Watch the webinar and get ready to revolutionize advertisement in the streaming world

Willem: Good evening, good afternoon, good morning, everybody from wherever you are! Welcome to the webinar on the future of viewer engagement and monetization. Michel and I are very pleased to welcome you here today.

Michel: Certainly with such a title, Willem!

Willem: 'The future of' always works.

Michel: I'm wondering what’s your favorite word in the title?

Willem: My favorite word in the slide is Willem and on the title, probably engagement.

Michel: I would vote the same one, yes. You see a lot of people engaging, they keep on pouring in.

Willem: Yes, we have a lot of registrants today, and let me already start with some introductions while we're having more people joining: Welcome everybody! Michel, I'm happy to have you here today, you can go first.

Michel: That's the first time you're happy that I'm in a call of yours. That's very interesting. So I’m Michel, VP Engineering at THEO, also doing some customer success for four years already, and happy to talk about viewer engagement and monetization.

Willem: Thank you, Michel! I'm Willem, VP Sales at THEO, based in New York City, focused on the North American market. Seven plus years at THEO, so a lot of people will know me already and yeah, I'm very involved in our new projects, which we will talk about today. So very happy to be here!

As an introduction - at THEO, we've been doing video playback for 10 years now. So we've seen a lot of things happen. And if you try to summarize it: 10-15 years ago, streaming was pretty new. Everybody was trying to set up their first streaming service, do HLS and DASH playback on the web, on iOS and Android, and learn how to monetize it. And five to seven years ago when everybody had their streaming service, there was a big battle for viewers. Everybody tried to gain the most interesting content to get the biggest amount of viewers, started adding more monetization options too. Over the last year, we've really seen a big shift to profitability for these content.

And as a technology provider to our hundreds of customers, we want to help with that by reaching more platforms, by generating more ad revenue, but also by enhancing the ads and overall viewing experience, which will be the main topic of the webinar of today. As you see on the screen, that's what we want to talk about today – how does the future of viewer engagement and monetization look like.

Michel: Which is certainly a hot topic in the industry these days.

Willem: Yes, indeed! I think we have all the people joined, so let's kick it off. First, some practical things: if you've spoken to Michel and I before, you know that we like to keep things very conversational, very interactive. So we have a questions button down at the bottom, so please ask your questions there and we have an emoji button - if you want to react, if you want to let us know how you feel, please do that! We'd like to see your engagement. We will also do a poll at the beginning with some questions. So you will be able to check the results down at the bottom right. An important thing as well, if you had colleagues who couldn't join, we will send the slides and recording after the webinar together with some other exciting stuff that we will talk about today, but I'm not going to spill everything yet.

So the agenda for today: we'll run through why we are doing this webinar, the future of monetization and pure engagement. So that shows a bit that we think things can be improved. To show you what can be improved, we want to first show the state of the ad technology today, why we believe we need to optimize the ad experience. And then obviously we will come with a solution, a new approach to ad insertion - very exciting! Then at the end we will share key takeaways of this webinar, especially focused on the business side. And we will do a specific Q&A session at the end, but we like to also address the questions along the way, just bear with us that we're also presenting, but we're trying to manage it as we go.

Willem: So why this webinar? At THEO, we've always looked at the streaming industry from a player perspective, which is an interesting view compared to a lot of other people who look at streaming from server-side of view, from how to get frames from the camera over the encoder, over the CDN to the application. While we always looked at streaming workflows from a player side of view, from the experience point of view, from literally the client-side view. And we've seen that historically people have kept sometimes the player a dumb component and send the manifest already fully built like they wanted, so the player can just play it. But we've seen that for really the newer experiences, both in ad delivery but also in low latency, the player actually plays a pivotal role in ensuring the optimal performance. So that's why we, as a player company, are talking about ads and monetization today. Because of that pivotal role, we started looking at the new ad experiences and we actually built some revolutionary, if we can say it like that, capabilities into our player, and invite you all on this webinar to provide feedback, to share use cases, to participate in co-creation of new experiences because we have seen already a lot, but we believe the possibilities are endless. And that's why also at the end of the webinar, we will launch an early access program where we can discuss with you more one-on-one the new functionalities that we're launching and experiences that go with it.

Michel: So we're really talking about an early access program today and to remind them what I really agree on with Willem is - the pivotal role of the player. So really, if you want to push your experience to the next level. We see it in latency, actually in the entire live streaming, but now also in the ads, it's very exciting to see that the player is a pivotal component in doing that well and getting to the new experience. And I think that's what we're going to highlight or try to show today also.

