
Lionel Bensoussan, EVP Americas, Equativ, from Cannes
Equativ, a leading ad tech company, has tripled its size in just three years through five strategic mergers, now boasting over 750 employees across more than 20 countries. The most recent merger with Sharethrough brought a wealth of creative enhancement resources that have been integrated across its entire offering. “This helped us position ourselves not just as an ad distribution platform, but as an ad distribution platform with added value,” said Lionel Bensoussan, EVP Americas, Equativ, from Cannes.
“Our positioning as Equativ is right in the middle, between supply and demand, working equitably with both sides of the business. Our work with the supply side is to help them maximize the monetization of their content through ad space. On the other side of the business, concerning demand, we ensure we deliver the best results to our advertisers and agencies with whom we collaborate. Therefore, our role is always to best serve both sides of the business. And because of this, there is no conflict of interest, as we have the comprehensive solution to serve both. For supply, we have access to the audience. For the audience or brands, we have access to the supply where the audience is located.”
Bensoussan clarified that while they are not necessarily seen as an advertising company primarily focused on creativity, they understand that to deliver the best results for both parties—maximizing monetization for publishers and achieving optimal impact for advertisers—they need to enhance messaging with creative optimization.
“Therefore, we have been investing heavily and partnering with many different companies, different strategies, and different technologies to enhance not just creativity with technology, but creativity with insights and data. We are collecting data from previous campaign results to automatically generate creative ads that perform better depending on the situation, depending on the targeting strategy, on the audience we’re trying to reach, but making sure that we generate some creative assets for the campaigns we’re running that will deliver the best possible results.”
Regarding Connected TV (CTV), Bensoussan emphasized the need for high-quality inventory and diverse content from the demand perspective, beyond just video. “One needs the highest quality inventory possible, or at least inventory that fits the campaign, and that is needed from the demand point of view, in terms of diversity, content, type of media positioning, not just video, but also video that can be enhanced with creative assets that will generate some form of conversion,” he stated.
“Thus, you can create a complete story about the brand message you want to share. Inventory quality, brand safety, diversity, and creativity are fundamental. We also need to efficiently measure the impact of a CTV campaign. And without clear measurement of this outcome, it’s difficult to highlight its benefits. That’s why we are increasingly working with internal technologies that allow us to understand the level of attention, the path to conversion, and everything else.”
Bensoussan explained that when they discuss creative enhancement, they employ various methods. “This can be as simple as adding a QR code to drive interaction. But we can also go further: adding a sports sticker that will show you real-time scores, allowing you to adapt your message based on game results. We can adapt sizing and use engaging creative formats. We can have video carousels, overlays over the video, videos or images embedded in a CTV stream. The solutions are almost endless.”