Originally published: The Continuum, October 24, 2023
As a leader in the digital video space, CEO and Co-Founder of Blockboard Matt Wasserlauf, shared some background and insights into the video programmatic landscape. How we arrived at the way we do business today and what we must do in order to improve it for the future.
Enjoy a preview from the full interview here:
You’ve had a long and successful career working at the intersection of technology and advertising. Can you explain that to us?
I’ve been working in digital advertising for over twenty years. In 2004, I started the first online video network called BBE, which was short for Broadband Enterprise. We aggregated the existing video sites—then it was all on the web—and provided those for scale-out buying for the largest marketers in the world. Our biggest client at the time was Procter & Gamble.
In driving and distributing all of that great video advertising, it was clear that the industry needed better measuring tools. P&G asked us to help them create one, and so we built Vindico, which was the first video ad serving system. We were measuring and tracking all that video spend for P&G and then for the other major marketers who were moving their TV ad dollars online.
We ran that through BBE for about eight years, and then we sold all of BBE to Specific Media. They had a great banner advertising platform, and BBE was the perfect complement to that.
I left and started a mobile video platform called Torrential, which was, in essence, BBE for these new operating systems called Android and iOS.
Oh wow, we live on our phones now; it’s hard to remember when those were new. What has it been like being in emerging technology for so many years?
I find it really energizing. As every new chapter opens up, new opportunities emerge. I get fired up for solving the new problems that come with working with new operating systems or under new conditions. You know, when we started with mobile, we were operating in a cookie-less world, which gave us a lot of experience driving video advertising without the help of cookies. Obviously, this will help us when the cookie-less web finally arrives.
So, you worked with the web, then mobile, and now you’re tackling streaming with your new company, Blockboard. Can you tell us about that?
Blockboard is a performance CTV ad platform that utilizes blockchain technology to ensure transparency and verification. The goal is to bring Web 3.0 principles to the digital video ad business.
We are on a mission to ensure that 100% of our client’s ad dollars go to working media, eliminating fraud and waste and ensuring that the right people see the right message in the right place.
To do this, we rebuilt the entire ad video ecosystem on blockchain. We wanted to do two things. First, we wanted to be able to verify all ad calls across video, which we did through the use of a smart contract on blockchain. We've now had five years of experience building this platform and running it with some of the largest marketers in the world who are seeing results they've never seen before in the industry.
The other thing we wanted to accomplish with this new platform was to create a platform that is completely transparent. By being built on the blockchain, we are in a public ledger which shines a light on how all of this stuff is working.
Originally published: The Continuum, October 24, 2023
As a leader in the digital video space, CEO and Co-Founder of Blockboard Matt Wasserlauf, shared some background and insights into the video programmatic landscape. How we arrived at the way we do business today and what we must do in order to improve it for the future.
Enjoy a preview from the full interview here:
You’ve had a long and successful career working at the intersection of technology and advertising. Can you explain that to us?
I’ve been working in digital advertising for over twenty years. In 2004, I started the first online video network called BBE, which was short for Broadband Enterprise. We aggregated the existing video sites—then it was all on the web—and provided those for scale-out buying for the largest marketers in the world. Our biggest client at the time was Procter & Gamble.
In driving and distributing all of that great video advertising, it was clear that the industry needed better measuring tools. P&G asked us to help them create one, and so we built Vindico, which was the first video ad serving system. We were measuring and tracking all that video spend for P&G and then for the other major marketers who were moving their TV ad dollars online.
We ran that through BBE for about eight years, and then we sold all of BBE to Specific Media. They had a great banner advertising platform, and BBE was the perfect complement to that.
I left and started a mobile video platform called Torrential, which was, in essence, BBE for these new operating systems called Android and iOS.
Oh wow, we live on our phones now; it’s hard to remember when those were new. What has it been like being in emerging technology for so many years?
I find it really energizing. As every new chapter opens up, new opportunities emerge. I get fired up for solving the new problems that come with working with new operating systems or under new conditions. You know, when we started with mobile, we were operating in a cookie-less world, which gave us a lot of experience driving video advertising without the help of cookies. Obviously, this will help us when the cookie-less web finally arrives.
So, you worked with the web, then mobile, and now you’re tackling streaming with your new company, Blockboard. Can you tell us about that?
Blockboard is a performance CTV ad platform that utilizes blockchain technology to ensure transparency and verification. The goal is to bring Web 3.0 principles to the digital video ad business.
We are on a mission to ensure that 100% of our client’s ad dollars go to working media, eliminating fraud and waste and ensuring that the right people see the right message in the right place.
To do this, we rebuilt the entire ad video ecosystem on blockchain. We wanted to do two things. First, we wanted to be able to verify all ad calls across video, which we did through the use of a smart contract on blockchain. We've now had five years of experience building this platform and running it with some of the largest marketers in the world who are seeing results they've never seen before in the industry.
The other thing we wanted to accomplish with this new platform was to create a platform that is completely transparent. By being built on the blockchain, we are in a public ledger which shines a light on how all of this stuff is working.
