Coull, the video advertising network, has opened an office in Santa Barbara, California with an initial team of seven and next up will be a New York office. The launch is in response to US advertisers using the platform including Michael Kors, eHarmony, eFax, Grockit and Paul Fredrick. In addition, Steve Brown, co-founder of buy.at, has joined the board alongside Irfon Watkins, Coull’s CEO. Steve ran buy.at from its inception through to being bought by AOL a couple of years ago.

In contrast to Flash overlay ads, Coull’s technology lets publishers and advertisers tag individual products within videos, making it possible to click through and buy products right from the video.

Here’s an example of the kind of work being done.

Advertisers such as Nike, Renault, Unilever and Agent Provocateur are already users in Europe. Its Video Performance Network now has 2000 advertisers and a publisher reach of 200m unique users per month.