Matthew Blay
Co-Founder and Director
Inadvia
With 18 years of experience in the advertising industry, Matthew has a breadth of knowledge across international publishers, digital media platforms and media planning, most recently within the data-driven programmatic sector. In 2016, he co-founded Inadvia, a technology business that has developed what he calls “the world’s foremost programmatic advertising platform purpose-built for in-flight entertainment and connectivity.”
Fast facts:
Location: LCY
Now reading: Bad Blood, John Carreyrou
Favorite aircraft: 787
Passport stamp you wish you had: Galápagos Islands
Favorite social network: WhatsApp
What trends do you have your eye on right now?
The growth of the connected TV advertising marketplace – its growth is staggering and shares many of the benefits of bring-your-own-device in-flight advertising.
What are some of the roadblocks to innovation and how can they be overcome?
Innovation thrives in a culture that is responsive to change and quick to act. Aviation’s long sales cycles and slow decision-making can cause roadblocks, but thankfully, things are changing.
What is the significance of Inadvia’s recent partnership with Global Eagle?
Global Eagle recognizes that programmatic advertising can help maximize airline advertising revenue and reach media budgets previously not accessible to in-flight advertising. For such an important player to understand this, it signals to the IFEC [in-flight entertainment and connectivity] community the need to deploy new technologies that adapt to the ways marketers are investing in advertising and deliver for their airline partners.
How will programmatic trading help ensure the success of IFEC moving forward?
Programmatic trading will be crucial to the success of building a sustainable business model for IFEC, and that is indeed why we developed the Inadvia platform. According to eMarketer, 81 percent of total video advertising dollars were transacted programmatically in 2018, and many think that one day it will all be. That would make it imperative for IFEC to be able to trade within this marketplace.
What can Inadvia’s technology achieve in terms of personalization for the passenger?
Most significantly, improved dynamic advertising targeting techniques mean passengers are exposed to more relevant ads, which improves their onboard experience. Better targeting increases advertising investment, which means the airline is able to offer a wider content choice to passengers.
“Better targeting increases advertising investment, which means the airline is able to offer a wider content choice to passengers.”
Is there any potential to bring Inadvia’s programmatic advertising ecosystem to seatback?
Yes, absolutely. As seatback systems get more sophisticated and media refresh cycles are shortened, combined with dynamic ad insertion, there will be a huge programmatic opportunity.
What are Inadvia’s goals for this year?
We plan to bring more features to our platform to help advertisers optimize their campaigns; establish more IFEC partners so we can continue to build the scale that allows us, as an industry, to compete with the likes of Google, Facebook and Amazon on video and mobile advertising campaigns rather than each other for diminishing in-flight budgets; and continue to educate the market about what is and what is not programmatic advertising. There are still misconceptions about it, and to future-proof this valuable revenue stream, we need to make clear its benefits right now.
APEX in Profile: Matthew Blay was originally published in the 9.2 April/May issue of APEX Experience magazine.