each frame, there are different things happening.
00:54There are logos or trademarks on screen. An actress might be smiling or scowling.
00:58They might be holding up the package itself or rubbing the lotion on their hand.
01:03All of those are creative decisions.
01:04So, we first unpack and understand that creative decisioning and then pull all the behavior signals from the platform.
01:10Are people clicking? Are they purchasing? Are they adding to cart? Do they feel better about the brand?
01:15We cross those two things, the behavior and the creative decisioning.
01:19And then we come back with insights.
01:20We tell the marketer, if you're trying to communicate on this platform and get this result, you should do more
01:25of this and less of that.
01:26It sounds simple, but how does it work?
01:29Well, so, first it's about generating enormous amounts of data.
01:32So, we literally analyze trillions of impressions each year.
01:38And then we come back with these insights that help them understand what they should do to improve their creative.
01:45So, that everyone understands, what is, in your opinion, today, an effective advertising campaign?
01:54I would say an effective advertising campaign is one that does what the marketer wants it to do.
01:59So, you know, some people might be trying to drive more desirability out of a brand.
02:04Others might be trying to create leads for their, or drive sales.
02:07So, everyone has different things that they're trying to achieve with marketing.
02:10What we do is work with them to figure out what it is they're trying to achieve and then help
02:14them improve their creative.
02:16So, it drives exactly that result.
02:18Understand what the client wants first and then do it.
02:21The advertising world has been changing incredibly over the past five years.
02:25What are your clients looking for now?
02:28Well, I think now there's a couple things.
02:30First of all is people have spent the last, you know, 10, 15 years focusing almost exclusively on media side
02:37optimization.
02:38So, how do I improve my targeting?
02:40How do I move budget from channel to channel to, you know, drive better media side results?
02:44But people are realizing that creative is far and away the most important part.
02:48And it's frankly been overlooked.
02:50And that's only going to be exacerbated now with more and more generative AI spitting more and more creative out
02:56into the world.
02:57So, I think we're quickly entering a world of creative abundance.
03:00And people are now trying to figure out how do I be more effective in my messaging amidst that sea
03:04of noise.
03:05And we're going into a world of hyper-personalization as well.
03:10Would you say it's easier or harder to get to customers today?
03:14I think it's easier if you have the right tools.
03:17It's harder if you don't.
03:18So, what are the right tools?
03:20Well, I'm going to very humbly say one of the right tools is VidMob.
03:24But there are many.
03:25But I think ultimately what it is about is making sure data is a key part of your decision making.
03:32You know, we've seen data's impact in all other fields of enterprise operations.
03:37It'd be foolish to assume that data doesn't have a role to play in creative.
03:41Yeah, but my question was, you know, what's the best or the most effective way to get to people now?
03:46Which channel?
03:47Yeah.
03:47It depends.
03:48If you're a brand trying to market to, you know, 18-year-olds, it's probably TikTok.
03:52So, it depends on the brand.
03:52Okay.
03:52All right.
03:53Okay.
03:53So, it depends on the brand and the targets you have.
03:56Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said about artificial intelligence that it was a new industrial revolution.
04:03Is it so for your sector?
04:05Absolutely.
04:06I agree with him completely.
04:07This is probably the biggest change that any of us have seen in our lives and maybe the biggest change
04:12we see in the rest of our lives.
04:13It's really that big a deal.
04:14This is not Web3.
04:16This is for real.
04:18And so, it's going to impact, you know, all of our jobs in some way.
04:22And I don't think it's necessarily going to take away every job.
04:25But people who use AI better than others are going to have a real advantage.
04:29How do you see the future of advertising with this coming on?
04:32I think you're going to see a lot of people taking different approaches.
04:35You have, you know, Facebook and Google now building purely AI automated systems that will do the creative for you,
04:42do media, do everything.
04:43And it sounds wonderful.
04:45But if you're a large enterprise marketer, marketing may be essentially the whole of your company.
04:51So, if you give all of that to Facebook or Google, it might not be good for business in the
04:55long run.
04:56So, I think people are going to take different approaches to figuring out how to harness these.
05:01And hopefully, some will use it in a way that actually gives them more strategic power and strength and gives
05:07them the tools to understand creative and drive their business forward.
05:10You have raised $110 million last year.
05:13What will you be doing without money?
05:15How do you plan to expand it?
05:17That's a great question.
05:18And so, we are a very heavy technology company.
05:22So, a lot of that is going to be invested in increased data science, just basically improving our product, listening
05:29to customers, and making sure that we're meeting them exactly where they want us to be.
05:33So, it's expanding from our original core strength in sort of the social walled garden space into the open web,
05:41into commerce media, and into CTV.
05:44So, really covering the whole of the sort of digital marketing ecosystem.
05:49And we're already fairly global, but we look to become more and more global with every day.
05:54Why was it useful to be here at Vivatech for you, for your companies?
05:58What did you learn?
05:59Well, first of all, Vivatech is amazing.
06:02This has been so much more helpful than I expected.
06:07The senior level presence is incredible.
06:10It also helped that we're in the LVMH booth and that we won a Digital Innovation Award.
06:14So, I think that we've had a particularly large crowd coming to see us, which has been incredible, and I'm
06:20very thankful to them.
06:22But, no, it's an amazing event.
06:23I will absolutely be back next year, and I'm very impressed.
06:27Thank you, Alex Colmer, CEO of VidMob.
06:29Thank you so much for your time.
06:30Thank you.
06:31Thank you.
Commentaires