Category: Blog

We open the blog to Michal Szczesny, COO at Artfinder. Artfinder is the art marketplace which connects people to artists and art. Michal will be speaking at our event in London on April 11th. The last few tickets remaining are available here. 

We’re an art company. Or at least, we used to be. That’s not strictly true – Artfinder has always been a tech startup first and foremost, but we’re a tech company that is providing a solution to a very human problem – connecting independent artists directly with customers around the world who would love to buy original art, but either didn’t have access to artists or didn’t know they could afford originals (which are very affordable when you take out the middleman – i.e – the gallery).

We first started investigating AI when we realised that we reached a critical volume of work on the site (we’re at 350,000 pieces now, that’s more than MoMA). A vast majority of those are unique, one-off pieces that cannot be recommended multiple times after they sold. That amount of art is brilliant and exhilarating, but we can also see that for users it could be overwhelming. We’ve always had search filters on the site, plus text search, but to search for a ‘large blue landscape painting for £100 – £200’ and to find 50,000 results isn’t an especially encouraging experience. There seems to be this mindset that once you’ve put in search criteria you have to look at *every single result* to make sure you find the best one – and most people would rather give up than look through 50+ of pages of search results.

So, this left us with the ‘needle in a haystack’ problem – the need to match customers up as quickly as possible with a manageable selection of artworks that they love. For us, this problem is compounded by the ‘I know it when I see it’ mindset, which is that shopping for art is not like shopping for shoes or books, where you usually know what you want or can describe it with words. Art shoppers tend to start from either a complete lack of knowledge about what they want or a with a visual idea which is very difficult to put into words.

Enter Emma

We knew we had to solve the ‘needle in a haystack’ problem in a creative way. And art taste is such a subjective, personal topic – we want our users to feel that Artfinder knows and understands your taste, without ever being judgmental or intimidating, like an art gallery might be.

We began our AI journey with personalised recommendations driven by machine learning and graph database software, Neo4j. From 10,000 artists, 350,000 artworks and 600,000 users we have a huge amount of data to feed into the graph, plus several different levels of relationship between products, artists and users. Users and artists can view or ‘love’ an artwork, ‘follow’ an artist or user, or of course buy an artwork. Those relationships can then be weighted (purchase is stronger than ‘love’ for instance) and we can calculate product recommendations for you based on what similar users have liked.

Those personalised recommendations are great, but obviously you need to have got as far as looking at an artwork on the site before they become useful. In the meantime we had also built an onsite feature called ‘more like this’ – which uses open source visual similarity detection software called LIRE to ‘match’ any artwork on the site to up to 400 others. The same software is used by the police for facial recognition from CCTV cameras. It looks at visual structures on a deeper level than similarity that could be described with text like colour or subject matter.

But we still needed a way to engage users who weren’t even on the site, and who didn’t know what they were looking for beyond a visual stimulus.

Emma fulfilled all of those criteria. Users can tweet any image at her (a photo, an artwork, a selfie) and she will reply with Artfinder artworks that are inspired by your image. She’s a really easy, good fun way to dive into our catalogue without having to even think about what you’re looking for. She’s also, of course, a little bit cheeky – there seems to be this conception that buying a piece of art is a very serious and considered thing, something you might need an advisor for – and what we’re trying to do is shake people out of that.

Buying art can be all of that, if you want it to be, but it can also be as easy as buying a pair of shoes, or a cushion or a pot plant. Art will always be valuable, and will always be something to love and care for, but that doesn’t mean it has to be expensive. Emma is helping us communicate that to our users.

As we go further and further on our machine learning journey, Emma will recommend art you’ll love with (hopefully not too) scary precision, drastically reducing the ‘needle in a haystack’ problem.

We’re pleased to say that last night we added another trophy to our collection!

LoopMe were awarded ‘Best Video Ad Tech Innovation’ for our PurchaseLoop product at the Digiday Video Awards Europe.

The award looked for the best in new or improved video technology innovation, showing ability to deliver, measure or support content, as well as specific video advertising campaigns.

PurchaseLoop (patent pending) was launched in September 2016, and since then we have worked with the world’s top brands to deliver their mobile video campaigns to metrics like purchase intent, brand affinity and footfall.

By layering 1^st and 3^rd party data and AI, PurchaseLoop ensures that video ads are delivered to consumers who display the highest probability of performing against the client’s brand objectives. Typically brands receive uplifts 2 to 3 times higher when using PurchaseLoop optimization compared to a standard campaign. This provides better value for brands and agencies, while also creating a better ad experience for users. Find out more about PurchaseLoop here.

