Broadcast data company, 7th Minute has been selected as an official partner by Publicis Media initiative NextTECHNow.  The scheme, which matches the agency’s clients with start-ups whose innovative technology will boost their business, will see 7th Minute provide advertisers with data-driven insight that informs their media planning and decision-making.

The move comes as 7th Minute launches its 7M Insights-as-a-Service platform. The cloud-based offering uses granular TV contextual data and in-depth analysis to determine the specific steps advertisers need to take to deliver on their business goals.

Activity enabled includes ‘moment marketing’, whereby advertisers undertake cost-effective, contextual advertising in real-time based on TV events that are relevant to their brand. 7M Insights also provides analysis of broadcast trends and competitors’ advertising activity, as well as measurement figures that show the effectiveness of broadcast media and which contextual moments generate commercial opportunities.

The 7M proprietary technology uses automated content recognition (ACR) to turn images into usable data.  Content from broadcast programmes and ad breaks across linear digital TV and satellite TV (with broadcaster video on demand, BVOD, planned for the future) is processed, subtitled and organised to allow brands and agencies to query contextual real-time and historical TV data for insights and measurement to inform their advertising tactics.

Spikes in online activity around a brand or product for example can be correlated with relevant words and phrases that have been mentioned on TV and the context in which they were used.  7M’s interactive dashboards allow the user to drill into broadcast data to ascertain details such as the date, day of the week and hour of the day the reference occurred, as well as the channel and programme.

This analysis equips brands to understand conversations taking place on TV and how these influence consumer behaviour.  Future TV references to relevant content – whether that is a specific brand or product, a competitor’s offering or a discussion on a particular topic – can be harnessed to generate an automatic advertising response on the most appropriate digital channels and in real-time, when it is already in the consumer’s mind.  Timely and focused messages of this nature allow brands to optimise the effectiveness of finite budgets and drive returns on investment.

The new 7M platform enables brands to leverage the trend for ‘second screening’ as consumers watch broadcast TV while also using a mobile device.  Its contextual nature also allows them to deliver targeted relevant advertising without the need for personally identifiable information (PII) or cookies.

Brands can also identify big general themes, around a product or activity for example, that are trending driven by broadcast content, such as a specific TV programme. Using the 7M data and analysis capabilities to understand consumer interest enables them to deliver relevant and targeted advertising during a time period when they have a ‘pre-engaged’ audience.

Ben Fraser at NextTECHNow says: “Offering our clients the 7M platform gives them new and innovative tuning tools to boost informed decision-making about their advertising tactics.  We are aiming to move broadcast advertising from an inexact science to a medium with razor-sharp targeting capabilities that plays to the power of television.”

Ed Stevens, managing director at 7th Minute, says: “We live in a world packed full of data – but it’s not always accessible or useful.  Our new platform harnesses the workhorse that is TV by making broadcast data available to any advertiser that wants to put their message in front of a potential customer at a time when they are already predisposed to acting on the information.  Working with NextTECHNow is a great opportunity to provide a wide variety of prestigious brands with the contextual insight that is so critical to today’s advertising industry.”

The new cloud-based  version of the 7M platform provides brands and agencies with a free ‘Discovery’ dashboard; this offers TV broadcast insights reports with access to data from the previous 30 days, where digital and satellite channels can be queried and analysed for brand and key phrase mentions. Using this insight, customers can decide whether to pay for additional data and activate 7M’s ‘Sync’ moment marketing strategies across display, search and social.

The 7M platform is also available as a managed service.