TV isn’t what it used to be. Join the Convergent TV Summit in LA this October 25 with media, technology and marketing leaders to prepare for new trends and make industry connections.
WPP’s media buying arm GroupM today announced a global partnership with Swedish adaptive streaming company SeenThis, a move that the companies say will let advertisers reduce the carbon emissions of video ads.
The SeenThis tech avoids data-intensive uploading and downloading techniques used by traditional video ads, instead streaming directly to the end viewer through display ads while adapting to the needs of the viewer and available internet speeds.
Moving forward, SeenThis will become part of GroupM’s overall media decarbonization strategy but will require advertisers to opt in—essentially toggling the SeenThis offering on or off, depending on preference.
SeenThis “stood out to us as being differentiated and unique” within the landscape of sustainable ad-tech innovations, said Kieley Taylor, global head of partnerships and sustainability lead at GroupM. Rather than simply cutting out high-intensity channels, “it’s continuing to allow for campaigns to deliver as they have, and lower the energy intensity.” Kieley wouldn’t share examples of how the tech is reducing carbon emissions.
The new ad-tech partnership is the latest from GroupM in its effort to curb the carbon emissions associated with media buying through its agency, following similar deals with Scope3 and the sustainability arms of firms like Microsoft or Google. GroupM will also adopt the adaptive streaming company’s methodology on the carbon cost of data transfer, which will be incorporated into GroupM’s carbon calculator for use in media planning and post-campaign analysis. GroupM agencies will gain access to the SeenThis emissions dashboard to monitor emissions from video banner ads in real time.
Streaming sustainably
For SeenThis, which launched in Sweden in 2017 and came to the U.S. market in 2021, the WPP partnership is “a very big deal,” said Ben Riley, general manager for the Americas at SeenThis. While the company has a strong presence in the Nordics and across Europe, it’s a relative newcomer on the other side of the Atlantic.
Riley describes SeenThis as “behind-the-scenes tech” that lets advertisers put video ads in display slots, essentially getting video ads at a rate that’s much lower than it would be on a traditional video platform.