GumGum and JW Player Partner to Bring Contextual Targeting and Viewability to Video

A new partnership between the digital advertising platform GumGum and JW Player, a video platform for broadcasters and publishers, could be a game changer for brands and agencies looking for deeper insights in video environments. 

The partnership relies heavily on Verity, GumGum’s independent ad-tech platform, to integrate contextual targeting and real-time viewability into JW Player’s video platform. 

Contextual targeting matches ads based on the context of a webpage, or in this case the context of the video where the ad is displayed. As brand advertisers look toward life after cookies, contextual advertising is seen by many as the most logical replacement. 

As part of the deal between GumGum and JW Player, GumGum’s Verity will now work with JW Player to analyze ads and create a private marketplace that targets JW Player’s video inventory based on the contextual parameters set by brands. 

For GumGum, the partnership is equally enticing. The company will now be able to offer its clients the opportunity to enhance scale, reach, and campaign performance.

Verity is the only independent ad-tech platform to receive content-level accreditation for contextual analysis, brand safety, and suitability from the Media Rating Council. The solution is designed to look at the entire context of a video, including signals like text, image, and audio, to determine contextual relevance. Combining Verity with JW Player’s real-time viewability technology enhances campaign performance and gives advertisers the opportunity to stay ahead of the curve in a quickly evolving digital advertising landscape, says GumGum’s William Merchan.

“JW Player was looking to roll-out a cookieless offering leveraging contextual capabilities and chose our contextual solution,” Merchan says. “We’ve both been pioneers in our fields with video platforms and contextual solutions, so it felt natural to combine our technology to offer scalable targeting solutions that are privacy-forward.”

With the new partnership in place, advertisers will be working with Verity and the team from JW Player to create their own targeting strategies. Deal IDs featuring JW Player’s OLV and CTV inventory will be curated using a predetermined strategy, and once generated, advertisers will be able to implement the PMP in their DSP of choice to create programmatic campaigns that leverage context to increase viewability.

Given how quickly the digital advertising landscape is evolving and changing, it’s hard to predict what the future for video and programmatic campaigns will look like. Google recently announced it would be ​​delaying its replacement of third-party cookies — again — based on feedback from advertisers still looking for a replacement. However, Merchan says it’s clear that targeting solutions that don’t exploit consumer data or breach data privacy regulations will be critical going forward. 

“Our combined solution gives brands and agencies the ability to apply sophisticated targeting capabilities across JWP’s video inventory,” Merchan says. “Verity capabilities, including the ability to conduct frame-by-frame analysis in video, coupled with JWP’s proprietary viewability tech, have been very well received by our brand and agency partners looking to adapt scalable and sophisticated contextual advertising.”

The deal with JW Player is just one of a number of new offerings and partnerships launched by GumGum this year. The company announced a partnership with Frameplay, a firm that enables intrinsic in-game advertising, back in June. Before that, GumGum announced an expanded partnership with Xandr.

GumGum was founded in 2008 by Ophir Tanz and Ari Mir. The company now works with more than 150 agency partners and hundreds of brands across more than 30,000 publisher partner websites to amplify programmatic reach.

“We’ve been incredibly busy at GumGum and are excited about the momentum and shift toward contextual solutions,” Merchan says. “With Verity, we have some exciting new video capabilities in development including more granular time based targeting of video content and advanced capabilities to understand environments in video. And with JW Player, we’re working to expand our partnership in EMEA as a near term development together.”