ShowHeroes Group, one of Europe’s top Ad-Tech companies, is expanding in the U.S. and Latin American markets. Portada talked to Ilhan Zengin, CEO of ShowHeroes Group, and Joseph Lospalluto, Country Manager U.S, about their company’s expansion in the Americas and their views on the future of video advertising and omnichannel marketing.
ShowHeroes Group, Europe’s leading independent provider of video solutions for digital publishers and advertisers, has a global presence employing more than 380 persons in 28 major cities throughout Europe, the Nordics, Latin America and the U.S. The company’s mission is to provide marketers optimal video solutions for omnichannel marketing. Media consumption trends are providing tailwinds to ShowHeroes’ expansion plan. Video marketing is growing in leaps and bounds. CTV advertising amounts to between 6%-7% of the advertising pie in the U.S. with many forecasts expecting the share to grow to over 10% until 2025. In terms of dollar volume, advertising spent on CTV is expected to grow from approximately US $20 billion in 2022 to US $ 40 billion in five years. These growth trends are being also followed in other regions, like Latin America. A key growth driver for video is the expansion of AVOD (Advertising Video on Demand) due to subscription fatigue at paid services (SVOD).
ShowHeroes Group recently launched a native CTV platform incorporating new formats based on the latest user video experience insights. “The trends we are seeing in CTV have been observed in other channels before, for instance in mobile or online video. Coming from an old video angle, CTV opens up many opportunities to increase the effectiveness and impact of advertising on the big screen and to utilize the content that appears natively in an appealing form. In addition, we try to be as standardized and as scalable as possible,” says Ilhan Zengin, CEO of ShowHeroes Group.
According to Zengin,”native advertising should be a smooth vehicle that prepares a user to actually being exposed to an ad. There are many options that can be utilized from upper funnel to more performance-oriented ads like QR codes. For instance if an advertiser wants to promote a certain type of insurance, the native content piece would be more educational and less transaction oriented, preparing the user for a certain topic in a more seamless way.”
Zengin adds that ShowHeroes Group will be publishing a research study on CTV based on consumer eye-tracking in order to provide a thorough understanding of the impact of CTV advertising on consumer behavior and consumer purchase intent.
ShowHeroes U.S. Expansion: Multicultural
“We are expanding ShowHeroes’ products into one of the largest markets in the world. Advertisers need to substantially invest in video content and distribution and benefit from the strength of our studio and our targeting capabilities in order to reach consumers with relevant messages. That is our value proposition,” Zengin asserts. “Publishers and advertisers working with ShowHeroes can benefit from a whole new suite of capabilities, including a substantial video library to increase video views on top of our semantic targeting technology capabilities. since they work together with global tier 1 brands and major agencies.”
“We create new video inventory by leveraging our semantic targeting technology without a need for third party cookies. This way both publishers and advertisers will see incremental video views.”
ShowHeroes U.S. expansion already has an office in Miami which mostly caters to advertisers targeting the Hispanic market. “We think that the Hispanic and multicultural markets are very important as U.S. multicultural audiences are very desirable for brands who are looking to diversify their consumer base,” says Joseph Lospalluto, U.S. Country Manager based in New York City.
Lospalluto emphasizes that ShowHeroes’ U.S. expansion unique value proposition lies in providing brand suitability. “We empower both publishers and advertisers to preselect the pieces of content that get delivered in order to ensure brand suitability,” Lospalluto says.
The Age of Video: CTV and Omnichannel Advertising
According to CEO Zengin, Linear TV is the latest piece of the media puzzle being digitalized, but the implications of the digitalization of linear TV advertising are very significant and broad. “It is ultimately about omnichannel marketing and advertising and an audience everywhere approach (mobile, desktop, digital out of home etc). This enables cross media measurement, very fast reporting and is a very different approach compared to the old school medium by medium approach,”Zengin asserts. “In this environment advertisers need a partner who understands omnichannel on the audience side but also provides the right creative and content depending on the device,” he adds.
Growth in Latin America
In addition to ShowHeroes U.S. expansion, the group is also betting heavily on Latin America. Show Heroes Group recently acquired SmartClip Latam. Over the next few weeks, the business will be rebranded to the ShowHeroes brand at launch events in Brazil and Mexico. “We are investing in Latin America and just increased our headcount by 100% to 100 employees in the region. In addition, we are realizing many synergies with the acquisition and want to make sure that we cater to the needs of every market with the attention each market deserves. We are also adding a strong suite of services to the ones SmartClip already had, so that both publishers and advertisers can distribute and buy video content in an omnichannel way,” Zengin maintains.
Advice for Digital Marketing Entrepreneurs
Zengin and the ShowHeroes Group’s executive team have done an exceptional job in scaling their business, which was started less than 6 years ago and now has revenues of more than US$ 100 million, a global presence and more than 380 employees. What advice does Zengin provide to entrepreneurs in digital marketing and media? “First and foremost, You should have a product that is needed by the market,” he says. “If you don’t have that don’t try”, Zengin adds. “You also need to think globally and act locally. The media business is a very local business, but you need to be global in order to scale it. Therefore, You should try to build a local business but aim to become a global player with a global scale. Then you can run campaigns in multiple markets. Finally, provide best-in class services with easy to use solutions that are offered by teams who are easy to work with”, Zengin concludes.