Willem: Yes, thank you for that, Michel. Moving to the next slide: so why the hell is a player company talking about ads? It's probably what's all on your mind today. So Michel, enlighten us, why do we as a player company are we doing this webinar today?

Michel: Indeed why the hell is a player company talking about ads today? And probably that's why a lot of people also clicked on the link, or because they just see that we bring great technology. But why are we talking about ads? Because the technology today, it came there for a reason, it evolved to what it is today for a reason, and it did great things along the road. But if you really see on what is next, we believe and we have that in some use cases with our customers, some proof points over the past, that the technology today is not ready for what we need today and tomorrow. Low latency - I'm talking about not your 10 seconds of latency, but I'm talking about sub-seconds, a smooth viewer experience. And then I'm not talking about the fancy new devices, but I'm talking about older devices. Cross-platform everywhere get that smooth experience. So not that spinner that we have on the picture here. And also working well across platforms. I do hope to burst a little bit the bubble of Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) works everywhere today, because in our experience, that is almost always the case, but not always, and can lead to dramatic consequences. And operationally - how can I take away the headache of my operations people? How can I make sure this scales without a worry? How can I keep it cost-efficient? And that are questions that we've seen over the last two years actually. And that made us think on airplanes back to Belgium, on discussions when we were waiting for planes or in the office, that we might need something different. And that's what I hope we can share with you today.

Willem: All right, thank you for that, Michel! So as I was explaining to show you what the future is, obviously, we want to give a bit of an overview of what we see as a state of ad technology today. We will dive into it, but we also believe in interactivity and engagement. So no better way to check the state of ad technology today than by asking it to our audience. So we have a little poll here for you:

How are you currently monetizing your streams? We've given some options. I hope most of the audience will know these terms, but if not, we will definitely dive into it further. But you obviously have options like Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI), Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI), Server-Guided Ad Insertion (SGAI), subscription-based, no monetization today, and maybe we're even missing out on certain monetization opportunities, so if you have others, please let us know in the questions sections. Then we can also shed some light on it.

Michel: Look at that enthusiasm in the responses, how quickly they pour in. 

Willem: So we're already having quite some votes in. So it's now I feel like sports commentator neck on neck race between Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI) and Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI), literally. But interesting to see a bit as expected - it's a mix of Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI) and Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI). Also subscription based, not many people yet doing Server-Guided Ad Insertion (SGAI), which is a good thing for this session today because we will dive a bit into it later. I haven't seen any questions yet, so no other options. Very interesting, Michel, if you want to add something to that.

Michel: No, something not relevant, but I was thinking we have 30 votes. We have more people on the call. So we do have some people that are shy actually, or maybe they have some surprises in the questions later on. So let's see. Oh, look at that. We have a winner!

Willem: Yes. Interesting to see still more people today doing Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI), although Service-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) has been the innovation for the last five years already, I think, and maybe there is even something new on the horizon. So let's dive into how we perceive the state of the ad technology today.

Michel: Yes, let me take this one. So interesting table, a lot of text on the slides, but let me quickly go through it. I think you see it in the responses and there are two technologies which are out there today, which are very well known -Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI) versus Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI). So let me explain both of them, although I see from most people voted, so probably everybody knows the terminologies.

Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI) which we know from a longer time already - everything is done by the client, by the player.

Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) - it's in the name, it happens on the server side, server takes most of the control about it.

