SoundPoint

New York, NY – January 3, 2019 – iHeartMedia announced today that Hetal Patel has been named Executive Vice President of SmartAudio® Intelligence Insights, effective immediately. Patel will report to Brian Kaminsky, President of SmartAudio® and Analytics Group for iHeartMedia.

In her new role, Patel will lead the SmartAudio® Intelligence Insights team to create research and insights that shape iHeartMedia’s value proposition. Her responsibilities will include providing critical consumer insights, market intelligence and industry trends to iHeartMedia teams, markets and executives by leveraging expertise in areas such as audience analysis, advertising sales metrics and media and digital consumer research. In addition, Patel will work closely with iHeartMedia’s partners on the development of next-generation analytics, techniques and products including Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Sentiment Analysis and more.

iHeartMedia’s industry-leading marketing optimization tools include SoundPoint (programmatic real-time radio ad buying platform) and SmartAudio® , which enables advertisers to do impression-based audience planning and dynamic radio ad creative that utilizes real-time triggers such as weather, pollen counts, sports scores, mortgage rates and more to deploy different campaign messages based on what is happening in a specific market at a specific moment.  SmartAudio® has allowed brands to use broadcast radio ads to dynamically serve the most relevant message in each market, at each moment, just as they do with digital campaigns to ensure increased relevance and impact. In addition, iHeartMedia has recently acquired Jelli, Inc., the pioneering technology platform for programmatic buying and selling of broadcast radio, and which also powers SoundPoint.

“With our groundbreaking tools like SmartAudio® and SoundPoint, and our recent acquisition of Jelli, iHeartMedia products and new capabilities are transforming how advertisers reach their core audiences,” said Kaminsky. “We’re thrilled that someone with Hetal’s extensive research background and intimate knowledge of iHeartMedia will be playing such a key role in developing our next generation of data driven advertising, attribution and ad effectiveness products.”

Patel brings over a decade of consumer insights and research experience to her new role, most recently as Head of Sales Research & Insights for Vox Media. She previously spent four years as a key member of iHeartMedia’s research team, moving up the ranks to become Vice President of Research, Insights & Analytics. Patel’s background also includes positions at Radius GMR and KPMG Nunwood. She began her media career in 2006 as a research executive for The Nielsen Company based in Mumba, India. Patel is a graduate of the University of Mumbai.

“It really is the golden period of audio,” said Patel. “I am thrilled to be returning to iHeartMedia where data and consumer are genuinely front and center, which means working on truly disruptive and future ready research initiatives designed to address the client and marketplace needs. It’s truly humbling and an honor to be a story teller and voice for iHeartMedia.”

Acquisition is a Key Component of iHeartMedia’s SoundPoint Programmatic Platform to Help Advertisers Build Innovative Campaigns Targeting Key Audience Segments by Leveraging the Power of Broadcast Radio’s Scale

NEW YORK, NY – November 19, 2018 – iHeartMedia, the leading audio company in America which also has a greater reach in the U.S. than any other media outlet, today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Jelli, Inc., the technology company that powers its SoundPoint programmatic platform. The Jelli platform is the pioneering technology foundation for programmatic buying and selling of broadcast radio, and this acquisition will enable iHeartMedia to further leverage Jelli’s assets to continue to create for brands a digital-compatible buying platform for broadcast radio that includes targeting and creative optimization based on data and attribution tools compatible with the offerings of the major digital players. In addition, “Expressway from Katz,” the industry’s programmatic buying ad exchange for the country’s leading radio groups, will continue to remain independently run by Katz, powered by Jelli.

Broadcast radio is the #1 mass reach medium reaching 93 percent of the U.S. population and engaging consumers longer than even the largest digital platforms. While broadcast radio has the highest consumer engagement of any major medium, prior to the 2015 launch of SoundPoint --  iHeartMedia’s groundbreaking programmatic and automated ad buying solution powered by Jelli -- broadcast radio had lacked the targetability and real-time automated interface that digital offers. The SoundPoint platform allows advertisers and agencies to leverage iHeartMedia’s broadcast stations through both its radio and digital organizations, delivering both strong results and digital compatible analytics. 

“Facebook and Google pioneered a new way for advertisers to interface with media partners to improve targetability, the ease of buying and measurement of results, and our programmatic platform puts us in the position to participate in the modern data driven ecosystem for our broadcast radio audience as well as our digital audiences,” said Brian Kaminsky, President of SmartAudio® and Analytics Group for iHeartMedia.  “We have been excited by the advances we made with Jelli as our partner and the acceptance from our advertising partners.”

