CognitiveScale and NBCUniversal Demonstrate the Power of AI in Transforming TV Advertising

AUSTIN, Texas and NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 -- CognitiveScale today announced a completed project with NBCUniversal using its artificial intelligence (AI) technology to transform the way NBCUniversal analyzes video to determine what makes a successful ad. The first-of-its-kind project resulted in valuable insights that empowers NBCUniversal to use AI to deliver new ad sales options and services to its clients.

With the successful video project, CognitiveScale demonstrated how augmented intelligence can span all forms of data to deliver AI-powered technological innovations to increase everything from content creation and monetization to programming and customer retention to pricing and market share.

Before now, media and entertainment companies had vast amounts of information contained within video, but had limited ways to derive actionable insights at scale from that data. Early promises of analytics for big data have fallen short, as often organizations do not know the right questions to ask of the data, let alone gather the types of actionable insights that can help them drive new services and improve customer offerings.

What Makes A Great Super Bowl Ad?
When NBCUniversal approached CognitiveScale, they wanted to explore whether advanced statistics and computer vision could be applied to historical ad performance data to identify actionable strategies for mitigating the risk of future media investments. NBCUniversal wanted to know if AI could answer the question, “What makes a successful Super Bowl ad?”

Using its automated video attribution and explainability capabilities, the CognitiveScale Engage AI, powered by the Cortex platform, analyzed more than three years of commercial videos of the big game and client engagement data to build a deep and unique understanding of elements of an ad that provided the most lift across an array of key success metrics. The AI then surfaced actionable insights around key video concepts, attributes and themes to help with ad creative. Examples of actionable insights included observations such as: comedic effects most often work best with sales messages; whereas uplifting tones work best with branding messages; and if you have video of someone singing in the ad, make sure they’re smiling.

“CognitiveScale has proven to be a strong innovative partner, helping us execute machine learning and AI in a highly creative and cutting-edge way within the industry,” said Cameron Davies, SVP, Corporate Analytics and Strategy, NBCUniversal. “The CognitiveScale platform gives us the ability to consider new ad strategies for companies who want to ensure their ads will be successful when they invest in production and media buying.”

CognitiveScale has previously successfully deployed its augmented intelligence solutions across financial services, healthcare and retail organizations, whose main data sets come from voice, image and text. Now with the ability to augment and extend video data, enterprise clients can be confident that all forms of data are being accessed to ensure they have the right answers, to the right questions at the right time. They are also enabled to create new and more targeted opportunities based on intelligence from the insights gained.

“Working with NBCUniversal, we used AI-assisted algorithmic attribution and analysis of video content and user feedback from assorted customer-tracking efforts,” said Akshay Sabhikhi, CEO, CognitiveScale. “While it is interesting to see the imagery and components that make up a great ad, the real business value with such an undertaking is to help guide spend on predicted high-value target audiences as well as decreasing focus on audiences likely to lack the required performance.”

About CognitiveScale
CognitiveScale sells augmented intelligence software that solves complex business problems at scale for financial services, healthcare, and digital commerce markets. Built on its Cortex augmented intelligence platform, the company’s software help enterprises apply AI and blockchain technology to increase user engagement, improve decision-making, and deploy self-learning and self-assuring business processes.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, CognitiveScale has offices in New York, London, and Hyderabad, India, and is funded by Norwest Venture Partners, Intel Capital, IBM Watson, and Microsoft Ventures.

For more information on the company, please visit us at cognitivescale.com and follow @cognitivescale on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

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