RhythmOne Announces Its Early Partnership With Pixalate’s MRC-Accredited OTT Fraud Detection and Filtering Solution

RhythmOne plc (LSE AIM: RTHM), a global advertising technology company, today announced that it has formed an early, collaborative partnership with Pixalate, Inc. regarding its newly Media Ratings Council, Inc. (MRC) accredited over-the-top (OTT) invalid traffic (IVT) detection and filtration solution, a key component of Pixalate’s comprehensive ad fraud detection and prevention platform. RhythmOne’s planned integration of Pixalate’s solution into its unified programmatic platform offers an added layer of IVT detection and protection for OTT ad impressions. The Pixalate solution will work in conjunction with RhythmGuard, RhythmOne’s proprietary brand safety technology, which actively combats IVT within its platform across all screens, including desktop, mobile, tablet, and connected TV/OTT.

"Brand safety is a paramount concern for our clients, and a top priority for all campaigns that run through our platform,” said Jorg Nowak, Senior Vice President of Global Sales, RhythmOne. "As a leader in the advanced TV ad market, we take our responsibility to provide clients with high-quality OTT inventory very seriously. We’ve invested in the tools and technology that enable advertisers to buy brand-safe, cross-screen inventory from our marketplace, and are excited to bring a new measure of quality assurance to the rapidly growing OTT market.”

Pixalate's analysis shows global OTT IVT rates average 19% and forecasts marketers stand to lose $10 billion in OTT spend in 2020.

"High CPMs and lack of measurement standards have made the OTT channel a breeding ground for fraudsters,” said Jalal Nasir, CEO of Pixalate. "We are proud to meet the challenge head-on with our industry-first MRC accreditation for invalid traffic detection and filtration in OTT. We applaud RhythmOne’s leadership in adopting new OTT safeguards and helping their clients protect their ad investments and reputation.”

RhythmOne and Pixalate have been working together for over two years to test and develop solutions that help protect buyers from the ad spend loss and brand reputation risk present in OTT/CTV. The two companies have worked closely, as part of an OTT solutions group, to experiment and apply advanced data science methods for testing OTT fraud blocking and monitoring products, as well as determining methods for addressing server-side ad insertion (SSAI) and other OTT issues. As Pixalate announced last week, it was the first company to receive accreditation from the MRC for Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT) detection and filtration for OTT video ad impressions.

RhythmOne is consistently ranked by Pixalate as a trusted platform for agencies and brands. RhythmOne earned the #1 spot for US and International rankings on Pixalate’s Global Seller Trust Index (GSTI) for all of 2017.

About RhythmOne

RhythmOne drives engagement between advertisers and targeted audiences – resulting in real, measurable business outcomes. We offer fully-integrated, cross-screen solutions that span desktop, mobile, and connected TV ("CTV”) across high-impact video, rich media, display, social, and native advertising formats – helping advertisers reach high-propensity audiences wherever and however they consume content. The connections we make are further enhanced through unique audience data and powered by our unified programmatic platform, RhythmMax. RhythmMax includes, RhythmGuard, a verification technology which ensures quality audiences in brand safe environments. This end-to-end platform – coupled with the world-class service of our account teams – is designed to provide more direct, efficient, and effective connections, driving ROI for advertisers and publishers. Founded in 2004 in the UK, RhythmOne is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in the US, Europe, APAC, and Canada. For more information, please visit www.rhythmone.com.

About Pixalate

Pixalate is an omni-channel fraud intelligence company that works with brands and platforms to prevent invalid traffic and improve ad inventory quality. We offer the only system of coordinated solutions across display, app, video, and OTT for better detection and elimination of ad fraud. Pixalate is the only MRC-accredited solution for sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) detection and filtration across display, in-app, video, and OTT advertising. www.pixalate.com

Forward-Looking Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including those in management quotations. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the words "may," "will," "expect," "intend," "plan," "objective," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "project," "potential," "continue" and "ongoing," or the negative of these terms, or other comparable terminology intended to identify statements about the future. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements regarding the adoption of the newly Media Relations Council (MRC) accredited over-the-top (OTT) invalid traffic (IVT) detection and filtration solution from Pixalate. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that could cause actual results and the timing of events to differ materially from future results that are expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include the dynamic and rapidly evolving sector, as well as the highly competitive industry that RhythmOne operates in, which make it difficult to evaluate prospects. These and other risk factors are discussed in RhythmOne’s Annual Report for the period ended March 31, 2018. The forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to RhythmOne as of the date hereof, and we assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

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