In today's Supply-Side Spotlight, we're chatting with Andrew Cassin, Team Director, Demand Partnerships North America at Equativ, a global leader in AdTech which provides a comprehensive suite of buy- and sell-side solutions leveraged by advertisers, publishers, broadcast operators, sales houses, and data providers.
#1: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today. Let’s begin with a quick summary of Equativ’s role in the programmatic industry. 
Equativ combines solutions from Smart AdServer, DynAdmic, LiquidM, and Nowtilus, housing a suite of innovative technologies under one roof. Covering an ad server, supply-side platform (SSP), buyer tools including DSP and media services, our integrated offering gives our clients the ability to activate their campaigns across each stage of the advertising process in a flexible model whether it’s done programmatically, leveraging our self-service platforms or with the help of our global team of experts
#2: With 183 million digital gamers across the USA alone, it’s clear that in-game represents a significant opportunity for demand partners. How are you helping brands and advertisers best capitalize on this opportunity?
We have built strong partnerships with leading in-game advertising platforms and publishers to offer brands, advertisers, and agencies a consolidated and global marketplace for in-game advertising supply.
In addition, through our unique semantic contextual solutions, we are helping advertisers and agencies reach the unique gaming audience when they aren’t plugged into their games, but reading extensive gaming content.
#3: Blended display and video advertising presents unique opportunities for advertisers to place creatives inside virtual worlds. Do you see blended creatives as the next big thing in in-game advertising?
Now more than ever, consumers want advertising that is as relevant to their purchase habit/intent as it is to the environment they are displayed in. Blending display and video creatives into virtual environments, similar to how DOOH is adapting to the locations and people within them, will provide brands with the ability to seamlessly showcase their products in a way that does not intrude upon the experiences that the gamers they are hoping to reach so highly value.
#4: Gaming isn’t the only new frontier for advertisers; it’s clear that CTV is a big priority for advertisers in 2022 and beyond. How is Equativ creating differentiation through unique CTV creative formats?
Equativ is working with multiple partners to bring innovative formats to CTV and addressable TV including L-banners, QR codes, and direct response enabled on-screen display that users can engage through voice or remote controls. We’re also leading the industry in helping operators and TV distributors more effectively manage their avails by building logic that selects the most appropriate creative for a given ad slot within a break, complying with the business logic that they have, such as protecting specific categories or advertisers.
#5: Brand safety is naturally a concern for advertisers. How is Equativ solving for this in the in-app and in-play space where context is often harder to control?
We are fully integrated with IAS for brand safety and viewability as well as a founding member of the Human Collective (frmr. White Ops) for IVT, bot scanning, and ad rendering. We also have a certified quality assessment team that evaluates every partner before integration. Lastly, most of our in-game partners are also working with similar verification and brand safety partners.
#6: The cookieless future looms large on the horizon for all players in the programmatic space. How is Equativ preparing for the post-cookie era while ensuring targeting capabilities for demand partners?
Although the depreciation of cookies has been postponed, we are still forging ahead with building cookieless solutions including an alternative ID-Agnostic addressability platform, that combines contextual and semantic tools to help maintain success for all sides of the market by enabling sustained ad yield, relevance, and revenue.
#7: How can demand-side players partner with Equativ?
Equativ, with the help of long-standing exchange partners like BidSwitch, is helping to bring quality inventory at scale to demand-focused companies and help them reach gaming audiences in several unique ways:
- Curated inventory packages across premium gaming domains and apps
- Custom contextual targeting segments for Gaming Content across the web
- Powerful In-Gameplay deal activation across leading game platforms/publishers
- Data-drive deal activation for Gamer audience segments through 3rd party data partners.
Connect with Equativ in the BidSwitch platform to gain access to their valuable audiences across the full spectrum of programmatic inventory including: in-game, CTV and blended display and video. It's game on!