Running video ads can be carbon intensive – and expensive.
One million video impressions have the same carbon footprint as a roundtrip flight from Boston to London, according to data from Scope3.
That’s why LATAM Airlines, Latin America’s largest airline, partnered with SeenThis, which has streaming technology to speed up video ad delivery.
Since last year, LATAM says it’s been able to cut its customer acquisition costs by around 83% and decrease its data use by approximately 25%, reducing its CO2 emissions by roughly 14 tons.
The ability to run interactive ads with multimedia features, such as video, audio and animation, at prices comparable to normal display ads “was mind-blowing for us,” said Manuel Breve, LATAM’s team lead for paid search and marketing technology.
Previously, LATAM ran static banner ads that contained binary video files.
Being able to run ads in real time, rather than having to book inventory in advance, is another advantage, said Bastian Andres Henriquez Lagos, a paid search and programmatic specialist at LATAM Airlines, who oversaw the SeenThis campaigns.
Dynamic duo
SeenThis has also helped LATAM make its ads more interactive.
An ad targeting customers interested in traveling to South America, for instance, can include multiple destinations within the same display. When customers click on their chosen destination, they would be redirected to a LATAM landing page with offers for that specific country and available travel dates.
Similarly, LATAM can dynamically display different art within videos for different routes to reflect changing ticket prices. The art loads immediately, just like it would for regular banner ads.
And whereas people typically need a strong internet connection to view standard video ads, SeenThis sends data in “micro fragments” directly to a user’s device, Breve said, so even customers with a poor connection can have an uninterrupted viewing experience.
Clients send their video creative directly to SeenThis, which processes the files and sends them back as an HTML display tag, said Susan Kravitz, head of commercial partnerships for the Americas at SeenThis.
Sustainability play
SeenThis video ads will only stream when someone is actively watching them and automatically pause when they’re no longer in view. This reduces media waste, boosts viewability and means that less energy is used, making campaigns more sustainable.
“We’re able to help clients reduce their carbon footprint and have an immediate impact without them having to work within their supply chain,” Kravitz said. “[And] all we’re doing is using a different tag.”
Clients can monitor the carbon emissions generated by their marketing campaigns in SeenThis dashboards.
Recently, SeenThis also launched a creative platform that allows clients to build their own creative assets. The creative platform offers drag-and-drop and built-in editing tools that can pare down the time spent on production.
Media advisory firm Diagonal Minds initially recommended SeenThis to LATAM Airlines, which then brought in IPG’s Matterkind to facilitate the partnership and evaluate how streaming ads could benefit LATAM’s performance goals, said Natalia González Abarca, Matterkind’s addressable manager in Chile.
Matterkind filters inventory based on how viewable it is and places automatic bids to improve clicks, González Abarca said.
The agency adheres to the industry viewability standard for video, which calls for at least 50% of an ad to be visible on screen. But Matterkind also requires that video ads be actively watched and have view-through rates above 65%.
Based on successful testing in 2022 to promote its flights in markets across the US, Mexico, Europe and Oceania, LATAM plans to expand its collaboration with SeenThis globally this year.
Next up are campaigns to promote what Breve called “ancillary products,” including hotels, travel packages, insurance, rental cars and certain elements of LATAM’s frequent flyer program.
