Ryff Reveals Virtual Product Placement Platform Spheera™ at Exclusive Event in London's BAFTA

Los Angeles, USA, Hollywood-based Ryff, the inventor of VPP (Virtual Product Placement), will reveal how it is dramatically changing advertising to a select group of entertainment industry leaders at BAFTA's prestigious building at 195 Piccadilly, London.

Ryff CEO and founder, Roy Taylor, will be on stage with an icon from the music industry and Simon Goldberg from media and entertainment lawyers SMB, to talk about Ryff’s new creative platform.

Ryff's new platform called Spheera™ will be released on 4 July, ' Independence Day.' It will connect a trillion hours of visual media from storytellers, creators, TV and film studios, streamers, and broadcasters with 53M small, medium, and large brands worldwide.

Ryff has ingested and integrated content into platforms and channels such as Sky TV, ITV, A&E, Hallmark, Viacom, Channel 4, CBS, Viu TV, ESPN, Hulu, Apple TV, Paramount+, NBC, and others. Brands such as Coca-Cola, Intel, General Mills (Cinnamon Toast Crunch), Diageo (Baileys), Mars (Orbit), and over 50 others already successfully use Ryff technology.

Gartner predicts that by 2024, 70% of brands will redeploy at least 10% of their media budget to VPP (Virtual Product Placement) in entertainment content. "Against a backdrop of unrelenting social and economic pressures, marketing leaders look toward a future where smarter marketing leads to deeper, more valuable connections between customers and brands," said Andrew Frank, Distinguished VP Analyst in the Gartner Marketing practice.

In their report, New York-based research firm Radicle Insights, backed up by the prestigious Chapman University Film School, predicted that TV channels such as NBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Disney stand to make 100's of millions of dollars from VPP. CEO and Founder Stu Wilson commented that he believes "Ryff's VPP is already having a profound impact on media buyers' plans for this holiday season."

How it works: Ryff invented Scene Intelligence™.

Using proprietary AI, and machine learning (ML) with visual computing, Ryff can discover and make available 'shoppable moments' to brands to a potential audience in North America and Europe for 250,000 hours of the currently available streaming catalogue; not to mention live sports and new TV and film.

By identifying the emotional triggers that create brand recall, positive product sentiment, and intent to purchase, Ryff is revolutionizing a moribund product placement industry into a new multi-billion $ business able to fulfill much-needed connections between brands and their customers.

For brands, advertisers, and content owners.

Over 2000 shows are available. Spheera™ ingests every kind of visual media, including influencers and live sport, and discovers shoppable moments to purchase individually or en masses to create a brand campaign. Brands can search a growing library of over 2000 TV shows, films, and sports in Spheera™ to find those VPOs™ (Virtual Placement Opportunities) placements suited to their products and target market, filtering by their market category, content genres, formats, and scenes.

Lisa Perrin of ITV said: "Frankly, advertising to consumers today is hard. The public doesn't just hate adverts; they'll even pay to avoid them. Brands must work even harder to earn their attention. Through more innovative means, marketers can authentically reach new audiences at scale by subtly introducing or demonstrating a product in the right piece of content.

Roy Taylor, Ryff CEO, said, "Spheera™ will breathe new financial life into the balance sheets of creators who can retain complete creative control of their content. Our artificial intelligence is rewriting product placement rules for sport, TV, Film, social, and influencers."

Academy Award-winning director Ari Sandel (Goosebumps2, When We First Met, The Duff) said: "Ryff's technology allows filmmakers to benefit from brand dollars without interrupting the creative process. Now marketers can integrate brands once the film is complete."

Ted Schilowitz at Paramount Pictures commented: "As someone who tracks and pays close attention to future technology for the entertainment industry, the idea of dynamic digital product insertion is a valuable pursuit. Ryff has one of the most forward-thinking platforms for proving this, and they are well on their way to achieving their goals."

Henrik Bastin, founder, and CEO of Fabel Entertainment and executive producer at Bosch said: "Ryff is a game changer. Every producer and showrunner have struggled to integrate a brand into a series, drama, feature, reality TV, or sports. We have all experienced traditional product placement where the decisions are made on the shoot, which almost guarantees a compromise. In traditional product placement, brands and the creative vision often clash.

"With Ryff, content makers can add commercial value to the show without constraint and stress. The platform provides us with 20/20 hindsight, and it's now possible in post-production to find opportunities for seamless integration in a natural setting."

Relevant, repeatable, and authentic, Spheera™ is the new age for product placement. Ryff has already won the Comcast AI Lift-Off Challenge and Fast Company's Next Big Thing in Tech.

Find out more at the official product launch in London on Thursday, 25 May, by registering here. The event will provide an opportunity to learn about Ryff's intricate AI technology, offer an exclusive look at the platform in a product demonstration, and hear how adopting an innovative approach to fractional advertising has transformed how brands and content can connect with new audiences.