If you look at what that brings to you is that with Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI), you did have a lot of real-time capabilities and personalization because you're doing it on the client. On the Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) side, we lost part of that, so you do need to prepare your break ahead of time. You don't fully know on the client, not on the server-side, are both still there? So is the viewer still with me? The client doesn't really know what is going to come. I know some functionality is then being built to exchange metadata, but still a lot of the real-time capabilities and personalization did become more challenging. The biggest thing with Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI), like everybody knows is ad blockers. Ad blockers trying to figure out - are you trying to watch ads, insert ads and it blocks it. It's one of the bigger reasons for people to move to Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI), of course. But then on the other end for Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) also, since you need to prepare or condition your break ahead of time, your latency goes up, your startup time goes up. I know there are smart people working on that, but it all becomes very complex after a while. And that is maybe one of the things that we really want to highlight – that it becomes really complex when actually it shouldn't be. Insights - I also want to highlight because we have a lot of partners that are doing very cool things in the analytics space, and what you see right now is that it's not only about your viewer experience on the content, but also on the viewer experience while you're watching ads, because how your ads are playing, that also perceives to the product that you're advertising. So it's super important to also there get your experience at the same level as the content. So with Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI), you have all the insights and you can offload all of that to your analytics partner. With Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI), that's a bit harder because that is a part that is unknown. And then lastly, I think if you look at infrastructure, Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI) does not have a lot of costs, you have to reach the clients, which is a good thing. For Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI), you do need, certainly if you want to personalize, quite a lot of backend infrastructure: you need to scale it, which then also comes with the costs, also puts your client a little bit in the dark. So we'll talk about that a bit later - the player doesn't really know what's upcoming. And actually, if you want to unlock the true power of a player, it best knows everything that's happening. So I think everybody in this webinar knows this probably. But these are, for me, the biggest differences Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) vs Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI).

So if we summarize it: Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI) - the experience is controlled by the client application. Not a lot of infrastructure needed, so that's a good thing. Allows for personalization and what we see with a lot of our customers and what you always see coming back and I wonder if that's the same for people in the polls - pre-rolls and VOD, that's typically the use case for Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI).

On the other end, also some downsides, like there's no real standard to signal the breaks to the player, you see a lot of things, but it's typically bespoke. Difficult to implement across platforms because you need to implement it on each device, on each player and optimize it there, which means you need client-side development or quite a lot of client-side development to get it right. And hard to ensure smooth ad break transitions. That is the thing - the player reaches out to your ad decisioning server, gets back the media files for the ad, but he has no clue what they are going to be. Can be an MP4, can be a DASH, can be in a different ABR ladder. So getting that entirely smooth across all of those platforms is typically very challenging. And then ad blockers, I just mentioned it, very susceptible to it.

Then Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI), where do we see it most? On mid-rolls, live content - bit easier to implement there. Smooth transitions on most platforms, everything happens on the server. So for the client, it looks like you're just playing a stream, but then a stream with ads. So you can't really block it. Also has a downside, because the player doesn't really know unless if you start doing side loading of metadata, bespoke developments, player doesn't know where the ad breaks are and what the ad breaks are. And as I want to position it or typically position it, it's indeed a very quick way to, in a basic way, go cross-platform. So if you want the basic ad insertion experience across platforms, it's very easy to do. But if you want to go to the next level, if you want to get to the next level of experience, you want to do new things, it becomes much more tricky. I'm not saying it's impossible because you see people doing great things, but it becomes really, really complex. And I do wanna burst the bubble - we had very much use cases where on devices, even with server-side stitch, actually lead into lip sync, glitches, stalling in streams, etc, so it's also not the silver bullet there.

So I think I mentioned the most of it, but like the scale, it's challenging. I think Willem, you recently went to a few events and I think that was a buzz topic there, right? Scaling.

Willem: Yeah, how to scale Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) for big live events. It seems to still be a big topic at streaming conferences.

Michel: Yes, absolutely! And of course, scaling leads to costs. For me also, with my engineering background, I saw that with one of our larger customers, it also reduces the agility in adopting new features because you have that central component which handles all the load. If something goes wrong, everybody is impacted. And then the typical operations guy in a high profile streaming company will say - no, you don't touch that because my season is there, my event is upcoming. So that leads to a slower pace of adopting new features - not those cool A/B tests, gradual rollouts, controlled upgrades of the application with new features, that becomes much harder, targeting personalization becomes harder. It's quite wasteful towards ad inventory, let me explain that: server-side will need to prepare the break. We'll need to get ads for the break. If you're, for example, doing a DVR window, you do need to fill those breaks. But you don't know if your viewer actually is going to watch those breaks. But it goes beyond that - you don't know if your viewer is actually still watching while you're already preparing for the next break. You maybe don't know what the length of the break is going to be, so you're getting more ad inventory. And all of that costs money. You're taking out expensive ads that are not available for anybody else or for a next session, but also every ad decisioning will cost you money. So it's quite wasteful.

And then the last thing, and I think we'll show that a bit later, is if you really want to go to new experiences, that becomes challenging. And again, I use the word complex a lot. I'll try to find another word. But it's not really as simple if you want to do the new experiences where you keep the viewers more engaged to your content.

