Early customers seeing as much as 50% improvement in video ads delivered across devices

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Brightcove Inc. (NASDAQ:BCOV), the leading provider of cloud services for video, today announced Brightcove Lift, the company's ad optimization solution, which enables publishers, broadcasters, OTT providers, and other media companies to maximize video ad delivery and video ad revenue across mobile and desktop. Combining server-side ad insertion (SSAI) and the industry's leading HTML5 player management service, Brightcove Lift defeats ad blockers while delivering seamless TV-like ad experiences for viewers, client-side interactivity, and integration with the industry's leading providers for reporting and analytics.

Benefits of Brightcove Lift

Millennial audiences are proving to be especially challenging for ad supported video businesses with their high rates of mobile consumption and ad blocker usage which compromise ad delivery and result in lost revenue. Media companies using Brightcove Lift, however, have seen video ads delivered per video start increase by as much as 50%. These groundbreaking results demonstrate the solution's ability to mitigate ad blocker technology, maximize ad inventory, and drive meaningful revenue lift. Brightcove Lift allows media companies to:

• Circumvent ad blockers - By dynamically stitching ads into content streams in the cloud, Brightcove Lift enables higher ad delivery and revenue across platforms. Publishers are able to deliver their preferred ad load through dynamic ad insertion in the cloud.
• Work with their preferred ad server - Brightcove Lift is integrated to deliver advertising from ad servers such as DFP, Freewheel, SpotX, and LiveRail as well as required measurement from the leading analytics providers. Lift is compatible with the IAB VAST specification.
• Enable mid-roll ads - Server-side ad insertion also enables content owners to maximize ad inventory and monetization opportunities by seamlessly delivering mid-roll ads across platforms.
• Deliver a TV-like ad-supported experience - Brightcove Lift enables a seamless viewing experience by minimizing ad error rates and breakage, and optimizing streams for playback. The result is a linear broadcast-quality video experience that keeps viewers engaged with the content by minimizing buffering between video content and video ads.
• Maintain client-side interactivity - In combination with server-side ad insertion, client-side interactivity allows publishers to deliver interactive features such as scrubber blocking, mid-roll ad break enforcement, click-through tracking, and companion ads.
• Leverage the performance and customization capabilities of the industry-leading Brightcove Player - Brightcove's responsive HTML5 player loads quickly, and is easily customizable with HTML, CSS, and Javascript.

Customer Performance Optimizations at Vox Media

Vox Media, one of fastest growing media companies and home to premium brands such as The Verge, Vox.com, Eater, and SB Nation, selected Brightcove Lift.

"At Vox Media, providing a high quality audience experience is very important to all of our brands. When it comes to mobile video capabilities on our web properties, fast and smooth playback is our priority. With our previous OVP, we faced severe issues on Android ranging from slow video load times to complete playback failure. As a result, we chose to turn off ad delivery in an attempt to preserve user experience," said Brendan Murphy, Product Manager, Video, at Vox Media. "With Brightcove Lift, we've seen significantly improved quality and consistency in the video playback experience across mobile devices which allowed us to re-enable ad delivery. Today, Brightcove is powering the majority of Vox Media's online properties on mobile. Using Brightcove Lift, we are able to deliver a rich mobile ad experience without compromising user experience."

Pricing and Availability

Brightcove Lift is available immediately. Companies interested in testing ad delivery with Brightcove Lift should visit http://go.brightcove.com/lift.

Supporting Quotes:

"SSAI (server-side ad insertion) is a good first step to combat the growing practice of ad blocking. In the simplest terms, attaching the ad to the content in a way the blocker can't detect ensures that the ad is delivered to the end user. But SSAI by itself is only a technical fix to a problem that demands more complex solutions. Ultimately, the best way to discourage people from using ad blockers is to deliver a top-notch experience. That's the part that too many publishers, marketers, and tech firms have overlooked, so it's important that they zero in on it." - Paul Verna, Senior Analyst, eMarketer

"We are living in a golden age of content with consumers benefiting from an unmatched selection of online and broadcast programming. We strongly believe that media companies have the right to monetize that content through ads. Consumers have long embraced free content in exchange for ads, and it is important to preserve this model in order for consumers to continue to have access to the range of free video content available today. But we also believe that consumers should not be forced to endure heavy video players, slow load times, high latency between ads and content, and frequent errors. Brightcove Lift provides a solution that helps ensure media companies can continue to be successful with ad-supported business models - and deliver a faster, better, more TV-like experience for consumers." - David Mendels, CEO, Brightcove

"As mobile video consumption eclipses desktop viewing and more and more consumers adopt streaming devices and applications, the opportunity for media companies to monetize those viewers is growing substantially. In fact, for most broadcasters and publishers it is increasingly a requirement to be able to deliver ads successfully across the growing diversity of platforms. Such delivery has been plagued by a host of issues, not just ad blockers, but also ad delivery timeouts, ads that don't conform to the content they're associated with in terms of quality, and app crashes due to client-side ad logic. Brightcove Lift mitigates these issues by blending the benefits of server-side ad insertion with the interactive capabilities of our leading client player technology. As a result, publishers no longer need to sacrifice revenues or compromise the viewing experience - instead they can delight the consumer and do so profitably." - Anil Jain, Senior Vice President and GM, Media, Brightcove

Supporting resources:

• Brightcove Lift
• Brightcove for Media

Brightcove on social media:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Brightcove Blog

About Brightcove

Brightcove Inc. (NASDAQ:BCOV) is the leading global provider of powerful cloud solutions for delivering and monetizing video across connected devices. The company offers a full suite of products and services that reduce the cost and complexity associated with publishing, distributing, measuring and monetizing video across devices. Brightcove has more than 5,000 customers in over 70 countries that rely on the company's cloud solutions to successfully publish high-quality video experiences to audiences everywhere. To learn more, visit www.brightcove.com.

This press release may include forward-looking statements regarding anticipated objectives, growth and/or expected product and service developments or enhancements. Such forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of the following words (among others): "believes," "expects," "may," "will," "plan," "should" or "anticipates," or comparable words and their negatives. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees but are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations contained in these statements. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent annual report on Form 10-K. Brightcove assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release in the event of changing circumstances or otherwise, and such statements are current only as of the date they are made.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151026005463/en/

North America:
Waggener Edstrom for Brightcove
Vanessa Royle, 415-547-7059
vroyle@waggeneredstrom.com
or
Europe:
Waggener Edstrom for Brightcove
Laura Gillen, +44 20 7632 3912
lgillen@waggeneredstrom.com

Source: Brightcove Inc.

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