“At iHeart we believe marketing is both math and magic.  The math is our rich data and insights about our users and how they relate to our partners’ products and services -- and the magic is the incredible creative ideas we bring to our partners, such as our iconic music events, award shows, influencers, podcasts, social reach and our unique on air promotions. Jelli allows us to do something no other company can do -- advertisers can now buy and use our broadcast assets, reach and impact just as they use the major digital players. We now offer heavy data and heavy creative innovation all in one place,” said Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, Inc. “We are excited about having Jelli not only for the platforms they are creating and have created for us, but also to lead our aggressive and innovative ad tech development.”

Today, iHeartMedia’s suite of innovative marketing optimization tools include SoundPoint (programmatic real-time audio ad buying platform) powered by Jelli and SmartAudio®, which enables advertisers to do impression-based planning of data driven audience segments. Additionally, SmartAudio® offers dynamic ad creative that utilizes real-time triggers such as weather, pollen counts, sports scores, mortgage rates and more to deploy different campaign messages based on what is happening in a specific market at a specific moment. SmartAudio® has allowed brands to use broadcast radio ads to dynamically serve the most relevant message in each market, at each moment, just as they have done with digital campaigns to ensure increased relevance and impact.

“By pairing iHeartMedia’s reach and multiplatform assets with our cloud-based advertising technology, we are positioned to provide a single platform for advertisers to reach all audiences, no matter where they are consuming audio,” said Michael Dougherty, co-founder and CEO of Jelli. “As audio consumption continues to explode, we are thrilled to be joining the iHeartMedia team, accelerating Jelli’s mission of transforming audio advertising through technology innovation.”

Over the past decade, Jelli has transformed radio broadcasting by creating the first cloud-based platform to support and improve the audio ecosystem, making it easier and faster to buy and run audio advertising. Their current offerings include RadioSpot, the only programmatic platform for radio broadcasters to sell and manage their advertising inventory and SpotPlan, the first and only programmatic platform for radio, delivering agencies and advertisers an automated way to efficiently plan and buy audio advertising and providing access to iHeartMedia as well as Expressway from Katz. 

As part of the acquisition, Jelli will continue to operate as a company within iHeartMedia, Inc. led by President and CEO Michael Dougherty and his team. The Jelli division will continue to be based in Silicon Valley and will become iHeartMedia’s primary ad technology operation.

About Jelli

Jelli is the largest technology platform for the $40 billion global radio market. Our mission is to create the easiest and fastest way to buy and run audio advertising. In order to achieve this, we developed a cloud-based ad platform that enables advertisers and publishers to buy and sell audio advertising programmatically. Our patented technology is used by some of the largest broadcasters and advertisers in the audio marketplace, reaching hundreds of millions of listeners monthly and serving billions of ad impressions per year. Investors include Relay Ventures, Intel Capital, First Round Capital, iHeartMedia, Universal Music Group and several prominent angel investors. To learn more, visit www.jelli.com.

New York – May 17, 2018 - iHeartMedia, the leading media company in America with a greater reach in the U.S. than any other media outlet, today announced iHeartMedia Analytics, the first fully-digital attribution service for broadcast radio that will transform the way advertisers plan, buy and measure their audio campaigns to better optimize the unparalleled reach of radio.  

Radio is the No. 1 mass reach medium reaching 93 percent of the U.S. population and engaging consumers longer than even the largest digital platforms.  Radio has the highest consumer engagement of any major medium, and now it can offer that impact for advertisers who need digital-like targeting and attribution data. By leveraging the data from iHeartRadio’s digital ecosystem, iHeartMedia will enable broadcast radio to measure and show results in the same way as digital media, giving advertisers easy access to state-of-the-art campaign performance insights.

These new capabilities will allow advertisers to track audience reach, branding metrics and even sales outcomes for iHeartMedia radio ad campaigns in real-time by using data science to fuse information about its digital audience, with broadcast ad logs, on-air programming and commercial content. Advertisers will also have the ability to measure a radio campaign’s impact on a brand’s website visitation, social media engagement, physical foot traffic and more. 

“We continue to see advertisers spend money on less effective mediums simply because they provide a perceived level of measurability and accountability,” said Brian Kaminsky, President of Revenue Operations and Insights for iHeartMedia. “Now marketers will be able to capitalize on the unmatched scale and reach of iHeartMedia’s more than 270 million monthly broadcast listeners, and receive the same kind of innovative real-time measurements, insights and custom reporting they are accustomed to getting from digital media, quantifying the full power of radio -- in addition they can get attribution information that is missing from most of the digital marketplace.”

iHeartMedia Analytics is part of the company’s ongoing focus to assist brands and marketers in targeting consumers across it’s quarter of a billion monthly broadcast listeners.  iHeartMedia Analytics is the latest addition to the company’s industry-leading marketing optimization tools including SoundPoint (programmatic real-time radio ad buying platform)and the recently introduced SmartAudio, which enables advertisers to do impression-based audience planning and dynamic radio ad creative that utilizes real-time triggers such as weather, pollen counts, sports scores, mortgage rates and more to deploy different campaign messages based on what is happening in a specific market at a specific moment. SmartAudio has allowed brands to use broadcast radio ads to dynamically serve the most relevant message in each market, at each moment, just as they do with digital campaigns to ensure increased relevance and impact. 