We had a great evening and it was fantastic to celebrate with some of our clients who have championed PurchaseLoop from the beginning! Check out the rest of the winners here.

The Best Ad Tech Innovation trophy now takes pride of place on the reception desk – congratulations to all the winners and here’s to more celebrations in 2017!

Named ‘Innovator of the Year’ by Facebook in 2016, ReFUEL4 is the world’s leading AI-driven online creative management platform. Using AI and Machine Learning technology, they analyse, rank and automatically refresh online ad creatives designed by their global pool of 10,000 creative talent.

We’re delighted to have Ross Sheil, ReFUEL4’s EMEA GM join us as a keynote speaker at our conference. Ross is currently busy building ReFUEL 4’s team and operations from the EMEA HQ in London. He has held a variety of leadership roles in tech, from start-up to corporate, most recently as a founding member of Twitter EMEA where he was Head of Mobile. Ross has been honoured with various accolades including Tech Person of the Year #ECA16, Top Mobile Execs 2015 and Top Mobile Keynotes 2016 and is a well known lecturer and speaker on tech and mobile marketing.

Ross will be giving a keynote on ReFUEL 4’s latest AI in Advertising whitepaper, joining Alex Kozloff, Ron Chrisley and more. Check out the rest of our speakers and register your attendance here.

Incorporating a data-driven approach to advertising has until recently been challenging. Creative departments lack access to campaign data and analysis, which are usually only available to their media buying counterparts.

Most creative decisions are made subjectively and many marketers are not sure if their campaigns will work prior to activating them.

The solution? Artificial Intelligence.

While it may seem strange to pair creativity with AI, this isn’t a new concept.

Back in 2015, M&C Saatchi unveiled an “artificially intelligent poster” for an OOH campaign on London’s Oxford Street. Dubbed a “Darwinian” campaign, the poster read the reactions of its audience and adapted itself accordingly. From its initial “gene pool” of pictures and copy, 22 ads were created in each generation, with the poster assessing the level of success of an ad. If successful, a particular ad will move to the next gene pool and be part of the next generation. Those unsuccessful were removed.

ReFUEL4 works with human designers powered by AI and automation to create smarter ads. Our AI engine   provides predictive analysis of each creative before they are even activated in campaigns. Based on each campaign’s AI scoring, advertisers can make better selections on the ad creatives to run.

The creative process will be increasingly informed by AI during the planning stage. Designers can be informed by AI-fuelled insights on creative direction that will produce the best desired results for each target audience, even before they start drafting the designs. This enables a more efficient process where designers already know the ideal combination of elements such as colours, objects, styles and shapes that they should use in their work.

Could a robot take jobs from designers and marketers?

According to evidence from the BBC’s calculator – no. There’s just a 5% likelihood of automation for graphic designers, as coming up with creative and original ideas, for example artists, designers or engineers hold a significant advantage in the face of automation.

On the contrary, AI and automation are going to make marketing more efficient and free up time for marketers to perform human tasks that will, perhaps, never be fully executable by a machine.

What’s next?

AI looks set to play a significant role in the advertising world in the days to come.

You may be familiar with McCann Japan’s ‘AI Creative Director’. Following the analysis and deconstruction of award-winning ads, the AI was fed with data that would help them determine which factors make the perfect ad for any given product or message (check the videos out here). When put to the polls, the human creative came out top for favourability, but it was a close call.

AI is reshaping the marketing landscape as we know it – don’t exclude your creativity from it.

Hear more from Ross on April 11^th. RSVP here.

We’re pleased to welcome Ron Chrisley as a speaker at our conference, Artificial Intelligence: The Future of Us.

Ron joins us with an impressive academic and AI background. He is currently the Director of the Centre for Cognitive Science (COGS) at the University of Sussex, where he is also on the faculty of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. Prior to this he worked as an AI researcher in Silicon Valley (Stanford, NASA, RIACS and Xerox PARC), Japan and Finland. His research interests include natural and machine consciousness, artificial creativity and machine ethics.

We hand over to Ron to learn more about the relationship between Artificial Intelligence and Philosophy, which he will be speaking on. Ensure you register for tickets as spaces are limited.

Despite what you may have heard, philosophy at its best consists in rigorous thinking about important issues, and careful examination of the concepts we use to think about those issues.  Sometimes this analysis is achieved through considering potential exotic instances of an otherwise everyday concept, and considering whether the concept does indeed apply to that novel case — and if so, how.