Michel: What do we see in the markets? More demand for personalization, to show those relevant ads. I hear a lot of people even saying: I don't mind ads actually, as long as they are relevant to me. I don't mind ads if they play out well, if they are smooth, I don't mind it too much. If they're not too intrusive, if they're relevant to me, I don't mind. And of course advertisers like to hear that message.

Getting to a broadcast-like experience, something that really comes up a lot in questions to customers to us: I want to match broadcast with my OTP on ads, on latency.

Fill rate and rendering rate. So rendering rates - the number of ad inventory you reserve versus the one that is actually viewed is a topic. You see a lot of questions coming up there. And the fill rate - you have your ad spots that viewers don't like that you're showing out. So you do want to fill them up correctly, relevantly, personalized, but you don't want to show slate because that's even worse for you.

And then the last thing is - measuring the experience because there's nothing as bad as your ad playing out bad for your experience, for your app, for your brand, but neither for the brands that you're advertising for. So super important parts, I hope I got that right a bit, Willem?

Willem: I think you did a very good job. Nothing to add there.

Moving to the next slide then. So we've gotten a great overview by Michel of the state of today, which has some benefits, but clearly also some challenges. So why do we believe we need to optimize the ad experience? And we're not alone actually, why is the industry looking at optimizing ad experiences today? And this came from a lot of conversations over the past year with partners, with customers. And the first one is just even a more meta concept like - the current perception: isn't a current full replacement ad experience, a weird one, which came from old technologies like TV where that was the only way possible, but now that you have a younger audience, which is very used to engaging with their content, interacting with it, chatting with it, for them to see their valuable content completely disturbed by the full replacement ad, it does feel not so modern in a way.

Michel: No, it's a bit weird doing this and it's actually something that sinks in after a while as a brand. You create your experience, you connect your viewers to it and then you disconnect and you show ads. Very weird if you really think about it.

Willem: Yeah, but obviously do need monetization. Otherwise you as a broadcaster, as a streamer, as a company with interesting content will not be able to monetize your viewers. But there is a tip of point: you need monetization, but if you do so much monetization or so intrusive monetization that your experience goes down, you will lose viewers, you will lose eyeballs and you don't have any eyeballs to monetize in the first place. So the question really becomes - how can we keep viewers engaged while maintaining non-intrusive monetization?

And a third thing which also came up during one of our conversations with our clients was actually - just do regular ads better. It's literally a quote from somebody. The way that Michel also presented the current state, both Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI) and Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI), it just doesn't feel like a logical distribution of responsibilities in the end-to-end streaming workflow. So it really feels like even for regular full replacement ads, we could come up with a more efficient solution, a more scalable and more engaging way to do ads.

Michel: Absolutely! Actually, people will probably already heard of it, but there is really a new approach coming on the horizon around ad insertion. And actually, over the last years, this really happened by accident where we were seeing - what technology is out there, what challenge are we seeing, and it all puzzled very well together for us. And we are talking today actually about Server-Guided Ad Insertion, SGAI. And what is it? It's the hybrid between both Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI) and Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI). So a bit more logical redistribution of the responsibilities. And what is it actually if you look at it and the arrow to the promised land, could turn out and that's actually what we want to figure out in our early access program.

So from a server point of view, the break signaling is still there. Server is in control of the break, server puts all the data in there, server determines where they are. But the ad insertion is done by the player. And that really enables the real-time aspect again. Because you allow your player to, just-in-time, as I heard somebody say today, request the inventory for the break. So you know much better that your viewer will actually be watching that break. You know the duration of that break. And on top of that, you also know who that viewer is and where, what data it is - what he's using, etc. So it gives you a high control over the personalization aspect, but also over the insights, because the player is doing the splicing. The player knows the platform, the player knows the user, so he knows everything over your session, over everything you need to offload to your ad server to get the best relevant ads for you. And yes it works both for VOD and live, that's the beauty of it. And for both, we discover more and more solutions for it - it fixes issues on both of them. And if you then look at the infrastructure side, it's again a bit more to the client side - you don't need a lot of infrastructure, it's primarily done by the client, by the device. So you don't need a server component that needs to handle all of the load. You can actually have the server single the breaks, fully cache that, so you have your CDN, your normal technology getting your scale, and it's the client who applies the break and does the personalization. So it really feels like the arrow to the promised land.

The focus is on experience. Creating more but less intrusive monetization opportunities in a better way. 

This one is an interesting one, right, Willem ?

