Solve Media

Ian Schafer Joins Solve Media’s Board of Directors

Industry Veteran Supports Company’s Move to Redefine Effective Engagement

NEW YORK, NY—(Marketwire - Jan 25, 2012) - Solve Media, the TYPE-IN™ advertising company, today announced it has added Ian Schafer to its Board of Directors. Mr. Schafer is the founder and CEO of Deep Focus, a full-service digital engagement agency. Formerly a vice president of new media at Miramax Films, he is one of the most influential voices in the industry and a recognized leader in interactive marketing and social media. He will provide senior counsel to Solve Media executives as the company continues to change how brands and publishers advertise online.

“The future of advertising lies with innovative and creative approaches like Solve Media’s TYPE-IN that can capture a user’s attention in a powerful yet unobtrusive way and deliver measurable results in lift, recall and participation rates,” said Mr. Schafer. “Solve Media has grown quickly because they are addressing a critical market need. I look forward to helping Solve Media reach its next stage of growth.”

Mr. Schafer has received a number of industry recognitions including being named a “Media Maven” by Advertising Age and one of Adweek’s ”Young Ones.” He also serves on the executive board of the Social Media Advertising Consortium. He joins Chris Fralic and Scott Johnson on Solve Media’s board.

“As one of the industry’s foremost experts, Ian has an uncanny ability to anticipate trends in the creative and media agency landscape,” said Ari Jacoby, CEO of Solve Media. “His leadership, knowledge and strategic insight will be invaluable as Solve Media continues to seek innovative and impactful ways to drive true engagement for brands.”

Since its launch in 2010, Solve Media’s TYPE-IN platform has been delivering performance-based campaigns for leading brand advertisers seeking superior engagement, awareness and recall. Unlike traditional engagement metrics that essentially measure ad exposure, TYPE-IN ads create lasting memories that benefit brands beyond clicks and drive loyalty and sales. The company’s approach has attracted more than 3,000 publishers and leading advertisers, including Toyota, Microsoft, Universal Pictures and AOL.

ABOUT SOLVE MEDIA
Solve Media was founded by veteran entrepreneurs and technologists focused on innovative Internet advertising solutions. The Company’s proprietary online advertising system, the TYPE-IN™ was designed to create new and highly effective opportunities for brands to advertise online. The platform leverages CAPTCHA authentication for brand messaging to bring unprecedented consumer engagement. With the platform, Solve Media: guarantees brand message delivery and increases recall rates and return on investment for advertisers; creates new revenue opportunities for publishers; and simplifies the authentication process for consumers. Backed by First Round Capital, New Atlantic Ventures, AOL Ventures and prominent angel investors, Solve Media is based in New York City and Philadelphia. http://www.solvemedia.com

Type-In Ads Spark ‘Significant, Important’ Recall Boost, Study Finds

Solve Media’s Methodology Proven to Double Brand Recall Over Static Ads

NEW YORK, NY—(Marketwire - February 17, 2011) - New research published in the International Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications finds online type-in advertising substantially boosts brand and message recall among study participants. According to investigators Keith E. Niedermeier, Ph.D. and Corey Pierson, type-in ads earned 65 percent brand recall and 35 percent message recall. These findings demonstrate how type-in ads deliver double the amount of brand recall and approximately 12 times message recall compared to 32.3 percent and 3.1 percent for static ads.

Type-ins are interactive ads which require the user to enter information, like a brand message or marketing slogan, into a text box in order to access content or complete a form on a website. In the study, type-ins replaced captcha boxes for human authentication on websites, presenting users with a simple logo, a brand message in quotes, and an input box. This direct interaction with the type-in ad dramatically improves brand recall, according to the study.

“[These results] suggest that online ads in a more interactive format like type-ins could play an important role in creating brand awareness and reinforcing brand messages,” Niedermeier and Pierson wrote. “We feel that type-ins may have a particular utility in replacing captchas for form submission.”

Solve Media, an online advertising technology company, centered its methodology on type-ins. The company’s TYPE-IN™ platform serves both static and video ads in captchas as a replacement for distorted words, numbers and phrases typically used for user authentication, providing performance-based campaigns for brand advertisers with 40 percent engagement rates.

The Niedermeier and Pierson study validates Solve Media’s approach to online advertising and demonstrates the advertising effectiveness of its TYPE-IN platform. Since the platform’s launch in September 2010, it has been used by a number of well-known advertisers and publishers, including Toyota, Microsoft, Expedia, Dr. Pepper, Universal Pictures, AOL, Tribune, and Meredith Publishing. The company’s TYPE-IN ads offer advertisers and publishers robust functionality, including brand survey and insight research capabilities, engagement analytics, video, rich media and clickable ad units as well as strict safety and security features.