In this respect, artificial intelligence (AI), of the actual or sci-fi/thought experiment variety, has given philosophers a lot to chew on, providing a wide range of detailed, fascinating instances to challenge some of our most dearly-held concepts:  not just “intelligence”, “mind”, and “knowledge”, but also “responsibility”, “emotion”, “consciousness”, and, ultimately, “human”.

But it’s a two-way street: Philosophy has a lot to offer AI too.

Examining these concepts allows the philosopher to notice inconsistency, inadequacy or incoherence in our thinking about mind, and the undesirable effects this can have on AI design.  Once the conceptual malady is diagnosed, the philosopher and AI designer can work together (they are sometimes the same person) to recommend revisions to our thinking and designs that remove the conceptual roadblocks to better performance.

This symbiosis is most clearly observed in the case of artificial general intelligence (AGI), the attempt to produce an artificial agent that is, like humans, capable of behaving intelligently in an unbounded number of domains and contexts

The clearest example of the requirement of philosophical expertise when doing AGI concerns machine consciousness and machine ethics: at what point does an AGI’s claim to mentality become real enough that we incur moral obligations toward it?  Is it at the same time as, or before, it reaches the point at which we would say it is conscious?  And at what points does it have moral obligations of its own? And is it moral for us to get to the point where we have moral obligations to machines?  Should that even be AI’s goal?

These are important questions, and it is good that they are being discussed more even though the possibilities they consider aren’t really on the horizon.  

Less well-known is that philosophical sub-disciplines other than ethics have been, and will continue to be, crucial to progress in AGI.  

It’s not just the philosophers that say so; Quantum computation pioneer and Oxford physicist David Deutsch agrees: “The whole problem of developing AGIs is a matter of philosophy, not computer science or neurophysiology”.  That “not” might overstate things a bit (I would soften it to “not only”), but it’s clear that Deutch’s vision of philosophy’s role in AI will not be limited to being a kind of ethics panel that assesses the “real work” done by others.

What’s more, philosophy’s relevance doesn’t just kick in once one starts working on AGI — which substantially increases its market share.  It’s an understatement to say that AGI is a subset of AI in general.  Nearly all, of the AI that is at work now providing relevant search results, classifying images, driving cars, and so on is not domain-independent AGI – it is technological, practical AI, that exploits the particularities of its domain, and relies on human support to augment its non-autonomy to produce a working system. But philosophical expertise can be of use even to this more practical, less Hollywood, kind of AI design.

The clearest point of connection is machine ethics.  

But here the questions are not the hypothetical ones about whether a (far-future) AI has moral obligations to us, or we to it.  Rather the questions will be more like this:

– How should we trace our ethical obligations to each other when the causal link between us and some undesirable outcome for another, is mediated by a highly complex information process that involves machine learning and apparently autonomous decision-making?  

– Do our previous ethical intuitions about, e.g., product liability apply without modification, or do we need some new concepts to handle these novel levels of complexity and (at least apparent) technological autonomy?

As with AGI, the connection between philosophy and technological, practical AI is not limited to ethics.  For example, different philosophical conceptions of what it is to be intelligent suggest different kinds of designs for driverless cars.  Is intelligence a disembodied ability to process symbols?  Is it merely an ability to behave appropriately?  Or is it, at least in part, a skill or capacity to anticipate how one’s embodied sensations will be transformed by the actions one takes?  

Contemporary, sometimes technical, philosophical theories of cognition are a good place to start when considering what way of conceptualising the problem and solution will be best for a given AI system, especially in the case of design that has to be truly ground breaking to be competitive.

Of course, it’s not all sweetness and light. It is true that there has been some philosophical work that has obfuscated the issues around AI, thereby unnecessarily hindering progress. So, to my recommendation that philosophy play a key role in artificial intelligence, terms and conditions apply.  But don’t they always?

We are delighted to have been shortlisted in the Digiday Video Awards Europe in the category of ‘Best Video Ad Tech Innovation’ for PurchaseLoop!

The award recognises the best new or improved video tech innovation to deliver video content, measure or support video content, branded content or video advertising campaigns. We are delighted to have been recognised for our work in developing PurchaseLoop.

PurchaseLoop (patent pending) was launched in September 2016. It’s the first product to deliver mobile video campaigns against brand metrics like purchase intent, brand affinity and footfall.