Willem: Yes. I touched upon it already briefly, but we see with our customers and we have historically been the player for more than 10 years now - a big focus on experience. Like streaming historically has been just putting the frames towards the customer, literally broadcasting it. But now that we have the streaming world where we can be interactive, we can create more but at the same time also less intrusive monetization opportunities in a more efficient way. 

Willem: So it does seem with all the things you described and by redistributing the responsibilities more logically, the player can enhance the experiences in a ton of ways that we can't grasp even everything because there's so much opportunities.

But we tried to summarize it in 10 key takeaways. So, Michel has been talking a lot, I gave myself the great task to try to summarize it in 10 bullet points - let's go through them: So, what are the big benefits of server-guided data insertion?

Simplicity, the first benefit - what was the quote Michel that we recently saw at a customer about simplicity?

Michel: Simplicity is always better. I was intrigued by the quote and actually we're doing that more and more now also here, like telling people - guys to make it simpler, it's always better.

Willem: Yes, so simplicity is the first one. As engineering people, we love that. If you looked at the old ways of working with Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI), you had to have these long manifests, if you were doing DVR for example, or if you had a long event. So that is not needed anymore. You fill ads as you need, as we discussed, logically redistributing the responsibilities.

Next benefit is Scalable - because the manifest becomes cashable by the CDN and the player takes care of the personalization and the experience, there is no hassle anymore with pre-saving capacity for the CDN. So again, a more logical redistribution, no central stitcher needed anymore.

Michel: That's absolutely true, it scales easier for you. So you don't have that single central stitcher in the middle that needs to scale to all your viewers. So meaning the scalability, you just get by design and that's the nice thing, it just feels right if you look at it.

Willem: Third one is guaranteed delivery - seamless ads, it's not anymore that the manifest dictates everything and the server dictates everything what the player will receive. And the player is just a dumb component that receives it and renders it. No, the player is really the main central component that decides on - okay, we're on a smart TV, it's better to give an L banner, for example, with a QR code that the viewer can scan.

Next benefit - enhanced analytics. I love the words, but I forgot it again. How do you call it Michel? I mean the things that we built on the client-sides to give beacons to the server-side.

Michel: The compensation features, my buzzword, yes. We do server-side and then we need a compensation feature to let the client know in a bespoke way where the breaks are, how to treat them to just get something of that personalization back, which we do, because that is what the technology is. But if you just look at it again and you redistribute the responsibility, it's just weird that we would start building that.

Willem: Again - simplicity, no compensation features, do the analytics and the insights where you get all the data, which is at the client-side.

Next benefit – Future- Proof, SIMID and OMID are supported, and lean manifests as we discussed.

Flexibility - you don't need to reserve ads upfront if you don't know exactly where your break will be, it's the player who splices in the ads real-time, meaning also at a lower latency.

Michel: Absolutely. So that is the cool thing. And that's one of the history points that it came for us. How can you do minerals at low latency and catering the fact that you don't have the time to condition the break and to prepare for the break? You have 500 milliseconds, you need to be ready. So that was one of the triggers also for us to build it and works nicely out of the box right now.

Willem: Viewer experience, of course is the benefit, one of the main words we've used today, the experience. There will be smoother ad insertions. For everybody that has tried to do Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) on older smart TVs, they probably know what we're talking about. In theory, it should be smooth, but in practice, it can cause a lot of headaches. By doing the ad splicing on the client side as well, you can keep the formats the same. So you don't have suddenly an MP4 or a lower quality that is spliced into an HD feed or a 4K feed. So that is also just a much better experience for the viewer.

Personalization - again, the client is responsible for the splicing so it knows who the viewer is that is watching. Michel already alluded to it, but I'm also a big fan of relevant ads. I really don't mind to see ads if it's something that I'm literally searching for. I can give a lot of examples, but that's maybe too personal, but I love it. I love to see personal ads for something that I'm researching right now to buy, so much more relevant ads, which is a win-win-win. It's a win for the viewer, it's a win for the ad provider, and it's a win for the broadcaster, whose brand gets more relevant as well, because even the ads, which is not the real reason people go to your service, right? The people come to your service for your content, but if even then the ads are relevant, and not intrusive, and not disturbing, that's just a great experience.

Next benefit is ad blocker resilience - it has come up already during one of the questions, which is a very logical questions. One of the first things I asked when Michel came up with these concepts, the question was – okay, but the splicing is again on the client-side, so will ad blockers not become a thing again? But because you can put the ads and the content on the same domain name, for example, ad blockers don't have a play.

