MarTech Interview with Elad Stern, President and co-founder @ Odeeo

What’s really driving true impact in today’s modern in-game advertising scenario? Elad Stern, President and co-founder at Odeeo weighs in with a few observations:

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Hi Elad, tell us about yourself and more about Odeeo’s recent enhancements and funding?

Sure, after over a decade in the advertising space, in which I was leading business units at global digital advertising companies, my business partner Amit Monheit and I founded Odeeo in early 2021.  We founded Odeeo to enable brands to reach and engage with the over 3B mobile gamers around the world.

Today most of us are gamers, whether it is 15 minutes of a favourite on your smartphone during the morning commute, or a more serious hobby.  Odeeo’s technology is currently integrated with top chart apps including familiar titles like Crossword Jam, Akinator, Helix Jump, Color Water Sort 3D, Brain Test.

I’ve just moved to the US to head up our North America expansion, and this new $5M investment is timed to coincide with Odeeo’s expansion in key markets, primarily North America, where we’ve significantly expanded our team and continue to hire.

It is a very exciting time for us, and the investment comes just after we announced expansion into MENA through a strategic partnership with Evolution Media Group. We will also partner with our new investor, Atinum, on a greater presence in Asian territories including Korea and Vietnam, in addition to existing partnerships in Japan.

How have you been seeing in-game advertising change over the years?

Gaming has hit a bit of a rough patch, a lot of it having to do with outside economic factors, but it remains the biggest form of entertainment globally and a huge opportunity for innovation around advertising. When Amit and I started Odeeo, we did it because we believe that gaming is the best industry to be in, and that there’s untapped potential that can be unlocked with new and creative approaches to monetization. After over a decade, big brand advertisers are finally seeing the potential in mobile gaming, and there’s a lot of room for growth still.

A recovery is underway, and we are confident it will continue into 2025. More and more brands are starting to understand and experience the benefits of using in-game advertising to reach audiences.

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What should brand marketers and advertisers do to improve their in-game ad experience for end users?

So the first thing is to remember that everyone plays mobile games, and the stereotype of the console or PC gamer does not reflect anything like the full range of the gaming audience. Whether your target customer is shopping for cars, groceries, retirement plans, or the latest electronics, you can find everyone from the grandkids to the grandparents playing games. The beauty of gaming is being able to reach those audiences through contextual or data-driven choices.

Choosing the right ad units is critical, and that is why we created ours.  Audio is intimate, engaging, and as we’ve designed it, unobtrusive for the gamer.  They choose to hear the ad, so respond more positively, and as an advertiser, you only pay for those impressions that are heard.

How is AI changing the in-game ads experience and workflow today? Can you talk about some impressive martech and AI tools in this regard?

It’s still early to talk about AI changing the experience, but we know that it will play a critical role in the evolution of both gaming and audio. There are a lot of Generative AI tools that will make it easier than ever to create and test different audio ad executions, from different voices to personalization. This is going to reduce speed-to-market for advertisers and also allow for much better optimizations.

While at it, can you also highlight more on some top brands that boast of above-part in-game ad experiences with key takeaways from those cycles?

We’ve worked with top brands across categories, everyone from leaders in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and quick service restaurants (QSR), to automotive and travel. We just published a case study with our UK partners DAX and Costa Coffee, where Odeeo’s in-game solution drove a fifteen percentage point increase in awareness and 12% lift in positive perceptions.

In addition to Costa, we’ve worked with brands across verticals to drive top-of-funnel metrics like preference and recall, as well as performance brands looking to drive location visits and sales. We worked with AdsWizz and Hyundai on a campaign that saw in-game audio drive meaningful conversion for dealership visits, and one of our fitness advertisers was able to significantly improve acquisition costs by incorporating in-game audio.

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