Pune: There is a popular adage that if it is free, you are the product. On the one hand, we continue to consume different types of content on several platforms, most of which are free. Meanwhile, monetizing rich content remains a challenge for most brands as consumers find ways to avoid ads. Advertisers have long sought solutions for non-skippable ads, such as in-film product placement. But with OTT (over-the-top) platforms and other independent content creators now dominating the entertainment industry space, advertisers are looking for platforms with technology stacks that capture the attention of their audiences without distracting ads.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a key role in integrating brands and products into the video content we love. Therefore, AI-powered in-video advertising and virtual product placement will emerge as a game changer in the marketing landscape, providing advertisers with innovative ways to engage and engage audiences, and providing additional revenue opportunities for content creators, distributors and platforms. Anantadi, a Pune-based deep technology startup founded by Tushar Patil, has developed a platform that strategically places products within video content according to individual viewer preferences. This makes it easier for brands to connect with their target market in a non-intrusive and authentic way.
Before…
Originally from Jalgaon, Tushar was educated at RR Vidyalaya and came to Pune to pursue his Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering degree from AISSMS College of Engineering. He graduated in 2011 with a Marketing MBA from Neville He Wadia Institute of Management.
Mr Tushar said: “After completing my MBA, I founded Roadside Entertainment, a consulting firm that deals with product placement and brand partnerships. We have built strategic partnerships between brands and TV, movies, music, streaming, events and celebrities. I was responsible for researching, identifying, proposing, and maintaining relationships with production companies for content partnership opportunities, negotiating with brands on pricing, terms and conditions, and other project-specific details, as well as managing assigned campaigns, communications, and coordinating promotions.”
“In my quest to give my clients something more, I started studying neuroscience, marketing, media studies, and behavioral science. Also I consulted IT company media and his UX (user experience) lab for 2 years he built and developed in-house AI ML based (machine learning) software for EEG, facial expression analysis and eye tracking. The software has been used to research and test media and his UX within laboratories located in India, South Africa and the United States. “Roadside entertainment” had to take a break during the pandemic as the service focused on movies,” Tuschar said.
Based on this experience, in 2020, Tushar experimented with another venture named “Dhiti”, a design analytics SaaS platform backed by neuroscience and AI. “Dhiti was an AI-powered design analytics tool that helped create smarter designs. It helped designers, brands, and companies make data-driven design decisions to improve advertising effectiveness and user experience (UX).”
Anantadi
Drawing on his consulting and SaaS platform experience, Tushar wanted to develop an AI-powered platform to help brands with in-video advertising and virtual product placement. “‘Anantadi’ is a combination of two Sanskrit words ‘Anant’ and ‘Adi’. Anant means infinity and Adi means one or the first. We have envisioned Anantadi as one platform with infinite possibilities and opportunities.”
“I was doing primary research on companies involved in in-video advertising. To do so, I spoke with several experts in the entertainment industry as well as the software product industry, who also agreed that the idea is futuristic and could take several more years to become commercially successful, so it’s a good time to start working on the technology,” Tuschar said.
MVP
Once the idea was validated, Tushar set about building a minimum viable product (MVP). “This is for video analytics only and to provide analytics and insights to users,” he added. “As I pondered the problem statement, I realized that there are three key players in the process: advertisers, consumers, and content creators. For advertisers, ad avoidance is their biggest challenge, and they are looking for new and creative ways to connect with their audiences. often requires complex pre-negotiations and has a limited window of time to close a deal.”
Explaining the basic application flow, Tushar said: “If we want to feature our brand’s products in a video, we first need to be able to create a shortlist of scenes in the video. We need to be able to search for items that appear in the scene in the same way that we search for text in a search engine like Google. It was our minimum viable product or MVP stage to optimize by shortlisting.”
Enterprise solution
Although the MVP stage was successfully completed, Tushar wanted to develop Software as an Enterprise Solution (SaaS), which basically required a full stack of technologies.
Mr Tushar said: “We want to develop Anantady as an AI-powered end-to-end in-video advertising (virtual product placement) management platform that analyzes videos, finds relevant scenes, inserts branded products, and virtually inserts signage into video content such as TV shows, movies, web series, music videos, and influencer content.
“During the product development stage, we have made great strides towards realizing a virtual product placement solution. We are currently developing and testing an intelligent scene finder AI that pinpoints the best moments to integrate products within digital content. In addition, our team has made significant progress in building a robust ad inventory management system, providing our clients with the tools to efficiently manage and track virtual product placements. We are making strides towards building an automated, data-driven platform that will revolutionize the way we interact,” Tuschar said.
“To build this tech stack, we needed a developer. We recently hired a technologist with experience in building and delivering digital solutions, primarily for web and native. A team of six members is working with him, and a separate research team on AI and ML has been formed. I also applied to ,” he said.
investor experience
Anantadi has been selected for IIIIT Hyderabad’s Avishkar Deep Tech Accelerator Program in September 2022. “The Avishkar Accelerator Program has provided us with the following seed funding,” said Tushar. ₹800,000. of this ₹One million dollars was donated by IIIT Hyderabad. ₹$30 million by private equity firm SucSeed Indovation. Indian government MeiTY startup accelerator Samridh Yojana also agreed to invest heavily ( ₹$4 million) corresponds to the total investment of IIIT Hyderabad and SucSeed Indovation under the Avishkar programme. We have completed the paperwork and formalities and are awaiting government funding. We are in discussions with other investors. If we get a good evaluation, we plan to raise funds again. ”
“This early stage capital has been a huge boost for us. This funding will support our ongoing product development efforts and help us bring our virtual product placement solutions to market faster. The early institutional capital is a sign of strong confidence in our vision and potential, allowing us to continue building towards a successful launch and establish ourselves as an industry leader in the virtual product placement space,” said Tushar.
Go-to-market strategy
“We are approaching major TV companies, OTT platforms and independent content creators. Currently, we are in talks with about 15 such companies, and we are piloting with three of them,” Tushar said. We will work with such companies on a revenue-sharing model, but we will prioritize companies that produce and sell their own products first.”
next move
Regarding future opportunities, Tuscher said: “The market is poised for huge opportunities globally. India will be a major contributor given the sheer scale of entertainment content produced and viewed each year. Our vision is to build Google Ad Word for ‘in-video’ advertising and become an AI-driven programmatic advertising platform that enables on-demand and virtual product placement across the entertainment and video creator economy. We look forward to providing cutting-edge, AI-based, high-performance in-video advertising solutions that are easy to integrate, deploy, and scale. To do so, we target in-influencer content, in-live sports, in-AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) metaverses, and video game platforms. One of the challenges of in-video advertising is the need to consider context and creativity. Historical movies and older content may not be a perfect fit for such ads. Brands may have different designs over the years, so shortlisted scenes, their contexts, locations and cultural sensibilities should all be considered and synchronized when advertising. ”
