StartupRealities

StartupRealities No 146 CounterAdvert is an advertising and media buying agency which specialises in helping advertising-platforms post their own commercials on rival platforms. For example, if Google wanted to advertise Google keyword search to B2B businesses on Facebook, it could target individual small business owners on Facebook with paid ads promoting Google advertisement. CEO QUOTES "Do you remember the famous case when Boeing bought 17 Airbus planes in 1999. They didn't do it out of charity. There was commercial logic behind you. In a similar way, we help one platform use the advantages of a competitor platform openly and legally by paying the latter for ads of the former's products and services. There is usually sound commercial logic behind such a move as different platforms have developed preferential access to different target audiences and distinct communities. All this comes with a second-order effect, however: these stories enter the news and become ne...

StartupRealities No 131 NonBranding is a marketing agency which helps companies launch brands with names that describe them with what they are not, for example NonMilk, NonSchool, NonBank. The company runs year-long brand awareness campaigns to get a new non-brand established on the market. CEO QUOTE "NonBranding as a concept originates from the limitations imposed by trademark-protected brands or registered denominations of origin, for example many food products in the European Union . If a German sparkling wine cannot be legally referred to as champagne, it can perfectly legally be called NonChampagne. My favourite brand name is NonPlusUltra, which is Latin for 'nothing further beyond the pillars of Gibraltar' and a play on the national motto of Spain: Plus Ultra, or Further Beyond" said NonBranding founder and CEO Nona Brangelini. Diet and NonDiet Coca Cola (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 130 BillboardsOnSkin is an advertising agency which paints company logos on the skin of paid volunteers who are then sent to attend mass events. The company benefits from huge media publicity around the use of human skin for advertising, even if this is done with the free will of the participants. All materials used in painting the logos can easily be washed off afterwards under the shower. The only inconvenience caused to the ' human billboards ' is that the logos need to be applied on smooth skin, so hairy chests, arms and legs need to be shaved beforehand. CEO QUOTE "Event organisers sometimes ban our 'human billboards' from entering some events. In that case, they are requested to gather at a reasonable distance from the entrance and stay there for the duration of the event. This usually creates more media publicity than if they were allowed to attend the event." - said BillboardsOnSkin founder and CEO Bill Skinner. The Wikipe...

StartupRealities No 116 MultiCommercials is an advertising agency which produces video commercials that advertise multiple brands of different products in a single video. This allows a multi-faceted ad story to appeal to different target audiences with different brands and products that are advertised, so that every viewer will pick up in the video only what is relevant to the person. CEO QUOTE " We brought the linear world to an abrupt end. Before us, it was 'one commercial = one brand.' Since MultiCommercials was founded, the 'equal' sign has been broken. Just as most movies don't tell a single story, so a commercial no longer needs to advertise a single product. For example, if you see a video made by us where champagne and strawberries are served in a hotel room to a guest with a pearl necklace, this video will most likely be advertising brands in all four categories: champagne, strawberries, hotels and jewellery. In the past, one brand would have been...

StartupRealities No 64 ChoiceCommercials is an online advertisement agency which gives viewers a choice of one of 3 commercials to watch when ads are displayed during streaming of internet music and videos or playing online games. The service integrates smoothly with social media and online video platforms as it increases the attention viewers pay to commercials. The set of 3 commercials is a set of 3 very different videos, e.g. a 15-sec ocean scene, a 15-sec mountain scene and a 15-sec desert scene. Thus, the viewer has the option to pick with a single mouse click the commercial that fits most closely to their personal preferences, taste and mood. CEO QUOTE "I like to draw an analogy between the way YouTube commercials are displayed and force-feeding a goose: the goose has absolutely no control of what and how much it is fed. So given the chance, the goose will try to run away. ChoiceCommercials is involved in force-feeding to a much smaller extent as the online goose in th...

StartupRealities No 44 DiscussionEnergizer is a social media advertising company which uses artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and bots to post comments with advertising links under online discussions which have become inactive. The company specialises in finding inactive discussions on social media sites and hashtags which have not been used for sometime, so that when a random reader chances upon or searches for such an #InactiveDiscussion or #hashtag, the company's posting will be the last and most visible contribution. CEO QUOTE "DiscussionEnergizer works with the thin "long tail" of social media users and readers of inactive discussions and this is exactly where our advantage lies. We rule the tail, or if you prefer we #WagTheTail. We never join the fray of a live argument or debate (e.g. the Covid-19 pandemic currently), as this is for the big guys. We are small but we rule our roost," said company founder and CEO Dixon Engert. The long tail ...

StartupRealities No 16 EscalateTruth Limited is a fact-checking, fact-verification and fake news filtering company that plays the role of "arbiter of truth" in media. The company's verification process does not involve judgements on matters of opinion (e.g. is Donald Trump good or bad) but flags incorrect facts, fake news and factual lies. VERIFICATION PROCESS The company's fact checking and verification process goes through four hierarchical levels:      1. ALERT An investigation is triggered either after notification by a human reader or automatically as a result of an AI algorithm (spider or bot) spotting potentially incorrect factual information in the media. Whenever a reader uses the "citation needed" label (commonly seen on Wikipedia) to tag a piece of information, this triggers an investigation by EscalateTruth.      2. POPULAR VOTE The disputed facts are put to popular vote among online readers, who are given three possible options: True...