Get to Know Rembrand: Q&A with CMO Cory Treffiletti

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Today’s consumers don’t want their content experience interrupted. As a result, the content advertising landscape has had to adapt. Some tools, like product placement, are often acceptable to consumers, so long as their viewing experience feels seamless and the inclusion of the product is additive. Earlier iterations of product placement required a level of prep and planning to include products, carefully placed or included during production. However, with the advent of AI, this process is one that no longer has to be limited to in-production inclusion, but can now be included in post as well. Enter Rembrand, an SaaS platform and marketplace for product placement that’s leaning into the future to enable brands to capture attention and tell their stories. BrandStorytelling caught up with Cory Treffiletti, CMO at Rembrand, to learn more about this new technology and its applications:

What is generative AI and how does Rembrand put it to work?

Generative Ai is the artificial intelligence technology that allows for the creation of new content through a series of text queries and inputs. Generative AI models learn the patterns and structure of their input training data and then generate new data that has similar characteristics. Rembrand uses the technology as the basis for its Generative Fusion(™) technology that can embed hyper-realistic objects, like products, into digital video, entirely using technology and not visual effects designers. The use case for Rembrand is to automate product placement for high-quality video content of all shapes and sizes through product placement.

What are the top applications of the Generative Fusion tool thus far?

Rembrand has been working with Fortune 500 brands to embed product placement in video from creators on YouTube and TikTok as well as beginning discussions with larger studios and content creators. We see Rembrand as a way of enabling creators to monetize their content more seamlessly in a way that ensures the best viewing experience for the audience, as well as the best way for brands to be noticed. The data is clear. Consumers do not like interruptive ad formats like commercials. According to studies, as much as 90% of consumers will skip or simply ignore the ads. And that doesn’t take into account the percentage of people who pay to avoid them altogether on YouTube Premium or other services. We think Rembrand can solve both sides of the equation and help creators and studios monetize their content better.

Who is Rembrand for?

Rembrand is for anyone in the digital video space. For creators on YouTube, TikTok or other consumer video channels, Rembrand enables you to create your content with integrity and authenticity, while monetizing it more seamlessly and easily, with little to no work through our Marketplace. For larger studios and networks, your sales team can utilize our SaaS offering to sell your embedded ads, controlling which brands and when they will be integrated. This creates an entirely new advertising channel for you to work with. For brands, we make it easy to get involved in original content, dramatically reducing the time and effort to get into content, and doing so in a way that guarantees the attention those brands are striving for.

Can you elaborate on the difference between the service marketplace and the self-serve SaaS suite?

Certainly. This is one of the defining differentiators for our business. We see product placement as something that can be scaled using programmatic means, much like paid search or display advertising. Brands can select an audience, budget, flight dates, and we can match them with the content that will deliver the audience they are looking to reach. This allows us to match them together. The SaaS tool, on the other hand, allows a larger creator to build their own relationships directly with a brand, or many brands, and create a private relationship. That enables the studios and larger publishers to have full control over how they monetize their content.

What is the ultimate advantage of AI product placement versus practical/live product placement?

Ultimately, product placement embedded into content means your brand is seen, and not annoying to the viewer. The viewer has a better experience with the content, and the creators or publishers can maintain their artistic integrity without having to do live reads or sponsored reads that may be less than authentic. Rembrand identifies the prime product placement opportunities and creates a 3-dimensional image which is then rendered into a fully deconstructed video, allowing the AI to recognize spatial depth, occlusions, lighting and more. It even works with multiple camera angles. Then, Rembrand reconstructs the video with your product placement inserted and the creator posts it to platforms like YouTube, TikTok and many more. Rembrand even has a library of special animations that can be used to highlight the brand at key moments. All of this is automated and happens in hours, rather than the weeks, months or years it takes to negotiate and execute traditional product placement.

What does Rembrand see as the value of product placement in today’s limited economy of attention?

So far, the value is clear. Our campaigns are seeing as much as 10x the primary attention and awareness metrics that brands see through traditional, interruptive ads. Also, the response from the viewers is great too! We see unsolicited, positive comments from viewers in all our campaigns You never see unsolicited positive comments from ads on the internet, so this is fun to watch!

What advice would you give brands seeking to implement Generative AI for product placement?

That one is simple. Reach out to us at Rembrand and let us show you what we can do. We have been running test pilots for a bunch of great companies and all of them are continuing to run with us. Let us show you what the tool can do!

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About Cory Treffiletti

Cory is a data-driven storyteller who practices marketing, maintains a musical hobby, and has a passion for thinking differently. As Chief Marketing Officer for Rembrand, Cory is helping drive the growth of the leading programmatic product placement platform using Generative AI. In previous roles, Cory has been SVP of marketing for fintech company FIS, as well as a serial entrepreneur and CMO with companies such as Voicea (AI platform sold to Cisco) and BlueKai (data platform sold to Oracle). He was also CMO for the Oracle Data Cloud, which acquired 5 companies to become the leading data solution for advertisers. Cory has also been a consultant and agency veteran with successful exits to Omnicom and Carat, as well as an author of "Internet Ad Pioneers" and a newsletter called Original Digital (originaldigital.org). All this in addition to writing for Mediapost weekly since 2000.