Part three of our Granicus Group profiles series focuses on CatapultX. They are an ‘On-Stream Video Monetization & Contextual AI Platform’ who have established a less intrusive, more engaging and more integrated ad experience for viewers. They are an on-stream video advertising trailblazer who aim to improve the audience experience while delivering better results for publishers and advertisers. For more stories that pertain to this series, check out our other Granicus Portfolio Profiles.

A Word From Granicus Group

“Covid will accelerate the shift of advertising dollars to AVOD (advertising-based video on demand) environments. Contextual advertising will only prove to be more critical than ever. With WatchMojo, I have a ton of positive exposure to video platforms like YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook and TikTok. Given CatapultX’s mission to help advertisers and publishers on their owned and operated web properties, it was a nice complement to my operating duties. I’ve known Zack for a decade and worked in online media for two, so it wasn’t very hard to back him in his entrepreneurial adventure.”

Ashkan Karbasfrooshan

1. Company’s Elevator Pitch

CatapultX is the pioneer of on-stream video advertising, it uses new, non-intrusive ad formats that match the video content in look and context. Improving the audience experience while delivering better results for publishers and advertisers.

2. Who?

Zack Rosenberg, Co-Founder and CEO
James Altschuler, Co-Founder and COO
James Tammaro, CTO

3. Why?

Everyone hates interruptive video advertising. You know that feeling when you get to a video you want to watch, but you’re instantly stopped by a pre-roll (typically a 30-second video ad), and get frustrated? That is interruptive video advertising, and everyone hates it.

Our vision is to achieve the deepest level of video understanding through Artificial Intelligence (AI), by scanning a video’s content and serving the most relevant ads in real-time.

CatapultX’s mission is to ensure ad-supported video experiences are as great as they can be. The results our advertising and publishing partners are sharing is a testament to how gigantic the gap between what those experiences have been in the past and should be now and in the future. We intend to close that gap for good.

4. How?

CatapultX delivers a high-impact viewing experience that allows advertisers to optimally arrange their existing creative assets into a video without disrupting the audience’s experience.

If the use of interruptive video advertising becomes significantly diminished, we will have achieved our mission.

5. Personal influences?

I’ve always loved this quote from David Ogilvy, one of the founding fathers of advertising, who once said:

“If you can see the advertising, it’s not working”.

David Ogilvy

6. Where do you see the business in 3-5 years?

The move to CTV: The pandemic has accelerated the move from cable television to connected television (CTV) (e.g. Roku). More people are getting rid of cable and opting to watch only CTV. By 2025, CTV should make up 30% of the overall television spend market, or $28B/year.

Budgets shift to contextual advertisement: With the assault on cookie-based targeting, contextual ads (those relevant to the content and not the user) are getting more attention. Contextual ads are expected to grow over 18% annually with US spending to top $168B by 2025.

Programmatic ads allows for scale: Automated buying & selling of ads through a Demand Side Platform (DSP) (e.g. The Trade Desk, Google’s DV360, MediaMath) in less than .4/second gives the advertiser the ability to buy from thousands of publishers without a direct relationship. Today, more than 80% of total spending is transacted this way.