Michel: That was really bonus points for a very smart question at that time. Yes, indeed. I think we highlighted it a lot already, but it's not only perception or the content that would be blocked, but it's even as bad if your beacons would be blocked. So basically the resilience against both, it works out of the box. Solutions are there, are built-in, and that's the nice. And that's of course something that needs to be there if you move back. And then I think the last benefit is - you get it for free, but it's a big thing, right, Willem?

Willem: Yes, but before I go to the last one, I saw we got a question. And we said we were interactive, so I'm going to trigger you with this one: we showed some unique ad formats side by side, is that dictated by text metadata in HLS Interstitials?

Michel: Yes, absolutely. And that's honestly also one of the reasons to go into this early access program. How would you like to see this integrated? How would you like to see this work? So right now we go, for example, from a SCTE to an HLS interstitial. For SCTE, you need to make sure that it's supported everywhere and supported by the different encoders that keep it. But how do we detect or how could you steer your experience with it? So we have some ideas and we build up some capabilities to make sure that we are able to get from the SCTEs  to your HLS interstitial and pick it up from there, or directly from the HLS interstitial that is already there, or from a CMS which you integrate with and basically through an API call, just if you know the PDT (the program date and time), insert your breakthrough there, without all the other complexity. So we have both of that currently building, but we would like to hear more actually, because we're enabling something new and we want to know how would you like to see that work?

I see the other question maybe also, and will quickly jump into it, it's more towards THEOplayer, open source or source code. So THEOplayer is a commercial video player, and our strategy is the core of the player is to us. You can count on our expertise, it's the things that you don't want to change maybe ABR logic, DRM, those kinds of things. You don't want to touch it. But our way of working is that everything around that core, we build open source from the prior UI to the connectors. All of that is fully open source and like Willem already answered in the chat, trial licenses are certainly always possible.

Willem: Yep, so definitely we will reach out to you so you can test out the player. I think we answered all the questions now so we can move on with the last benefit - monetization. That's really the key part here as well, next to the experience and the engagement. We want to offer less intrusive monetization experiences, which are possible with Server-Guided Ad Insertion (SGAI): the side-by-side, the L-shaped bar, the ads on pause is one we haven't mentioned yet, but we do feel we don't have all the answers. The possibilities seem endless, every customer call we do, we get new ideas.

Willem: So we are launching an early access program where we try to get more ideas from you guys on what else we can build and how we should build. Ideas which already came up was like - maybe we can schedule ad breaks directly from the CMS, which makes the whole workflow from an operational point easier. Audio-only ads have come up, even the fact that if you start doing side-by-side format ads now, then actually you could keep your full replacement ad but the value actually increases. So suddenly we're adding value to the standard as well, which is a great idea.

Michel: And that was a super idea already launched by one of the customers using it today, it's like - I'm actually going to charge advertisers more for the full screen experience because I don't want that, because it kills the engagement. So for me, full screen ads still possible, but actually that's going to cost more, the default is going to be a side by side or an L-mark. So yeah, interesting ideas! Not saying these are right or wrong, but love to hear more and capture more, right?

Willem: Yes. And as I already alluded to it, we'd love to, so these are ideas from us, and ideas from our customers and we like to even get more ideas. So we are launching an early access program for this next gen monetization solution. So take your phones, scan the QR code, which brings you to a landing page where you can sign up for the early access program. What do you get in return? You get early access to our product. You can shape its development with your feedback. Co-create a solution tailored to your needs. We obviously, we will engage with you to understand your use case better and to explore how our solution should be built. We can set up POCs to show you that you can now monetize your streams more effectively. So yeah, we will keep a bit on this slide so people can take their phones.

Michel: Phones to take a photo of us to Willem or of the QR code, do you think?

Willem: I think they will be more interested in the QR code.

Michel: Yeah, probably. Please, join because for us it’s actually two sides. We built something which we are excited about, I hope you saw that today. But we want to understand more, learn more: what are your use cases? What are your challenges? How could our solution or what we built here fix those? And in return also, we will show you that this actually works on your stream in a very easy way. So that's for us the Early Access Program. And basically co-create, and big things will happen, I would say.

Willem: Yes, sign up! Like Michel, I'm also excited to learn more from the field - which experiences can also be built, a lot can be built because all the responsibility shifts to the client-side. So we are eager to learn more from you guys as well.

