SHERMAN OAKS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Branded Entertainment Network (BEN), the leader in connecting global brands to consumers through the power of popular entertainment, today announced it has developed proprietary deep learning neural networks to help brand marketers better predict and improve upon the success of their brand integrations across premium influencer, streaming, TV, and film programming. BEN’s neural networks are already being used in campaigns and enhancing BEN’s ability to predict campaign performance.
Capitalizing on over 30 years-worth of industry leading data, BEN’s custom-built deep learning neural networks will provide brand marketers with predictive analytics to help increase campaign effectiveness and overall ROI.
“Given the vast amount of programming available to audiences, it is imperative that brands begin to use deep learning neural networks to understand the reasons why certain content effectively engages their target audience, and to do so at scale,” says Ricky Ray Butler, CEO of BEN. “We have always been driven by a combination of data, technology and industry expertise. The deep learning neural networks we’ve created, which have been specifically built to increase our internal efficiency and to meet the needs of entertainment marketing, give us the ability to design custom solutions for our clients to help meet their individual needs and ensure they remain miles ahead of their competition.”
According to Merrill Lynch, between 80-90 percent of all data is unstructured. By combining structured data (performance and ROI metrics) with unstructured data (audio and video data contained in film, TV or social media content) BEN’s neural networks aim to improve marketers’ ability to predict and identify the factors that drive better results from their entertainment marketing campaigns. Given the millions of pieces of content being created annually it is imperative that brands turn to deep learning to handle the huge volumes of information within unstructured data. BEN has created cross-functional teams of data scientists, developers, marketers, financial analysts, client service professionals and strategists to ensure the insights gleaned from its neural networks lead to tangible results for its clients.
Audiences are becoming increasingly hard to reach through traditional ads, with an estimated 30 percent of U.S. internet users implementing ad-blocking technology in 2018. Ad-free platforms like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix have exceeded 100 million users in the U.S. alone, while content continues to expand globally across those platforms in addition to YouTube, where millions of hours of content are uploaded daily. In order to remain competitive in this shifting market, brands are looking to get inside the content itself – through brand integration and influencer marketing – as a means to reach and engage with audiences in authentic ways. In order to make sense of the content at their fingertips, marketers are turning towards AI to help understand how their campaigns are performing. By premising its offering on the results of deep learning neural networks, BEN will bring more sophisticated measurement to the entertainment marketing industry as AI continues to rise to the forefront.
The enhancement of the BEN platform was a driver of the company’s continued growth in Q3 2018. The company once again saw record breaking financial performance, with BEN’s total 2018 revenue through the past quarter surpassing the company’s full year of revenue in 2017. BEN has signed a total of eight Fortune 500 brands this year, including Google (EMEA), Unilever, P&G, General Mills, The Gap, Mattel, Ulta, and Walgreens Boots Alliance to add to its roster of clients including Dyson, GM, Microsoft, YUM Brands, and Zillow.
About Branded Entertainment Network (BEN)
Branded Entertainment Network, a Bill Gates company, connects global brands to consumers through the power of popular entertainment. Branded Entertainment Network is comprised of two companies: BEN and Greenlight. BEN is a global entertainment marketing company delivering premium brand integrations across streaming, TV, film, and influencer programming. BEN’s client roster includes Microsoft, GM, Dyson, Ubisoft, Unilever, P&G, and General Mills. Greenlight offers brands unmatched expertise in global rights clearance and licensing with integrated solutions for music, photos, film, TV, celebrity, and iconic talent. Greenlight’s roster of celebrity legends, including Albert Einstein, Steve McQueen, Thomas Edison, Sophia Loren and Charlie Chaplin, provides brands with opportunities for instant recognition, positive perception, and global appeal. Greenlight’s client roster includes Hallmark, Tag Heuer, Canon, L’Oréal, Salesforce, Vodaphone, BBDO, Dentsu, Ogilvy, JWT, and Saatchi & Saatchi.
