Bidstack turns on first DSP with Avocet

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4 March 2019

Bidstack Group PLC ("Bidstack or "the Group")

Bidstack turns on first DSP with Avocet

Bidstack Group plc (AIM: BIDS.L), the native in-game advertising group, is pleased to announce that it has successfully passed a significant technical milestone in its development having now gone live with its first full integration with a demand side platform ("DSP"), Avocet Systems Limited ("Avocet").

This is the first time Bidstack's advertising inventory, which sits naturally within a 3D video game environment, has been available to buy programmatically on a DSP. A DSP integration enables Bidstack to take bids direct and control the pricing of its advertising space.

A DSP is a system that allows buyers of digital advertising space to programmatically buy, through multiple advertising exchange and data exchange accounts, through one interface.

Avocet and other DSPs enable advertisers, either direct or via an agency, to target advertising inventory that fits their campaign demographics e.g. age, gender, location etc. and allows the media buyer to trade and optimise campaigns, with real-time reporting.

This new development follows on from Bidstack's integration with Pubmatic, Inc. a publisher focused sell-side platform ("SSP") in late 2018.  Pubmatic effectively acts as a reseller allowing advertisers to access a wholesale type of media purchase.

Bidstack is also in discussions with the Interactive Advertising Bureau ("IAB"), the trade group setting technical standards and best practices for the digital advertising industry, to create a recognised advertising category for native in-game advertising. Bidstack will be sponsoring the IAB's Gaming Seminar event in November 2019.

James Draper, CEO, said, "This is a major milestone for the business. It is testament to our technology and offering that Avocet have committed time and resource to overcome the challenges of getting our inventory into a DSP environment - a system originally designed for traditional display and mobile non-native advertising.

I'm delighted that advertisers can now buy Bidstack's in-game inventory, through Avocet's platform.

While there are still a number of hurdles before this development is likely to result in a material impact on revenues, I believe that getting our inventory onto an innovative DSP is a substantial achievement for our business.

In addition, we are working with some of the finest minds in advertising - from a technical, educational and accreditation standpoint. We are also working to ensure that our media space is available to buy on DSP platforms and we are educating media buyers on how they can report on campaign success and independently track their advertising spend."

Kenneth Kulbok, MD of Avocet, said "Avocet's focus as a business is delivering technology that helps advertisers capture people's attention. Our Bidstack partnership enables advertisers to leverage DSP media buying technology to communicate with their target audience in one of the most engaging digital environments in existence: in-game.

Working with Bidstack to make in-game inventory available to media buyers in real-time presented some challenges but our teams have together managed to overcome these and make real-time, in-game media buying an exciting new reality. Gaming continues to expand the virtual world and now advertisers and agencies are able to access, target and optimize their campaigns in-game using the same technology they're using to buy traditional digital media."

Contacts

Bidstack Group PLC

James Draper, CEO                                                                        +44 (0) 7850 341 885

Spark Advisory Partners

Mark Brady/Neil Baldwin/James Keeshan                                        +44 (0) 203 368 3550

Peterhouse Capital Limited

Eran Zucker/Lucy Williams/Duncan Vasey                                       +44 (0) 20 7409 0930

Alma PR

Josh Royston/ Sam Modlin                                                               +44 (0) 203 405 0205

Notes to editors

Bidstack is an advertising technology company which provides dynamic, targeted and automated native in-game advertising for the global video games industry across multiple platforms. Its proprietary API technology is capable of inserting adverts into natural advertising space within video games across multiple video games platforms (mobile, PC and console).

Bidstack's customers are games publishers and developers and advertising agencies, brands and programmatic advertising platforms. Bidstack contracts exclusive access to the native in-game advertising space within video games from their developers or publishers and sells that advertising space either direct to specific brands and their agencies or through programmatic advertising platforms.