We believe that mobile data allows attribution. With PurchaseLoop, artificial intelligence learns from consumer feedback to optimize video campaigns in real time.

By layering 1^st and 3^rd party data and AI, PurchaseLoop ensures video ads are delivered to consumers who display the highest probability of performing against the client’s brand objectives, whether this is to change their opinion about a brand, visit a store or increase purchase intent, and delivers the ad to these users.

In using artificial intelligence more impressions convert, meaning that the campaign is better value for agencies and brands. Typically brands receive uplifts 2 to 3 times larger when using PurchaseLoop optimization compared to a standard campaign. Find out more about PurchaseLoop. 

Check out the full list of shortlisted nominees here. See you at the awards ceremony!

Following on from ‘methbots’ in 2016, brand safety has hit headlines once again. Due to a perceived persistent failure to take down extremist content in a timely manner, brands including M&S, HSBC, McDonald’s and Royal Mail are no longer advertising with Google as they are concerned that their ads are appearing alongside inappropriate content.

This rightly puts other video platforms in the spotlight to assess their brand safety measures. We would like to reassure our clients of our stringent internal and external processes to ensure brand safety.

Our platform is built to track and deliver 100% human traffic and viewability, in brand safe environments.

The technology identifies any ad requests which could potentially be non-human or in a non-safe environment (including content on premium sites e.g. news articles containing distressing content) and blocks these pre-bid, as soon as the request is received, well before an ad can be served.

Internally, we utilise a variety of methods. These include:

–       Pre-bid brand quality filters

–       Manual ad spot quality vetting

–       URL / video keyword blocks

–       Human verification for each app and mobile website on boarded

We also work with multiple external third party providers (IAS, Forensiq, Double Verify, Moat) to independently verify that your campaigns run in the right environments.

As the below image shows, our figures from Q1 indicate that our campaigns are viewable, brand safe and premium.

If you have any questions about running advertising with LoopMe then please get in touch.

LoopMe, the world’s largest mobile video advertising platform, specializing in artificial intelligence and data, is expanding its European presence with an office in Amsterdam to service Benelux and The Nordics. The expansion comes a year after the launch of offices in Paris and Berlin.

Mobile advertising has grown 61% YOY in The Netherlands, with video accounting for 55% of the €358m display advertising spend in H1 2016. In the Nordics, mobile ad spend is expected to increase by up to 25% on last year. LoopMe aims to capitalize on this market growth, as it looks to continue its own ambitious growth strategy.

Marco Ruivenkamp, formerly Head of Digital at MEC, has been recruited to join as Country Manager Benelux and Nordics, to lead the company’s expansion. Ruivenkamp has over ten years’ industry experience working with international advertisers, media agencies and technology vendors, previously holding senior positions at Turn and Yahoo!

“LoopMe’s focus is on delivering an outstanding product to their clients and their technology is first-rate” said Ruivenkamp. “I am very excited to be bringing LoopMe’s mobile video offerings to Benelux and the Nordics for the first time”.

CEO & Co-Founder Stephen Upstone said “we have already run several successful campaigns within Beneluxe and the Nordics from our London office, opening a permanent office will allow us to continue to build our business in Europe. Marco is extremely well respected within the advertising industry in these markets and is the perfect person to lead our launch”.

—————–

Loopme, het grootste wereldwijde mobiele video  advertentie platform, dat is gespecialiseerd in artificial intelligence en data, heeft haar activiteiten uitgebreid in Europa. Het opent een kantoor in Amsterdam om de business in de Benelux en Scandinavië op te starten. Dit kantoor is het eerste nieuwe kantoor na de opening van de kantoren in Parijs en Berlijn in 2016. 

Mobiele advertenties zijn in het afgelopen jaar met 61% YoY gegroeid in Nederland. Online video heeft een groei van 55% YoY gerealiseerd en is nu al bijna 20% van de gehele online display advertentie uitgaven. In Scandinavië zien we een groei van 25% in mobiele advertentie uitgaven. Loopme is klaar om haar klanten te helpen de uitgaven van mobiel video op een professionele manier te ondersteunen. 

Marco Ruivenkamp, was hiervoor Head of Digital bij MEC Amsterdam, en is onlangs begonnen als Regional Director Benelux en Scandinavië, om deze verdere expansie te leiden. Ruivenkamp heeft meer dan 10 jaar ervaring in de online industrie en gewerkt met en voor internationale technologie providers, mediabureaus en adverteerders in verschillende senior posities bij o.a. Yahoo! en Turn.

