What was your professional background before founding Playrcart?
Before founding Playrcart, I cut my teeth in the world of PR about fifteen years ago. I started my career working as a publicist for a well-known film studio. I helped to devise, execute and manage PR strategies for film titles that many people would still recognise today.
From there, I began to gain more experience in wider marketing efforts, especially as many companies were beginning to explore digital marketing. I went all in on digital, moving into marketing for film, music and gaming clients, and eventually built my own entertainment-focused agency.
What was the catalyst for launching the business?
One common thread began to emerge during my many years as a marketing professional in the entertainment industry: taking film as an example, we were spending significant amounts of money on beautiful advertising assets, fans were engaging with the content, yet we were still failing to move the needle when it came to actual bums on seats. It was then that I realised that we were underutilising one of our most valuable pieces of real estate – the advertising asset itself. That is when the idea for Playrcart took shape.
What is Playrcart?
Playrcart is a video commerce advertising technology that makes any advertising or marketing asset instantly transactional. The ultimate goal of creating transactional ads is that we will convert the customer when their attention is highest (within the ad itself).
We’ve been fortunate to land a few significant brands early on in our startup journey, including Walgreens Boots Alliance, Anheuser-Busch ABInbev, Warner Bros. Entertainment and William Grant & Sons. Each brand aims to reach customers with a different call-to-action, depending on their KPIs and product.
For AB InBev, we are live with them on a campaign for their Corona Beer brand where customers can order the product directly within the ad, fulfilled by Amazon. We can also deploy across live streaming and have recently done so for a charity event on Facebook, which allowed those viewing the live stream to donate instantly within the stream itself.
How does Playrcart’s operation address an unmet need?
Currently, there is no other technology on the market (that we are aware of) that allows a person to complete an entire transaction without ever leaving the ad. Right now, ‘shoppable’ video is rising in popularity, but a transaction is entirely dependent on the customer clicking out of the ad. We have significant announcements coming soon which underlines the size of the industry opportunity.
How do you collaborate with businesses on their advertising?
We work directly with brands, networks and agencies to maximise the ROI on any rich media asset. This includes images, video, GIFs, live streams and CTV advertising. Playrcart integrates directly into the creative pulling the brands ecommerce and payment stack into the ad itself. The process of going live is dependent on each partner’s needs, but it can be a handful of days to weeks. The results have been very encouraging so far.
What common mistakes do businesses make when it comes to advertising?
Playrcart was designed to help businesses make their existing advertising assets work harder. So, I may be biased in saying that the biggest mistake I’ve noticed with businesses that we work with is that they are underutilising all of the compelling content that they’ve invested in.
For example, when Walgreens Boots Alliance tapped our team to integrate a transactional call-to-action in advertising assets for skincare brand Liz Earle, the brand saw the ‘clicks’ required to achieve checkout online reduced by 70%.
What are your aspirations for Playrcart in the coming years?
We just closed an early funding round at £1M and announced Peter Scott as chairman. On the horizon is international expansion, as we’re looking at growing our presence in both Europe and the United States.
Glen Dormieux is founder at Playrcart.