Recently, Video++ (极链科技) releases a new message that it will hold a conference in Shanghai to launch a new service namely Flow Planet Plan (流量星球计划) in May 10th, 2019. The users joining in this plan can use its advertising recommendation service for free permanently, which can implant advertisements into video automatically.
In this conference, Video++ invites several experts in the field of AI and internet video platforms, including TIAN Feng (田丰), the director of Alibaba Cloud Research Institute, SUN Xiaokang (孙小康), the general manager of iQIYI Programmatic Business, WAN Lin (万霖), the general manager of imgo tv Marketing Center and so on.
As a unicorn company, Video++ changes the traditional form of internet video ads with artificial intelligence, and makes a big progress on the performance of video ads. So, how does it do that?
Video++’s two products changes video advertisement
Video++, founded in 2014, is a Chinese technology company that creates more possibilities in the field of video advertisement with artificial intelligence. Traditionally, an advertisement need to be added into a video artificially before published, which is always in a fixed position in the video, so its content are irrelevant with the video’s in most time. This kind of advertisement gives audience poor watching experience indeed. At this point, Video++ makes a big change.
FaceAI, one of the core products of Video++, can understand the content of video and place advertisements in proper positions in videos automatically and in real-time. With Object recognition ability, FaceAI can understand 8 kinds of information in videos, including human face, place, object, brand, landmark, movement, expression and sound.
For example, FaceAI finds a table in a video, then it can place a bottle of yogurt on it automatically. When the camera moves, the table’s position changes, then the yogurt’s changes together, which looks natural and imperceptible. Thus, this technology tool brings better experience to audience and obviously improves video advertisements performance.
According to Video++, FaceAI has served 873 kinds of scenarios, with more than 12 million minutes videos, including more than 120 top brands, such as imgo.tv, iQIYI, DOUYU, letv and so on.
VideoOS is another core product of Video++, which is a control system that can achieve the function of interaction between audience and videos. Video advertisement is an entrance of purchase with a click. For example, one see a poster of an amusement park in a video, and he wants to know more about this park. Once he clicks this poster, he can get more information, such as the introduction, ticket price and purchase entrance, hotel, restaurant and etc,. VideoOS provides abundant kinds of interactions, including topic voting, lucky draw, red packet distribution, cards collection and so on, through which the advertisements are more like games and easier to attract audience’s attention. Video++ launched this product in 2014, and opened source of it last year, so that more users can use it. This move can be regarded as a method of market education, which has been cultivating more potential clients.
Moreover, Video++ also launched several products, including VideoData, Magicin, V+Mall and so on, which are used in e – commerce, game and other different scenarios.
Opportunity in the Booming Internet Video Ads Market
Today, Video++ has grown to be a unicorn with 6 rounds of funding in the past four years, whose main investors include Alibaba Group, YF Capital, UBTECH, Megvii, Sirius Capital, Winshare Capital and so on.
DONG Huizhi (董慧智), the co-founder and COO of Video++, said the valuation of this company has reached CNY 6.5 billion by the end of 2018, and the revenue grows rapidly in the past three years. Its annual revenue is only around CNY 3 million in 2016. This number changed to more than CNY 100 million in 2017, which mainly came from the service fee of advertisement. In 2018, Video++ created around CNY 600 million revenue under the overall arrangement in e – commerce.
The rapidly growing reflects that the internet video ad market is booming. Robert Pepper, who leads Global Connectivity and Technology Policy at Facebook, made a prediction in 2014 that 84% internet flow would come from online video by the end of 2018. According to the research published by CNNIC (中国互联网信息中心), the quantity of internet video users in China has reached 612 million by the end of 2018, which is 67% in total Chinese netizen. It means half of Chinese population spend their time one various internet videos everyday, which the advertisers love most. Audience’s attention can be the entrance for any products and services.
There are another two Chinese companies that provide video ads recommendation system with AI ability, Moivebook (影谱科技) and VCA (视连通). Founded in 2009, Moviebook has ten rounds of financing, whose main investor includes TR Capital Group, China Construction Bank, CICC, SoftBank China, SenseTime and so on. VCA was founded in 2015, and it has just two rounds of financing, whose investor includes Haier Capital and Guanhuashiji. For now, we don’t find other players other than these three companies in this field, and Moviebook is the main competitor of Video++.