Willem: Then let me move to the next slide. Q&A time. So we tried to cover everything in an hour with some time left for questions. So we told you why we're doing this webinar, what the state is of the technology today, why we are looking at optimizing ad experiences. Gave you a bit of solution with Server-Guided Ad Insertion (SGAI) and we want to co-create solutions around that with you guys. Are there any questions left before we are at the top of the hour?

Michel: I definitely have a question now. What will Belgium do at the Euros in an hour from now?

Willem: Well, I'm not going to jinx it. We're in a good position to become the winner of the group and I think we really should become that. So I hope I didn't jinx it with this.

Michel: Yeah, let's not jinx it, but let's have some beers afterwards. But look at that first question: ‘Does it work for both HLS and DASH?’ Willem, what do you think?

Willem: On HLS, we use the HLS interstitials, that's already there. On DASH, I can give an answer, but you will give a better answer. So I'm going to leave that one up to you.

Michel: For DASH, we have something working, but actually, we always want to build on standards. That's always the safest choice, gives the most flexibility to us and to customers. So yes, it will work for both HLS and DASH. That's the short answer.

Willem: All right. Another one that I really like: ‘How can you control the ad experiences if people want to change from one format to another? How can they do that?’

Michel: Yeah, so I went a little bit to it already, you can control it from the markers in your stream, so your interstitial or from your SCTE marker. But also when scheduling the break through a direct CMS integration, for example. So you basically can very easily integrate that. But also there, we're still looking at what are people exactly doing, what is the best way of integrating it. And then on top of that, also, what experience do you want? Do you want to have a double box by default everywhere? Or do you want to only do a double box on the big screen? And on a mobile device, just a full screen replace. Those kind of things are all built or being built in. So it's quite interesting and really a reason for the Early Access Program to build it in the correct way based on the questions that are out there today.

Willem: Yes, and the Early Access Program, it's a good segue to another question: What is the link of the demo of Server-Guided Ad Insertion (SGAI)? So therefore we ask you to participate in the Early Access Program because it's not just a demo like we can do with the player, it's a collaboration of the Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI) and Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI). So sign up for the early access program and we can show you demos even with your streams.

Michel: Yeah, it's really also an intention, we are a bit selfish. We also want to see it work on as much as streams as possible. But yeah, of course also understand your use cases. So happy to give a demo, happy to show what we have. We don't want to keep it for us only, but we do want to do it together with you, so sign up like Willem said. What else? Questions keep coming: ‘Are we seeing Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) on live content?’ Pre-rolls typically, then you would see it, but not too much. It depends a bit from what level of experience you want to get to, but actually, honestly not that much. 

Willem: And we have another one – ‘Can I integrate it directly with my CMS?’

Michel: Yes, that's indeed like we said on the slides and that's what I heard earlier. We had customers that we were really engaging with - okay, we're going to put it in the SCETE this way and steer the engagement through that, and then all of a sudden the question came - can't we just do a API call to you guys? I know where the breaks need to be, just give you an API call, I want to break on this point that long and go. So we built that, it works. So yes, you can integrate your CMS directly with it. And that's apparently also a big benefit for some.

Willem: And then we got another one: ‘Can we do Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI) and Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) at the same time?’ Well, I think that's what we are proposing with Server-Guided Ad Insertion (SGAI). Well, you get at least the benefits of both Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI) and Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) with a solution.

Michel: And actually, if you look at it technically, that can all work in conjunction with each other. But with Server-Guided Ad Insertion (SGAI), we can do pre-rolls, mid-rolls, we can do everything you want without too much dependencies on your clients. Because the nice thing here, it's upgrading to your THEOplayer and how you're enabled to go. So it's just a more logical choice. But you could indeed perfectly combine technologies, but I wouldn't see completely the use case of it. But yeah, technically you could do it. But server-guided is that hybrid, so go for it.

Willem: All right. 

Willem: We're at the final two minutes and we are eager to go see the Belgians.

Michel: Absolutely! If you want to join us in Leuven on the marketplace, please do. We'll happily drive by and drink with you.

Willem: I love the good luck to Belgium loading in the chat. All right, thank you guys. It was a pleasure having you here for a full hour. We are very excited about this as you have seen. Let's stay in touch. I will go back to the QR code for those that forgot to scan it. Thank you so much and talk to you next time.

Michel: Bye guys, thanks for joining!