IRIS.TV and PMG Boost Carl's Jr. CTV Advertising Campaign with AI-Enriched Contextual Targeting

Utilizing IRIS-enabled™ Data Partner Segments via the IRIS_ID for Targeting, the Campaign Achieved 152% Incremental Sales Lift and 2.2X Return on Ad Spend in Competitive QSR Market

NEW YORK, June 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- IRIS.TV, the leading content data platform, and PMG, a global independent marketing solutions and technology company, have announced a joint campaign for IRIS-enabled PMPs (private marketplaces) that showcases a highly effective CTV advertising strategy for quick service restaurant brand Carl's Jr. The campaign significantly boosted incremental lift for in-store visits and sales demonstrating the power of AI-enriched, video-level contextual targeting in the competitive Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) market.

Carl's Jr. understands that young hungry males on a budget are a key target audience for driving sales to their 1000+ QSR restaurants located in specific markets in the U.S. While QSR brands have traditionally allocated large budgets to cable and broadcast advertising, CTV offers a medium that pairs high-impact and brand-building awareness with the accountability, targeting, and feedback loop of lower-funnel digital media. Their goal was to target these locations with ads adjacent to CTV content that aligned with the interests of this target audience to drive store visits and sales.

The brand's partner, PMG, worked with IRIS.TV to target curated CTV inventory with video-level contextual data that aligned with these characteristics and interests, including Hispanic, Anime, Gaming, and Sports, as well as content that contained competitors' logos. IRIS.TV's data partners, including Captify, GumGum, Kerv, Pixability, and Silverpush, utilize AI to analyze CTV content frame-by-frame to create these segments via the IRIS.TV platform.

The campaign was executed across millions of impressions on IRIS-enabled CTV inventory from thousands of streaming apps and FAST channels. PMG tested IRIS-enabled contextual data alongside standard digital video and CTV targeting tactics, including first-party identity, and demographic data, as well as other publisher-declared targeting methods, including run-of-network buys.

Campaign highlights include:

• Increased Visit Lift: Viewers watching CTV ads targeted with IRIS-enabled contextual data converted at a higher rate than all other targeting methods, resulting in a 35% incremental visit lift, which was 21% higher than the performance of all other tactics.
• Increased Sales Lift: The AI-driven contextual targeting approach led to a 152% incremental sales lift and delivered a 2.2X return on ad spend, demonstrating the effectiveness of precise targeting based on actual content viewed.
• Overcoming CTV Challenges: The IRIS-enabled PMP offering addressed key challenges in CTV advertising, including the fragmented supply chain, targeting complexities due to the lack of cookies on smart TVs, and the necessity for ad relevance to maintain viewer attention.

"IRIS.TV enables us to scale beyond human-centric curation and audience-based targeting alone," said Michael Treon, Head of CTV Strategy, PMG. "The scale and segmentation across FAST inventory not only offers incremental delivery against our audience and strategy but affords us the ability to message within key environments and alongside relevant content. It's delivering results that drive direct business outcomes for our clients."

Jennifer Tate, Chief Marketing Officer at CKE Restaurants, said, "We are always looking for new ways to advance our ability to serve current and potential guests messaging in relevant communications channels, particularly when those strategies are able to drive business outcomes at scale. We've been very encouraged by the performance of our IRIS.TV partnership."

"Consumer research by the AVCA and others has continually shown that for CTV advertising, contextual relevance is critical to attracting viewer attention and brand perception," said Richie Hyden, President, COO and Co-founder, IRIS.TV. "We're excited to partner with PMG to showcase the full funnel impact of video-level contextual advertising in delivering better outcomes for brands like Carl's Jr, as well as driving more demand for our IRIS-enabled publisher's inventory and data partners' contextual intelligence."

This success of our partnership demonstrates the power of video-level contextual targeting, significantly increasing in-store visits and sales. To access the full case study, please visit here.

ABOUT IRIS.TV
IRIS.TV is the only data platform built for video and CTV. We structure, connect, and activate the world's video-level data to create better viewing experiences and advertising outcomes. Our content identifier, the IRIS_ID, enables our partners to build scalable advertising solutions for contextual and brand-suitability planning, targeting, and measurement. Learn more about the IRIS_ID and the IRIS-enabled™ ecosystem of premium publishers, data partners, and ad platforms at www.iris.tv.

ABOUT PMG
PMG is a global independent marketing solutions and technology company that seeks to inspire people and brands that anything is possible. Driven by shared success, PMG uses business strategy and transformation, creative, media, and insights, along with our proprietary marketing intelligence platform Alli, to deliver Digital Made for Humans™. With offices in New York, London, Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, Atlanta, Costa Rica, and Cleveland, our team is made up of 900 employees globally, and our work for brands like Apple, Nike, Intuit, Experian, Whole Foods, Kohler, CKE Restaurants and Sephora has received top industry recognitions including Cannes Lions and Adweek Media Plan of the Year. For more information about PMG, visit www.pmg.com.

About CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc. 
CKE, a privately held company based in Franklin, Tennessee, runs and operates Carl's Jr.® and Hardee's®, Restaurants, two beloved brands, known for premium and innovative menu items such as iconic charbroiled burgers, Made from Scratch™ Biscuits and Hand-Breaded Chicken Tenders™. With both a U.S. and international footprint, Carl's Jr. Restaurants LLC and Hardee's Restaurants LLC have over 3,800 franchised or company-operated restaurants in 44 states and 39 foreign countries and U.S. territories. For more information about CKE, please visit www.ckr.com or its brand sites at www.carlsjr.com and www.hardees.com. 

SOURCE IRIS.TV