Collecting New Data Points: Q&A With KERV’s Marika Roque

by Charlene Weisler , Op-Ed Contributor at DigitalNewsDaily, December 5, 2018

Marika Roque, executive vice president, media and technology, KERV Interactive, has spent years on the agency side, working on brands in technical, media, production, operational and senior leadership roles. 

“I have worked in digital from its beginning,” she explained, “My understanding of the inner workings of the digital ecosystem help me understand how to quickly filter through the clutter and get to what is real. The goal is to never build a team that you can automate. Build one that will help you along the path to automation and actually get there.”

I spoke with her regarding the programmatic infrastructure side of ad tech. 

Charlene Weisler: Tell me about KERV. Where does it sit in the media ecosystem?

Marika Roque: KERV is a video technology company with proprietary, patent-protected technology that represents a new genre of advertising, one in which images and objects within entertainment properties, video advertising assets and other forms of display technologies are optimized and made interactive.  

This technology offers consumers a deeper, more personalized experience. Consumers can click on a featured object in midstream to obtain information about that particular object. KERV is the only technology available that recognizes images by their pixel edges to create a real-time, interactive in-video experience in every scene. Every object within an in-stream ad or piece of content can be interactive, clicked on and linked out to a unique page.

In addition to the entertainment value delivered to a consumer’s fingertips and the resulting monetization opportunities, the same platform has the ability to collect substantial data points that others aren’t collecting regarding consumers’ behavior — data that goes far beyond industry standards.

Weisler: What TV services can use your technology? Connected TVs? Linear? Streaming services?

Roque: In distribution, we can currently connect to any content that can accept a VPAID tag from a distribution perspective. In content, we are in the integration stages with several content-heavy companies which will allow custom integrations with their consumption infrastructures, while users are watching any 10 foot device. 

We plan on taking advantage of the multi-screen consumption behaviors that exist on the consumption side.

Weisler: Is this technology added in production or post? Can it be added to legacy content?

Roque: No production costs! It can be added to legacy content. We simply need access to the raw file, such as an MP4. It is very turnkey to work with us and we provide unique, creative data points. We are a data-driven video lab, from one angle. 

Weisler: Do you collect any data — and if so, what? And if you collect data,how do you use it to gain insights?

Roque: We currently collect all of our unique interaction points throughout the experience, down to the object, frame, user and device level. We are able to analyze certain interactions, first, second, third, down to the object level, of any scene, within any KERVd video asset. This allows us to provide unique insight on the creative, from a true interaction perspective, and also allows us to add data points to current attribution or lifetime value models. 

Weisler: How do you manage privacy?

Roque: We currently anatomize groups of unique users, when modeling internally. When passing along PII insights to license/MSAAS customers, we have established very strict “Terms and Conditions” within our MSA and take protecting our users’ data very seriously. On the distribution side, we work with technologies and content/sites, which are all GDPR-compliant and are on the front of data trends.