FierceOnlineVideo Leaders - Anupam Gupta, CEO Mixpo

FierceOnlineVideo recently caught up with Mixpo CEO Anupam Gupta to discuss his company's foray into local online video advertising and his outlook for the online video industry. 

FierceOV: How has 2009 started off for Mixpo, Anupam? 

Anupam Gupta: So far the year has gone well, and we're executing on our strategy to bring our platform to local advertisers through channel partners. We've signed up some big names and we are ramping up with our partners to grow our businesses collectively.

We're also adjusting as we learn about different cases where businesses are implementing online video advertising. We've announced product innovations, a flexible platform, and new partners; we've been busy. 

FierceOV: What are some of the use cases for local online video advertising you've seen lately that seem exciting? 

Gupta: Local advertising is an expansive category to begin with, as you have a mix of national and regional advertisers targeting the specific geography and local businesses that want to get noticed in their area. There is a much clearer call to action in video, and businesses directly tie a brand message to the call to action. We've seen a lot of traction with the health and wellness space, and we're picking up local dentists, hospitals and spas, for instance. Overall, the measurement abilities with online video advertising are so great, that the level of accountability drives people to try it. 

FierceOV: What is Mixpo's strategy for continual technological innovation? 

Gupta: We want to have rapid development of technological solutions, and we want to be nimble when dealing with issues. Before we launched the beta version of Mixpo, we did a lot of hard work with the backbone infrastructure of the product, so everything we add on top now is fairly easy to integrate quickly.

In our technology strategy, we always want to have it based around customer feedback to get better results. Our philosophy is ‘Listen, Learn, and Respect," which shows our commitment to provide our customers with the best advertising solution.

We ultimately want to build out to tap into other types of advertising to push the envelope on the effectiveness of the advertisements we deliver, while building in feedback from our customers and theirs. 

FierceOV: Where would you like Mixpo to be a year from today? 

Gupta: Online video is still relatively new in the local space, and people are trying out different approaches to serve the market and acquire local customers. Mixpo's approach differs from the ones other companies are taking, in that we are taking a channel approach, rather than focusing on direct selling. We want to expand our group of partners and broaden the base of local sellers of our product, including reaching out to people like cable and broadcast affiliates. We also want to develop a coordinated multi-platform strategy with our channel partners so that we can reach different elements of people where they will consume ads. 

FierceOV: What do you think the eventual size of the market for online video advertising will be? 

Gupta: There are a couple of components we look at in estimating the market potential. Mostly, people talk about video advertising right now as the in-stream pre-rolls and mid-rolls you'd see on Hulu. But we are taking existing display inventory and replacing it with video inventory, which we think could lead to billions of impressions with much higher CPMs than are currently assessed.

We want to help the sites that have been building brand for years optimize their premium inventory by shifting from banner to video, which will raise the pricing threshold and give sales people an additional option to offer customers.