“Dr. Niedermeier and Mr. Pierson’s study validates what advertisers and publishers have already learned about advertising effectiveness,” said Ari Jacoby, CEO of Solve Media. “The TYPE-IN solution is based on simple, timeless principles of advertising that enable brand marketers to target attentive consumers with certainty that their message is received and understood so that it can be recalled at the purchase decision point. Type-in ads provide that. Banner and pop-up ads cannot.”

Research Methodology
254 subjects participated in the experiment, including graduate and undergraduate students at two large universities in the Eastern United States and general Internet users across the United States, solicited online.

Dr. Niedermeier is the Director of the Undergraduate Marketing Program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the school’s department of marketing. Mr. Pierson is a Wharton MBA graduate. Their article reporting the study findings, entitled “The Impact of Type-In Interactivity and Content Consistency of Internet Ads on Brand and Message Recall,” appears in the Fall 2010 issue of the International Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications, which is published by Racom Communications, Chicago.

ABOUT SOLVE MEDIA
Solve Media was founded by veteran entrepreneurs and technologists focused on innovative Internet advertising solutions. The Company’s proprietary online advertising system, the TYPE-IN™ was designed to create new and highly-effective opportunities for brands to advertise online. The platform leverages CAPTCHA authentication for brand messaging to bring unprecedented consumer engagement. With the platform, Solve Media: guarantees brand message delivery and increases recall rates and return on investment for advertisers; creates new revenue opportunities for publishers; and simplifies the authentication process for consumers. Backed by First Round Capital, New Atlantic Ventures, AOL Ventures and prominent angel investors, Solve Media is based in New York City and Philadelphia. http://www.solvemedia.com

Solve Media Adds Video to TYPE-IN Ad Units

Video CAPTCHA Solution Gives Brand Advertisers New Tool to Increase Engagement and Message Recall

NEW YORK, NY—(Marketwire - January 19, 2011) - Solve Media, the TYPE-IN™ advertising company, has extended its platform to offer advertisers 15-second video TYPE-IN ads with brand messages. TYPE-IN ads replace the distorted words, numbers and phrases typically used for puzzle-based CAPTCHA authentication systems with a logo or video, a brand message in quotes, and an input box. The Solve Media platform allows advertisers to increase both consumer brand engagement and message recall, on a cost-per-engagement basis.

Solve Media’s 15-second video TYPE-IN ads run inside the CAPTCHA and are easy for consumers to see, interpret and control. Consumers play the video and immediately view the authorization text — usually a branded message related to the subject of the video or the product/service being advertised. Then, the consumer types the brand message into the input box to gain authorization to the desired website, form or content.

Solve Media’s video TYPE-IN campaign for Universal Pictures’ motion picture “Devil” won the DPAC Award for Best Advertising Network Innovation in 2010. To view the campaign visit:http://www.solvemedia.com/gallery/universal.html.

“Users don’t pay attention to or remember key messages in banner ads or even expandable video ads. TYPE-IN ads engage users where they are already paying attention without disrupting their experience online,” said Ari Jacoby, CEO of Solve Media. “By layering video into Solve Media’s TYPE-IN technology, brand advertisers can take advantage of our cognitive advertising approach in another effective medium.”

Solve Media’s TYPE-IN platform delivers performance-based campaigns for brand advertisers seeking superior engagement, awareness and recall. Since the launch of Solve Media’s CAPTCHA advertising platform in September, consumer interaction with TYPE-IN ads has dramatically increased brand recall and resulted in approximately 40 percent engagement rates.

“Confirming that users are actually watching our videos with sound is a very important part of building awareness for upcoming theatrical releases through online media,” said Lindsay Dye, Media Supervisor, Ignited, the digital media planning and buying agency of record for Universal Pictures. “This goal is often difficult to achieve, and Solve Media’s TYPE-IN approach offers us a unique and engaging solution to the problem that is safe and effective.”

ABOUT SOLVE MEDIA
Solve Media was founded by veteran entrepreneurs and technologists focused on innovative Internet advertising solutions. The Company’s proprietary online advertising system, the TYPE-IN™ was designed to create new and highly-effective opportunities for brands to advertise online. The system leverages CAPTCHA authentication for brand messaging to bring unprecedented consumer engagement. With the solution, Solve Media: guarantees brand message delivery and increases recall rates and return on investment for advertisers; creates new revenue opportunities for publishers; and simplifies the authentication process for consumers. Backed by First Round Capital, New Atlantic Ventures, AOL Ventures and prominent angel investors, Solve Media is based in New York City and Philadelphia. http://www.solvemedia.com/