This month, Built In Los Angeles will be featuring some “hot” startups across the various neighborhoods that, although may feel like different worlds at times, make up LA’s budding digital ecosystem. To recommend a startup or district of LA that deserves some love, email [email protected].
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AdColony, a mobile video ad network, is one of the fastest growing, early stage companies in Southern California, CEO Will Kassoy said: since it officially launched in March 2011, the company has enjoyed 10 consecutive quarters of record-breaking revenue. This success stems from clients such as Walmart, Nike, Sony and McDonalds who use AdColony’s Instant-Play technology to reach consumers on their mobile devices through video advertising.
Additionally, AdColony launched a rich media technology because “what we heard from major brands, like 20th Century Fox or Procter & Gamble, was that they wanted to drive engagement.” Through both their video and rich media technologies AdColony is working to move mobile users “from awareness to consideration and action.”
Although the team started out working together in 2008 making free apps for Apple’s App Store, they eventually realized the need for impactful mobile advertising solutions.
“We were first-movers in this freemium model and we got really good at advertising and knowing how to leverage banners, rich media, video just to monetize our own apps,” Kassoy said. “So we came from more of a content or publisher-like perspective, where we just saw that effectiveness of banners being very very low and it cluttered the user experience pretty dramatically.” Built In LA got the story from Kassoy behind AdColony's drastic growth since making that decision:
Why they do what they do: With over 200,000,000 seconds wasted a day by mobile users waiting for video ads to load, AdColony’s Instant-Play technology is solving the problems plaguing normal streaming video ad tech, which leads to more engagement. The video technology has been leveraged by the team since they realized banners didn’t do the job: “Let’s not do banners that are interruptive,” Kassoy said. “Let’s leverage our content and do fewer ads, in moments that people are receptive to them and let’s do them with impact, with video.”
The big 2011 pivot: “It was very organic for us in those early days: we just realized that we had to go all-in on making apps or we had to make a differentiated platform for advertising,” Kassoy said. “And what we saw in the marketplace… no one had the technology that we did with video.”
Their stats: AdColony has grown from 45 to 75 employees in the past year and is on track to hit more than 4 times the revenue of 2012 in 2013.
What they will be up to in 2014: With so much traction gained from their video and rick media technologies, the team will be expanding to other efforts in the future, hoping to impact a broader base of users: “Part of our vision as a company is to be more than just an ad network, but to truly be like a marketing platform helping marketers amplify their owned, earned and paid media,” Kassoy said.
Their West LA base: Although AdColony also has offices in LA, San Francisco and New York, they have always called LA their home - even back in 2008 when the team was still on the other side of the market, making mobile apps.
