As part of our partnership with IAB NewFronts, BrandVerge co-founders Lynn Browne and Mollie Kehoe were invited to kick off the virtual conference with IAB’s show IABTHERE and discuss what is to be expected at this year’s event, alongside IAB’s president David Cohen and editor-in-chief Brad Berens.
The event has nearly 10,000 registrants – a mix of advertisers and agencies – that has the added benefit this year of being accessible from the comfort of peoples’ homes. This year, the event will host more presenters than ever all presenting new offerings for the upcoming year.
The IAB marketplace BrandVerge will be powering was created as a solution to connect the buy-side and sales-side of the event experience, so companies can act on presentations that inspired them.
For the first time ever, the IAB NewFronts will have a theme: Insight, Information and Transformation. The conference spans from noon until 4 p.m. every day between Monday, June 22 to Friday, June 26.
The IAB deemed BrandVerge as a natural choice when figuring out how to make that connection between the buy and sell-sides.
“Our core everyday business that we run is a public marketplace, which we work independently of the IAB to get clients on board in that capacity,” Browne said. “What we’re doing for NewFronts is creating a custom version of what we’ve done for our public marketplace, only for NewFronts where all the presenters who have these great new ad products and great new programming to present throughout the week, we’ll be taking that content and exposing it just for NewFronts-registered attendees.”
BrandVerge is solving the question of “what do we do now?” for event attendees.
“Throughout the week you have these great companies talking about what’s new about their organization and how buyers should think about working with these different companies and why they should be excited about programs that are coming out and BrandVerge and the custom marketplace for IAB can come in and fill that gap to make these things actionable and transactional,” Browne said.
In the marketplace, buyers will be able to access profiles and media kits, learn more information and view details of the ad products publishers mention in their presentations. This takes out the friction of the media buying process, which is the reason Browne and Kehoe came together to create BrandVerge based on their own experiences in the industry. BrandVerge enables buyers to take the next steps in forming partnerships.
“The interface of BrandVerge and the look and feel and user experience is so simple and elegant, it’s great” Cohen said. “If you want to find something you will find something and I think that’s also super important because nobody is interested in going on a rabbit hunt to find what they’re looking for, so that was also really impressive while we were taking a look at the platform.
To put things into perspective, BrandVerge presents itself as any everyday, easy-to-use marketplace.
“If you see something you like, favorite it,” Kehoe said. “You can always come back to it, that way you won’t lose it. If someone presented something and you can’t think about what they called it or what it included, use the filters. It was really designed to be as easy as it is to navigate any marketplace that you might use to buy stuff from. Just treat it like you would when you’re shopping and it should be easy to figure out.”
The marketplace will not only be helpful in giving buyers insight into different presenters ad-offerings, but it also provides a direct messaging tool that allows in-app conversation between buyers and sellers.
“Our in-app messaging is very conversational,” Browne said. “The presenters will be really tuned in to make sure you guys are getting fast answers and any other information that is a question mark for you. Hopefully it won’t be for very long.”
Have fun with it! Do not hesitate to explore and browse and gain insight.
“Our platform is meant to fill in some of those gaps where partners can actually give you some of that tactical information you need to bring it down to your actual planning and your strategic concepting,” Browne said.
The marketplace will be available throughout the conference, and three months following it. If you want to look back at a presentation or learn more about different presenters’ ad offerings.
“Just to indulge myself in a dad joke, in addition to being a platform for commerce, you are also at BrandVerge a source for insight, inspiration and transformation, which is the theme of the NewFronts, so it’s good for people to know about the extra capabilities that you guys are creating for the industry,” Berens said.
If you are a registrant of the conference, access the IAB marketplace powered by BrandVerge here. The conversation with Berens and Cohen is available on Apple Podcasts or on the IAB’s website.
Leave a Reply