FEED Autumn 2021 Web

CEO: MUSTAFA GULLU COUNTRY: TURKEY STARTED: 2019/2020 MEDIALYZER

What is the company’s origin story? I am Barış Lekesiz, business development specialist at Medialyzer. Our journey started when we realised advertisers have to rely on outdated techniques, focusing on quantity rather than quality, to understand offline media’s role in driving marketing ROI. While co-founder and CEO of Medialyzer Mustafa Gullu was working at GroupM, the world’s leading media buying agency, his client BBVA launched a mile-reward earning credit card with a narrow target group, heavily investing in TV. However, in Turkey there are 55 million TV viewers, and the only data source of audience measurement didn’t provide any insight to optimise the media plan. His team’s efforts in trying to correlate their media spending with credit card applications did not work. They needed a solution to turn big data into insights. Mustafa met with the co-founder and CTO of Medialyzer, Can, and they decided to solve this issue with an algorithm. That day, they stayed awake until morning, and their alpha product, which was a breakthrough in making sense of big numbers, was ready. At first, it was a weekend project and Medialyzer ’s first data centre was in an attic. Now, it has transformed into a start-up working with top TV advertisers. What are you working on? Media budgets have shifted away from TV towards digital, as measurement plays a crucial role in optimisation. Traditional audience measurement has lost its popularity. Particularly, the digital transformation due to the pandemic caused TV ads to include more online calls-to-action and the average time spent on TV has increased. Conservative advertisers, such as banks and retailers, sought out innovative solutions. Our first product, Tvlyzer TV Attribution, proved itself in various industries. In order to minimise the onboarding hassle, we’ve developed one-click, third-party data integrations. We have strong competitors like TVSquared and iSpot.tv and we concluded that the most significant advantage we can create for advertisers is an interface where clients can analyse numbers in no more than five minutes. With a pricing strategy starting from $699 a month, one- click integration, effortless user experience and extended

free trial periods, we have minimised all the risks and onboarding efforts on the advertiser side. Our second product – Tvlyzer TV Tracking – syncs digital and TV advertising, with real-time image recognition capabilities. Image processing requires a lot of R&D, as it involves knowledge of both hardware and software. Like any other start-up, we did not have vast resources, forcing us to push the limits of engineering. We ended up with an infrastructure that exploits every capability of our servers. In return, we are offering affordable tech fees to advertisers that minimise the burden on overall ROI. We have positioned ourselves in the middle of online and offline media channels, and provide insights to give advertisers a full picture of where revenue is being driven. Tell us about your next steps We are about to close another round of investment to help us accelerate growth in global markets – and develop new products that will solve other media-related problems. Today’s marketing is fragmented and complex, reflecting a consumer journey that touches diverse channels and mediums. With the emergence of VOD, CTV, OTT and TV being addressable and programmatic, media planning and measurement issues have become more visible. Medialyzer aims to provide innovative and customisable solutions for advertisers around the globe, with their own data in a cookie-free world. What does the company need most right now? As a team, we want to improve ourselves and find solutions to bigger measurement problems. We need to increase our presence in global markets and work with bigger clients to challenge us. We believe we are ready for the next steps.

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