The Warsaw Stock Exchange is going into the advertising business.
Advertising may not immediately appear to be a natural progression for a stock exchange, albeit Central and Eastern Europe’s largest bourse, the Warsaw Stock Exchange (GPW).
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But advertising is precisely where the GPW’s board has decided to continue its policy of business diversification, and in October announced plans to develop a dynamic ad insertion (DAI) application it has dubbed TeO, which will offer broadcasters the chance to serve the kind of bespoke and personalised adverts that have been common on the internet for several years.
The GPW says that the TeO concept is the result of more than a year’s worth of market research, and has committed to spending more than 33.3 million złoty (7.23 million euros) on the idea’s development over the next two years, including a grant of 13.34 million złoty from Poland’s National Centre for Research and Development.
Buying and selling
TeO will use state-of-the-art technology (including machine learning and neural networks) to ensure high precision profiling and system operation with minimal delays, enabling the purchase and display of advertisements in near-real-time. The GPW will take a small fee for each transaction.
Viewers will see ads based only on their profile, meaning that targeted marketing campaigns can be deployed more effectively across all platforms, including linear television.
For the GPW’s CEO Marek Dietl, far from being a tangent with little relation to the exchange’s day-to-day activities, TeO is in fact a continuation of what it has always done: bringing buyers and sellers together.
“GPW has 30 years of experience of creating and developing trading platforms which effectively connect buyers and sellers,” says Dietl, who adds that it is also a good way of leveraging and showcasing the GPW’s tech know-how.
“We have the means and technology to execute and clear transactions safely, and we ensure the highest level of data security. With TeO, we want to provide all media market players with an independent and modern technological solution. The project will be dedicated to the entire media market, including broadcasters, operators and advertisers.”
Credibility
Furthermore, the GPW is likely to bring credibility to a project that might otherwise have been viewed with suspicion by the advertising industry and TV audiences, according to Witold Kołodziejski, chairman of Poland’s National Broadcasting Council.
“The project is going to need a code of good practice,” he says. “GPW is an important factor in making sure this happens. It is an organisation with unquestionable credibility and independence, which guarantees transparency and security of buying, selling, clearing, and auditing systems.”
The exchange also already has the backing of TV service operators, and is in talks with other broadcasters ahead of tests that it wants to begin in just 12 months, with a view to having the system fully operational within two years.
“Operators will play an important role as they can supply their decoders to the DAI platform,” says the GPW’s Marcin Grabowski, who is overseeing the development of TeO. “Naturally, we will also work very closely with advertisers; we want them involved at the earliest stages of testing.”
Poland’s TV advertising market is currently estimated at around 4.4 billion złoty per year. According to what the GPW refers to as “conservative” estimates, the potential of TeO and dynamic ad insertion represents an additional 660 million złoty per year.
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