KlausTech has formed a joint venture with Versatile Connections, a business accelerator founded by serial internet investors Mark Hindmarsh and Peter Jones, that specialises in assisting international companies build European operations as well as working with UK start-ups including Shomei and Ultra Knowledge. The business will be recruiting a senior management team for the UK, including business development personnel focused on licensing the AdCastPlus platform to premium publishers and customer services and technical support staff.
Launched in 1996, Whatsonstage.com is the UK’s biggest dedicated theatre website, ranked as number one in the UK by Alexa and second by Hitwise amongst all performing arts websites. It comprises a listings database of over 5,500 performances nationwide, alongside theatre news, reviews, photos, interviews, blogs, ticket offers and competitions.
Commenting on the launch, Peter Jones, Joint Managing Director, Klaustech Europe explains, “Everyone in the internet industry, including the IAB, is talking about large formats, however many premium publishers have a lack of inventory. AdCastPlus offers advertisers the opportunity to reach consumers with really engaging advertising that can be scheduled in time slots, much like TV advertising. The adverts stay on the screen for the time specified by the advertiser even when a user scrolls up and down the page or navigates from page to page on the publisher’s website“
Mark Hindmarsh, Joint Managing Director, Klaustech Europe, adds, “Publishers recognise that AdCastPlus immediately provides them with premium, high value inventory which is 100% incremental, requiring little technical integration. They can also offer video-on-demand, (VOD), advertising across all pages of their website without having to embed an additional media player. Our research suggests there is significant budget available for VOD campaigns, especially when video can be positioned in context with quality editorial.”
Managing and Editorial Director of Whatsonstage.com Terri Paddock adds, “Visitors to Whatsonstage.com are avid theatregoers and arts lovers indulging their passion so this kind of sleek, high-impact advertising is a perfect way to attract their attention, without interrupting their immersive user experience. The new AdCastPlus formats take minimal site integration and effectively double the inventory we can offer to advertisers and their agencies. We are thrilled to be working with the team at KlausTech and to be using their technology as part of our commercial offering”
Browser agnostic, the AdCastPlus platform is fully compatible with standard IAB formats and accounting methodology and is hosted in the cloud so as to limit any impact on website load performance. Any type of content can be delivered via AdCastPlus, from video, images, flash animations and html, individually or in combination.
Versatile Connections was founded in 2006 by Mark Hindmarsh and Peter Jones. Hindmarsh, has co-founded, managed and advised a number of start-ups, including yet2.com, Coull and Shomei whilst Jones launched audience targeting tool X+1 in the UK before he and Hindmarsh brought SearchRev to Europe. Prior to that Jones held senior agency roles at TBWA\GGT and Arc Worldwide, formerly IMP. Most recently, Versatile Connections launched and managed the European operations for JiWire.
FACTFILE:
KlausTech is a provider of digital marketing technology and related services. We develop solutions that enable our brand advertiser and publisher partners to reach customers globally whilst delivering maximum return on ad spend.
AdCastPlus is KlausTech’s proprietary multi-patented technology platform. It is the only patented advertising tool that provides non-scrollable, time-controlled, TV style online content delivery within a webpage browser, including delivery of video, text, images and any online IAB ad format.
KlausTech Inc. is headquartered in Plano, Texas with R&D facilities in Rome, Italy and a recently established sales operation in London, UK.
About Whatsonstage.com
Whatsonstage.com is the UK’s biggest and best theatre website, ranked as number 1 in the UK by Alexa and number 3 by Hitwise amongst all performing arts websites, and recently named one of the top 100 arts tweeters by The Times. It comprises a listings database of some 5,500-plus performances nationwide, as well as unrivalled theatre news, reviews, photos, interviews, gossip, blogs, ticket offers, competitions and lively discussion boards.
Over 100,000 theatregoers subscribe to the site’s weekly email newsletter, while over 600,000 visit the website each month. The audience represents the most avid theatregoing demographic available online.
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