Hybrid’s Gandharv Sachdeva on how In-Image Advtg is delivering contextual targeting

After the successful event last year, the second edition of CMOs’ Charcha - Bengaluru Chapter was held on October 6, 2023. The theme for this year was ‘Marketers’ Blueprint: Embrace Automation, Inclusivity, and Sustainability’. The exclusive industry event brought together forward-thinking marketers, industry experts, and thought leaders under one roof. This event serves as a platform for marketing professionals to engage in meaningful discussions, share innovative strategies, and gain insights into the ever-evolving landscape of marketing.

CMOs’ Charcha - Bengaluru Chapter 2023 featured an insightful keynote address by Gandharv Sachdeva, Country Head - India, Thailand, Hybrid, who spoke on ‘In-Image Advertising’.

Sachdeva commenced his keynote with a quick introduction about Hybrid. He said, “Hybrid is an ad tech solution company. We started our operations globally around 12 years back and in India we’ve been there for the last 3 years and we've come up with three products, which are doing pretty well in the Indian market for the advertising industry.”

Elaborating on these three products, he added, “The three products that we have one is our Hybrid Platform, which is our demand side platform (DSP), where we can do a lot of audience targeting and demographic targeting in all campaigns that we run programmatically. The second product is Hybe, it is a programmatic in-house platform that we are launching in India now, where we are going to help the mobile app developers. Third is Vox, which is our In Image platform. It is our in-house product, where we do In Image advertising.”

He went on to peak at length anout In-image advertising, saying, “In-Image advertising, also referred to as image-based advertising, is a form of native advertising in which ads appear directly over an image on a web page under many formats, including display ads, editorial images or rich videos. These ads can also be video or rich media ad units that appear when users hover over or click on an image. The image is placed in the most optimal way, basically the creative is not placed on a 728x90 or a 300x250 banner. The creative is placed within the editorial image and there are different ad formats, because today when we go to a client, they ask us for an innovation and want to do something new, so this is where our product In Image advertising comes into VOX place.”

Highlighting some of the advantages of In-Image advertising, he said they include higher engagement, being in line with editorial content, contextually relevant, viewable and attractive.

Speaking on their new product, VOX, which is an in-image network powered by AI, Sachdeva explained that VOX takes in-image ads to a new level of contextual targeting for highly relevant contact with consumers. “We have integrated with the major publishers in India, right from The Times of India, Hindustan Times, One India, and all the major publishers are there with us on VOX. We have our codes implemented on them, which been approved by the editorial team. We are running ads with them contextually and are also doing image targeting.”

These are edited excerpts. For the complete address, please watch below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epKkeK-0Qog