White Label Platform That Instantly Matches Customers with Brands and Rewards Attracts Industry Luminaries
NEW YORK – AdGenesis Digital LLC, a new video advertising platform functioning across multiple media including mobile, online and eventually ITV where customers exchange buying information for relevant ads and rewards, announced the appointment of two online industry luminaries to its team. ContextWeb Founder Jeremy Sterns becomes Chief Technical Officer of AdGenesis and sister company Beezag and Tremor Media Founder Andrew Reis joins AdGenesis Digital LLC’s Executive Council.
The AdGenesis white label platform, launched on June 1, rewards consumers – with savings, offers, or other incentives from marketers – for providing information about their buying habits & brand preferences and watching video ads relevant to their lifestyle preferences that drive their buying decisions. Unlike other ad systems that try to deduce user information based on behavior or demographic projections, AdGenesis members voluntarily provide information about their brand behavior and buying habits in exchange for rewards and for future videos highly relevant to their declared interests. In the AdGenesis process, users are exposed to branding and direct response ads, but also have an opportunity to make immediate purchases.
“We felt from the beginning that AdGenesis was unique in creating an experience where consumers want to watch branded content and entertaining ads instead of skipping or blocking irrelevant marketing messages,” says Richard Smullen, Co-Founder and CEO. “That we are able to attract the likes of Andrew Reis and Jeremy Sterns this early in our growth, is an endorsement of our business model and reinforces to the advertising community that AdGenesis is the true merging of branding and direct response delivering audiences most likely to buy producing engagement and conversion rates no other platform achieves. We are very pleased to add this kind of experienced talent to the AdGenesis team.”
Mr. Sterns, who also serves as CTO for Beezag, a sister company to AdGenesis, joined the company from Send Word Now (New York), the leading provider of on-demand alerting and response services for both emergency and routine communication where he had been CTO since March 2007. Before that, for nearly seven years starting in May 2000, Mr. Sterns was Co-Founder, CTO for ContextWeb, Inc. (New York) which provides high-precision, real-time contextual advertising solutions guaranteed to increase the results and impact of online advertising. He was instrumental in the work leading up to the launch of ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ ad Exchange.
Before ContextWeb, Mr. Sterns was for four years Architect, Project Manager, and Software Developer for Sapient the global services company that helps clients to gain a competitive advantage and succeed in an increasingly digital world and transform in the areas of business, marketing, and technology. He also did software development for Microsoft Corporation during the mid 1990s. He is a graduate of Brown University.
Mr. Reis is the Managing Partner of Reis Media, a business development firm working with pre and recently funded companies on business development and start-up incubation founded in September 2009. Reis Media actively incubates new businesses with an emphasis on scale and marketability while focusing on “exitable” business models. Mr. Reis was Co-Founder and COO of Tremor Media, the leading online video monetization platform with a combined 169.8 million unique uses, reaching 82.5% of internet users from January 2005 to August 2009.
From March 2001 to April 2006 Mr. Reis was Founder and COO of Quake Marketing an interactive direct marketing agency, specializing in media buying, strategic marketing partnerships and outsourced business development. QMI was sold in April of 2006 and is currently operating under the same name. Before that, Mr. Reis was Co-Founder and COO of ContextualNet, a leading contextual ad representation network that serviced client direct and major domestic agencies sold in December 2004.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Reis was Director of New Business Development at Nusign Media- Soros Private Equity Group and Manager, Online Media for Venture Direct Worldwide. He serves on the Boards of Tremor Media and Healthcore Media, LLC and is a graduate of Hofstra University.
AdGenesis Digital LLC (http://www.adgenesisdigital.com) developed and deploys a next generation consumer rewarded marketing and advertising experience, “me-commerce.” Its platform enables advertisers to send their video ads directly to members, who trade consumer insights, watch advertisements and receive rewards on web sites, mobile devices, social media, and interactive televisions. A sister company, Beezag.com, is an Internet and mobile program that perfected the targeted consumer reward concept. The New York-based company was founded in 2009 by successful advertising and media entrepreneurs, Richard Smullen and Laurent Alhadeff.
Since inception, AdGenesis Digital and Beezag has raised over $4 million from a group of angel investors who sit on the company’s Executive Board including: Michael Kassan; Chairman & CEO, MediaLink, LLC; Gerry Byrne, Former Publisher of Variety and SVP of Media and Entertainment at Nielsen; Clifford Gundle, Founder, Knightsbridge Information Services and a member of the Dean’s Council of Harvard; Robert Friedman President, Radical Media Global Media and Entertainment; Rick Sirvaitis, Former President and Chief Operating Officer, GM MediaWorks; Wenda Harris Millard, President and COO of MediaLink, LLC; and prominent Swiss wealth manager, Antoine Spillman.