In fact, SmartAudio data-infused impressions now reach more than 3 billion a month, targeting more than 700 audiences programmatically, and will continue to increase in scale as iHeartMedia continues to encompass audiences across all of its assets. 

The Latest Feature of iHeartMedia’s Groundbreaking Programmatic Solution Combines the Massive Scale of Broadcast Radio with the Power of Digital Data and More Informed Audience Targeting

New York, NY – March 16, 2017 – iHeartMedia, the media and entertainment company with the largest reach of any radio or TV outlet in America, introduced its SmartAudio digital data advertising product, an added feature of its groundbreaking programmatic solution, last night at its “SoundFront” advertising industry event. SmartAudio leverages the power of iHeartMedia’s programmatic solution to help advertisers evaluate, plan and buy broadcast radio, enabling them to build innovative campaigns that target key audience segments.
 
With more than 850 broadcast stations across the country that reach a quarter of a billion listeners a month, industry-leading on-air personalities, digital assets including iHeartRadio, the all-in-one digital music, podcasting and streaming radio service, nationally-recognized live events; mobile; and social, iHeartMedia has the unique ability to offer a suite of advertising solutions and tightly integrated multiplatform campaigns to advertisers and provides them access to a national scale and reach unmatched by any other media outlet in the U.S.
 
SmartAudio provides brands with even more effective ways to reach their audiences. With SmartAudio, iHeartMedia can now mine its unparalleled digital data from more than 95 million registered iHeartRadio listeners, along with leading second and third-party digital data, consumer and behavioral resources and social networks, to create robust audience segment profiles --including Millennials, auto intenders, mothers and more. Advertisers will be able to utilize these enhanced profiles to select the best broadcasting schedules and methods to reach their targeted consumers. By utilizing the product’s capabilities, brands will receive the massive scale of broadcast radio and the targetability of digital. iHeartMedia has already developed more than 700 SmartAudio audience segment profiles, and will continue to create more based on advertisers’ requests. 
 
SmartAudio also enables advertisers to use dynamic ad creative that utilizes real-time triggers such as weather, pollen counts, sports scores, mortgage rates and more to deploy different campaign messages based on what is happening in a specific market at a specific moment. Now, with radio ads, brands will be able to dynamically serve the most relevant message in each market at each moment just as they have done with digital to ensure increased relevance and impact. For example, advertisers can serve one message in Los Angeles when it’s sunny, a different message in New York when it’s snowing or even a different message in the same market later that day when the weather changes automatically without any back-end work on their part.
 
“Broadcast radio has the unparalleled advantage of real-time connection with consumers, giving the ability for advertisers to reach enhanced audiences at scale, and even tailor their creative messages for real-time,” said Tim Castelli, President of National Sales, Marketing and Partnerships for iHeartMedia. “We’ve been testing SmartAudio with some of the top brands and we’re already seeing additional impact for those using it. They’re able to leverage the product’s flexibility to decide which specific ad to run based on something as simple as whether the local sports team won or lost last night’s game.” 
 
“SmartAudio allows us to easily sort through the millions of combinations of stations, shows, dayparts and markets, and hone in on the ones that best reach the audiences we care about,” said Seth Goren, Senior Vice President of Media Strategy and Analytics at Discovery Communications. “Combining the efficiency and scale of radio with data and advanced analytics of digital, moves iHeartMedia beyond the standard age and demo paradigm to create enhanced audience-based plans that drive real business outcomes for us.”
  
In April 2015, iHeartMedia launched its programmatic and automated ad buying solution for its broadcast radio stations, powered by cloud-based technology innovator Jelli.  The company’s programmatic solution– branded SoundPoint – now features the SmartAudio product and is the foundation for iHeartMedia to offer its ad inventory to advertisers and agencies looking to leverage programmatic and automated technology, including private market place and exchange environments, improving the buying process and reducing administrative hurdles and delays.
 
“We launched our programmatic platform with the specific goal of bringing the best resources, unprecedented accountability and speed to our advertising partners,” said Castelli. “Industry response to our SoundPoint platform has been so well received that we’re now unveiling SmartAudio which allows audience segmenting and dynamic creative capabilities all in one planning and buying tool.”
 
SmartAudio is available now to all advertisers who want to utilize the power of broadcast radio to develop highly targeted campaigns that leverage the rich data sets only available via SoundPoint’s technology and analytics.