RhythmOne PLC: RhythmOne Expands Suite of Smart TV Impression Units for Advanced TV Advertising

  RhythmOne Expands Suite of Smart TV Impression Units for Advanced TV Advertising

      YuMe by RhythmOne is One of the Largest Single Sources of Smart TV Ad Inventory
 

London, England and San Francisco, CA - 27th November 2018 - RhythmOne plc (LSE AIM: RTHM), a global advertising technology company, today announced that its pioneering advanced TV and video solution, YuMe by RhythmOne, is now offering an expanded set of Smart TV Impression Units to meet the evolving needs of marketers. In addition to the expanded set of units, YuMe by RhythmOne is now one of the largest single sources of smart TV ad inventory, with new inventory now available from its premier smart TV original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners.

YuMe by RhythmOne's Smart TV Impression Units are a premium, high share-of-voice units displayed within the smart TV hubs of its OEM partners. The company began offering these types of ads in 2011, known then as First Impression Units, when the majority of connected TV (CTV) ad experiences were delivered on smart TVs and Blu-ray players. Although the market for standalone over-the-top (OTT) streaming devices has grown, a smart TV is one of the primary ways users may access OTT and streaming content on a television. eMarketer estimates that smart TVs specifically - i.e., televisions with built-in internet connectivity that do not require a standalone device - are used today in the US by 94.8 million people, which represents the majority (approximately 51.9%) of all CTV users in 2018. This figure is projected to rise 119 million people by 2022, representing approximately 58.3% of all CTV users.¹

"As smart TV ownership and CTV viewing continues to rise, innovative monetization models are rapidly emerging to reach a growing audience of cord cutters and cord-nevers," said Jorg Nowak, Senior Vice President of Global Sales, RhythmOne. "The ability for our Smart TV Impression Units to reach audiences - sometimes as the 'last stop' before entering non-ad supported streaming services - is invaluable for advertisers as a way to engage with these hard to reach consumers on the biggest screen in the home."

YuMe by RhythmOne's Smart TV Impression Units run in highly visible positions throughout the viewing experience, including the TV's home screen, content store, and apps, as viewers look for and browse content. They also offer a variety of available post-click actions such as click-to-video, click-to-website, click-to-custom micro-site, and click-to-app, all of which are full-screen experiences. This ad unit is particularly effective when trying to get in front of consumers who are about to enter non-ad-supported content.

Smart TV Impression Units serve three key categories of media buyers:

- Digital Display Media Buyers seeking to extend digital cross-screen campaigns with unique, high-impact smart TV display opportunities.

- Digital Video Media Buyers who want to add efficiency and incremental reach to existing video campaigns.

- Connected TV Media Buyers looking to deliver high-impact engagement with unique audiences (e.g., cord cutters and cord-nevers) on CTV devices.

The features of Smart TV Impression Units include:

- Smart TV Impact. Delivery of ads across multiple OEMs, and includes unique ad formats only available through this offering. Currently available for US campaigns.

- Smart TV Takeover. 100% share-of-voice on OEM-connected devices. These are increasingly popular across brand categories to help achieve campaign objectives including product launches, tune-in campaigns (show/movie releases), and driving viewers to an app supported in the OEM native app store. Available in North America.

- Smart TV National. Broad reach to help maximize audience extension for linear TV or digital campaigns. Available in North America and Latin America.

- Smart TV Geo-targeted. Increased scale targeted at the DMA level. Available in North America.

¹eMarketer: US Smart TV Users and Penetration, July 2018.

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 proprietary verification and brand safety filtering technology that screens underperforming and suspicious traffic before it reaches the marketplace. 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, UK, Europe, APAC, and Canada. For more information, please visit www.rhythmone.com.

For further information, please contact:

Media Industry Contact
Melissa Laverty
Seismic Marketing for RhythmOne
Melissa@teamseismic.com

Analyst and Investor Contact
Mark Bonney
RhythmOne plc
IR@rhythmone.com

Nomad and Broker for RhythmOne
Nick Westlake (Nomad)
Numis Securities Limited
(UK) 020 7260 1000

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 smart TV and the benefits of this offering. 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.