Prior to CES, Flingo introduced its Samba platform, which allows users to connect their TVs and mobile devices through its proprietary automatic content recognition (ACR) technology. Now, through a partnership with Innovid, it’s using the platform to enable more interactive advertising.
Flingo’s Samba enables networks to leverage features like check-ins, polls, and quizzes in second-screen apps that interact with content on the television. It can also provide additional cast and crew information, related multimedia content, and special offers related to what’s playing on the screen. It does that by recognizing what’s on TV and syncing up with other devices in a matter of seconds. The platform is being rolled out on a number of TVs, through partnerships with manufacturers like Hisense and Haier.
Through its Innovid partnership, Flingo will enable a new form of monetization for smart TVs and second-screen apps. By connecting TVs and other devices, advertisers will be able to create targeted, interactive, and actionable ad experiences. Examples of that include games, contest entries, and coupons based on the shows — and ads — that viewers are watching on TV.
Flingo CEO Ashwin Navin gave the example of movie marketers that are trying to get people in theaters. With Flingo and Innovid, they’ll be able to augment their traditional TV ad buy with ad units running on second screen devices that recognize when a certain ad is on and offers up a call to action to buy tickets. That enables a new form of direct-response marketing that wasn’t previously available to them.
As a result, these ad units are sold on a performance basis, with Flingo and Innovid only getting paid when a user has taken an action — whether that means making a purchase, redeeming a coupon, or simply opting in to learn more about a product. Because they’re targeted and actionable, Flingo believes the ads will perform much better than traditional ad buys.
Flingo has raised a total of $8 million since being founded. Investors in the San Francisco-based company include August Capital, Mark Cuban, and Gary Lauder.
Flingo is a Smart TV apps publishing company, co-founded in 2008 by early employees of BitTorrent and based in San Francisco, CA, with a portfolio of applications and platform technologies embedded in the central processing unit (CPU) of Smart TVs. Flingo publishes more Smart TV apps than any other company with over 70 apps available on 15 million screens, in 118 countries worldwide. Its SyncApps platform enables interactive television and social television by transforming a one-way TV broadcast into...
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