Originally published: The Continuum, October 24, 2023
As a leader in the digital video space, CEO and Co-Founder of Blockboard Matt Wasserlauf, shared some background and insights into the video programmatic landscape. How we arrived at the way we do business today and what we must do in order to improve it for the future.
Enjoy a preview from the full interview here:
You’ve had a long and successful career working at the intersection of technology and advertising. Can you explain that to us?
I’ve been working in digital advertising for over twenty years. In 2004, I started the first online video network called BBE, which was short for Broadband Enterprise. We aggregated the existing video sites—then it was all on the web—and provided those for scale-out buying for the largest marketers in the world. Our biggest client at the time was Procter & Gamble.
In driving and distributing all of that great video advertising, it was clear that the industry needed better measuring tools. P&G asked us to help them create one, and so we built Vindico, which was the first video ad serving system. We were measuring and tracking all that video spend for P&G and then for the other major marketers who were moving their TV ad dollars online.
We ran that through BBE for about eight years, and then we sold all of BBE to Specific Media. They had a great banner advertising platform, and BBE was the perfect complement to that.
I left and started a mobile video platform called Torrential, which was, in essence, BBE for these new operating systems called Android and iOS.
Oh wow, we live on our phones now; it’s hard to remember when those were new. What has it been like being in emerging technology for so many years?
I find it really energizing. As every new chapter opens up, new opportunities emerge. I get fired up for solving the new problems that come with working with new operating systems or under new conditions. You know, when we started with mobile, we were operating in a cookie-less world, which gave us a lot of experience driving video advertising without the help of cookies. Obviously, this will help us when the cookie-less web finally arrives.
So, you worked with the web, then mobile, and now you’re tackling streaming with your new company, Blockboard. Can you tell us about that?
Blockboard is a performance CTV ad platform that utilizes blockchain technology to ensure transparency and verification. The goal is to bring Web 3.0 principles to the digital video ad business.
We are on a mission to ensure that 100% of our client’s ad dollars go to working media, eliminating fraud and waste and ensuring that the right people see the right message in the right place.
To do this, we rebuilt the entire ad video ecosystem on blockchain. We wanted to do two things. First, we wanted to be able to verify all ad calls across video, which we did through the use of a smart contract on blockchain. We've now had five years of experience building this platform and running it with some of the largest marketers in the world who are seeing results they've never seen before in the industry.
The other thing we wanted to accomplish with this new platform was to create a platform that is completely transparent. By being built on the blockchain, we are in a public ledger which shines a light on how all of this stuff is working.
Originally published: The Continuum, October 24, 2023
As a leader in the digital video space, CEO and Co-Founder of Blockboard Matt Wasserlauf, shared some background and insights into the video programmatic landscape. How we arrived at the way we do business today and what we must do in order to improve it for the future.
Enjoy a preview from the full interview here:
You’ve had a long and successful career working at the intersection of technology and advertising. Can you explain that to us?
I’ve been working in digital advertising for over twenty years. In 2004, I started the first online video network called BBE, which was short for Broadband Enterprise. We aggregated the existing video sites—then it was all on the web—and provided those for scale-out buying for the largest marketers in the world. Our biggest client at the time was Procter & Gamble.
In driving and distributing all of that great video advertising, it was clear that the industry needed better measuring tools. P&G asked us to help them create one, and so we built Vindico, which was the first video ad serving system. We were measuring and tracking all that video spend for P&G and then for the other major marketers who were moving their TV ad dollars online.
We ran that through BBE for about eight years, and then we sold all of BBE to Specific Media. They had a great banner advertising platform, and BBE was the perfect complement to that.
I left and started a mobile video platform called Torrential, which was, in essence, BBE for these new operating systems called Android and iOS.
Oh wow, we live on our phones now; it’s hard to remember when those were new. What has it been like being in emerging technology for so many years?
I find it really energizing. As every new chapter opens up, new opportunities emerge. I get fired up for solving the new problems that come with working with new operating systems or under new conditions. You know, when we started with mobile, we were operating in a cookie-less world, which gave us a lot of experience driving video advertising without the help of cookies. Obviously, this will help us when the cookie-less web finally arrives.
So, you worked with the web, then mobile, and now you’re tackling streaming with your new company, Blockboard. Can you tell us about that?
Blockboard is a performance CTV ad platform that utilizes blockchain technology to ensure transparency and verification. The goal is to bring Web 3.0 principles to the digital video ad business.
We are on a mission to ensure that 100% of our client’s ad dollars go to working media, eliminating fraud and waste and ensuring that the right people see the right message in the right place.
To do this, we rebuilt the entire ad video ecosystem on blockchain. We wanted to do two things. First, we wanted to be able to verify all ad calls across video, which we did through the use of a smart contract on blockchain. We've now had five years of experience building this platform and running it with some of the largest marketers in the world who are seeing results they've never seen before in the industry.
The other thing we wanted to accomplish with this new platform was to create a platform that is completely transparent. By being built on the blockchain, we are in a public ledger which shines a light on how all of this stuff is working.