Ruivenkamp: “Loopme heeft een product ontwikkelt in een sterk groeiend deel van onze industrie. Ik kijk er erg naar uit de Loopme mobiele video propositie te introduceren in de Benelux en Scandinavië.” 

CEO & Co-founder Stephen Upstone zegt; “We hebben vanuit ons kantoor in London al een aantal succesvolle campagnes gedraaid in de Benelux en Scandinavië. Nu we een eigen kantoor in Amsterdam openen kunnen we deze business verder uitbreiden. Marco is een gerespecteerd professional in de media-industrie in deze markten, en mede daarom de juiste persoon om ons kantoor in Amsterdam te leiden. 

As we write this, Artifical Intelligence dominates yet another industry event. First it was CES, then Mobile World Congress and now SXSW. Even the Vatican are speaking about it, with Bishop Tighe (who runs social media accounts for the Pope) musing about what a lack of work could do to our sense of self-worth although also stating: ‘Let’s not romanticise it – some of the work that might be displaced is fairly tough, dangerous work and fairly menial.’

While AI is front of mind at SXSW, it’s also topical for us, especially given our recent $10 million of funding for further investment in AI advertising technology.

Knowing the massive appetite for AI content and a lack of understanding within the market, our conference, Artificial Intelligence: The Future of Us comes to London on April 11th.

As well as our CEO, Stephen Upstone and Global VP Sales, Pete O’Mara-Kane, we’re excited to be joined by several amazing speakers from the agency and media world. These include:

–       Cameron Worth, Founder of SharpEnd, the agency of things

–       Alex Kozloff, Director of Marketing and Industry Engagement at the IAB

–       Lindsay Rowntree, Head of Content at ExchangeWire

–       Deirdre McGlashan, Chief Digital Officer at MediaCom

Find out more about the speakers here.

Alex Kozloff has guest blogged for us on what AI means for the digital advertising industry. Expect to hear more from our speakers in the coming weeks.

We’ve had unprecedented interest in this event, so ensure you RSVP before they sell out!

Today we open the blog to Alex Kozloff, who is the recently announced, COO at the IAB.

Alex has been named as the 3rd most influential person in mobile in The Drum’s 2015 “Mobile Top 50”, alongside being previously nominated in the Drum’s 30 women in digital under 30, and Media Week’s 30 under 30. Prior to the IAB, she worked at IPG media agency and managed media research at France Telecom owned Orange and Unanimis.

We are delighted to announce that Alex will be speaking at our conference, Artificial Intelligence: The Future of Us! Join us at The British Museum on April 11th. Ensure you RSVP as spaces are limited.

Keep an eye out for more speaker announcements coming soon!

AI is one of the hottest topics in the wider media at the moment, and we at the IAB are keeping a close eye on what it means for the advertising industry in particular.

AI is starting to become more valuable in automating planning, buying and optimising media spend as it allows brands to target more specifically to audiences and demographics. This leads to better conversion and of course, better success. According to the 2016 IAB/PwC Digital Adspend Study, 60% of display advertising in the UK was traded using programmatic direct and indirect technology

It’s not only the delivery of digital advertising which AI is already impacting, but with some brands the creative itself is benefitting from intelligent computing that can learn and adapt to serve more relevant ads to each consumer. One of my favourite examples of this dynamic creative optimization in action comes from the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development. As this video explains, artificial intelligence helps stitch together a storyline which is highly relevant and targeted to each individual- whilst not coming across as creepy or overdone. I expect to see lots more of this in the future – AI helping the initial creative ideas and stories that we humans generate, providing us with the ultimate tool to help refine our creativity.

Lastly, a newer use of AI technology, chatbots, are the source of much discussion in the advertising industry. It’s still really early days to fully understand what bots, both in their voice and non voice forms, mean for how brands connect with their consumers. Taking one example- chatbots were launched for Facebook Messenger in April 2016, and since then over 30,000 chat bots have been developed for the platform. From Starbucks to Domino’s to smaller fashion retailers, brands have already been experimenting with what this technology means for selling products directly to consumers in the twenty first century.

There is so much potential in how AI can help digital advertising continue to grow, improve and change, it feels like we are very much at the beginning of the story. As with all technology, it’s what you do with it that counts, so I’ve no doubt the very big brains in our industry will keep thinking of ways to use this nascent technology to create new and exciting ways for brands to connect with people that will continue to surprise and delight us all.