Big brands have a big challenge – how do they communicate with their consumers who are becoming increasingly mobile-centric, disengaging from traditional broadcast media on which advertisers have historically relied to get their message across? Trying to apply a broadcast approach to a small screen creates a poor brand experience, so rethinking for mobile has become a priority. Much as the internet revolution led to new global leaders in digital advertising, the rapid expansion of mobile is also providing the opportunity for new disruptive players to emerge.
Motim Technologies is a mobile software technology company that has been innovating in mobile marketing technology since 2007, providing creative technology for leading global brands and their advertising agencies. Motim develops software technology in-house to produce compelling mobile experiences that consumers choose to engage with, creating positive brand engagement that doesn’t feel like advertising.
An example includes use of Motim’s original computer vision technology in its Pedigree “Dog-A-Like” mobile and Facebook app that was used to analyse and match a user’s face to a dog currently in a rescue shelter that most looked like the user.
This fun experience and emotional engagement attracted over 15 million users without broadcast advertising, generating extremely positive brand engagement for Pedigree and dramatically increasing the rate of shelter-dog adoption.
Other examples include inventing technology that can detect when a phone is underwater for the launch of a range of high-end Sony mobile phones, a “minion translator” for the launch of the Despicable Me movie in the USA, and creating a hidden album launch for global superstar Skrillex that enticed 200,000 fans to be engaged live in the app for its reveal.
With a forecasted US$25b in 2016 mobile marketing spend in the USA, and growth rates of 34% year-on-year in this market, there is a substantial market for Motim to address.
Given the company’s range of technology solutions and proven track record of success in delivering to global brands, Motim is positioning to lead a major shift in the way brands use mobile as a media channel.
This offering is an opportunity for investors to participate in a significant development in a growing global market.
Reinventing the Advertising Industry
Traditionally, brands have their advertising budgets split into two categories: “creative” and “media”, largely controlled by an appointed “Agency of Record” via a multi-year contract covering various forms of advertising. While mobile is recognised as a strategically important new medium, this traditional advertising model has restricted the budgets to a relatively small percentage of the overall spend.
Motim is already successful in securing international business from global brands. However its work to date has been bespoke software development projects and it has therefore only been able to access the relatively small creative proportion of the digital advertising budget allocated to software development and innovation. Motim’s challenge (and that of brands) has been how to address the much larger media portion of advertising budgets (typically 90% of total advertising spend), such as that used for buying television commercial time.
Motim has again reinvented how consumers can use their mobile, and in a way that is compatible with traditional advertising industry structures.
After several years of developing key technology components, building international market relationships with leading advertisers and their agencies and carrying out market validation with key existing clients, Motim is set to expand and tap into the much larger media budgets through the development of its SaaS (software-as-a-service) platform. The platform acts as a central node in the delivery of new engaging mobile experiences to consumers: experiences scheduled by the brand, and initiated by the user.
At its core, the Motim SaaS platform works in the following way:
The ability for the experience to be changed in real-time is a prime feature of Motim’s platform. Through interacting with the platform in this way, the brand or their agency is buying a media slot (the equivalent of buying billboard space or a television ad) through scheduling the interactive experience delivered through Motim’s technology, allowing for significantly larger (media) budgets to be utilised.
Motim is planning to launch its SaaS platform in March 2016 with a key global partner (likely to be an existing client of Motim’s). This platform will bring substantial opportunity for recurring revenue growth through many of the world’s biggest brands, many of which are already familiar with Motim and see the company as a sustained leader in the increasingly important mobile channel.
With advertisers providing interactive assets on the platform (set up as campaigns), and end-users experiencing these via mobile apps (which they can download for free), advertisers are effectively providing consumers with sponsored entertainment and information which is relevant to the user’s context. With its extensive experience in developing similar solutions over several years as bespoke apps, Motim is confident that each of its main clients can provide up to 50 campaigns at any given time, and a single effective campaign can lead to the addition of several million users on the service. (Motim currently achieves 250,000 to 15m users typically for its international campaigns.)
One year after launch, Motim forecasts approximately 100,000 mobile-users, reaching 800,000 after two years. Similarly campaign growth is expected to compound to 20 after one year and 50 after two years. Both of these are considered conservative, relative to Motim’s previous experience.
SaaS revenue is a factor of both usage by end-users via mobile apps and the number of campaigns (with advertisers paying for each view). Forecasted comparative SaaS monthly revenue after two years is 20x that of the one-year mark. The platform gives these brands the tools necessary to fit with their existing advertising agency relationships, making Motim a major marketing vendor and giving brands a major leap forward in mobile consumer engagement.
Motim plans to increase its research and development operations in New Zealand as the business grows, while other functions expand into key markets, particularly the USA. While the current business plan is focused on development of the core business, it does acknowledge that there will be related business opportunities for growth, including the development of content for the SaaS platform on behalf of clients.
The Investment
To launch its SaaS platform in the USA and position the company for subsequent rapid expansion, Motim is seeking up to NZ$1,500,000 (24.1% of equity), with a minimum of NZ$500,000 (9.6%) to be raised.
This investment will:
Motim is a proud example of New Zealand creative technology being used around the world by some of the world’s largest brands. With this investment, Motim can continue to position as a substantial global player in this rapidly growing space.
Motim has many years of international experience of delivering highly technical and creative mobile technology for global brands. The company creates brand engagement using mobile device features such as camera, microphone, location and gamification to “wow” consumers with surprising, entertaining and often useful experiences that don’t feel like advertising. Each experience is tailored to suit the brand and target market, and Motim has earned and maintained a reputation of technical and creative excellence.
The SaaS platform that Motim is launching in 2016 retains these core attributes, and is intended to cement the company’s position as a world leader in highly scalable, creative mobile marketing technology. Through efficient generation of growing recurring revenues, the platform creates substantial potential value growth for shareholders.
How will Motim’s clients use its SaaS platform?
A key part of Motim’s strategy is to launch its SaaS platform to deploy much of the company’s creative technology into a cohesive platform to fit with traditional advertising agency structures. This will enable brands or their agencies to create their own media assets, and to place media-buy (comparable with purchasing a television advertising slot) in Motim’s platform. Purchasing of media is a standard advertising industry behaviour and much of the industry’s structures and budgets are built around this model. By providing a media-purchasing component in its offering, Motim introduces compatibility with the much larger media budgets.
Motim’s clients will use their creative agencies to develop media content. This could be in various formats that Motim supports (3D, video, audio, web, mobile app content).
The client’s assigned media agency can then buy placement in Motim’s platform, setting spend budgets and defining the media placement using campaign parameters, such as time, location, and relevant products.
What will the consumer experience look like?
With Motim’s new platform, a user will, via their mobile, look at a consumer product (for example a soft drink bottle) registered by the advertiser (via their media agency) in Motim’s system. The user then experiences the content on their phone. They may experience a 3D augmented-reality experience, or it may be a music download, a recipe, or other relevant experience that the advertiser has established for that interaction.
This “digital activation” of physical consumer products can transform the way consumers engage with brands. Consumers willingly and actively interact with the content, creating a stronger brand association, instead of passively and indifferently receiving it. It is creative and engaging. It will differentiate brands – those that are on Motim’s platform will be digitally-enhanced through consumers’ devices, whereas brands not using the platform will be left behind.
Technology
Motim has spent the past eight years working with global brands, successfully delivering enterprise-class mobile apps for global brands through developing its technology in-house.
All of this has been developed in Christchurch and Motim has plans to accelerate its technology development with the launch of its new platform through continuous deployment of enhanced features in conjunction with its global clients.