2024-02-16
Jonas Söderqvist, CEO of Adverty, talks about the company's unique technology that offers brands the opportunity to reach players in an engaging and seamless way. Jonas sees good growth prospects for Adverty, especially considering the ability to triple revenue annually and show profit at EBITDA and EBT levels. In 2024, the company is focused on increasing its growth within both advertisers and game publishers, as well as launching new products.
1. Who is Adverty and can you briefly tell us about your business and business model?
Adverty is a leading global in-game advertising platform, where our patented technology connects brands with millions of players through non-intrusive In-Play ads directly in the gaming experience. The business model is based on advertisers paying to be seen in games and reach their target audiences, and we share these revenues with the game developers who display the ads in their games.
2. You have been CEO for two years. Can you tell us a little about this period and the developments that have taken place in the company?
I was on the company's board for two years before I stepped in as CEO, which gave me a clear picture of what we as a company needed to do to create a profitable business in the foreseeable future. Adverty was already an extremely interesting platform with groundbreaking technology, but a much greater focus was needed on the buyer side, where there was resistance to the format. With this, we clearly saw what new tools and products the market needed, while at the same time we were able to meet this with new strong publishers and greater reach to offer our media buyers. During this two-year period, we have also significantly streamlined the platform and our work processes, and looked at the costs in the company, which we have managed to reduce by about a third.
3. Can you tell us about any recent or planned product innovations?
We are pioneers in In-Play advertising, a technology we developed in 2016 and in recent years have also been patented in the US. While we see that In-Play grows year after year in the global market, we have continuously improved the format with new innovations and features. We have recently released video support for In-Play - a market that is today larger than the more traditional display format. We are also the only In-Play player that can package digital displays with specific age and gender targeting - two of the market's most in-demand targeting. During the year, we also plan to launch another new product, which we believe will be a real game-changer for our business and for the entire media industry.
4. How does Adverty's technology contribute to creating value for advertisers and users?
Gaming is the latest media channel for brands to be visible in, and contributes with a reach greater than any other previous channel. The way consumers engage with brands in gaming is also radically different from other media, where the level of engagement of users who see advertising during a game session is significantly higher compared to, for example, ads on a website. At the same time, our In-Play format is designed in a way that the advertising does not disturb the user, but the advertising message reaches the player in a seamless and pleasant way as part of the overall experience.
5. How is Adverty's business model affected by changes in online consumer behavior?
Consumer behavior online points to an increasing use of gaming, streaming video and social media, which benefits our business as the reach of our platform increases as more consumers play games. At the same time, our revenue comes from advertisers and not from consumers, and brands are always interested in reaching as many users as possible within their target audience.
6. How does Adverty view the opportunities and challenges of AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) in advertising?
We started our business in 2016 by building our platform for VR and AR, so the technology is ready to use when the market is ready for it, i.e. when enough consumers play VR/AR games daily. The challenge today is that good VR/AR hardware is still far too expensive, which affects the progress to the mass market. In a few years we will probably be there and then Adverty will be in pole position with patented technology, ready to lead the market development for advertising in VR and AR.
7. Given the recently published quarterly report, can you comment on the most prominent results and what they mean for Adverty's future strategy and growth prospects?
We continue to triple our turnover year after year and have shown a profit at EBITDA level in the last two quarters and most recently also at EBT level, which is an incredible achievement that we are very proud of. At the same time, we are only at the beginning of our scale-up journey and the future prospects look undeniably very promising.
8. What will you mainly focus on in 2024?
2024 is about continued aggressive growth in demand (advertisers who spend on the platform) and supply (game publishers who show our ads in their games) as well as getting our new products, such as In-Play video, widely available on the global market.
We thank Jonas Söderqvist for the interview and wish the company all the best in the future.
Disclaimer:
This is an interview that has been done on behalf of the company. Impala Nordic or people behind Impala Nordic owns no shares in the company at the time of the interview.
