Contextual Ad Pioneer, GumGum, Merges Playground xyz’s APAC Media Business, Creating a Powerhouse Ad Suite for the Mindset Era

The Integrated Media Business Completes the Global Rollout of The Mindset Platform™, GumGum’s Cookieless Solution for the Future of Digital Advertising

GumGum, the leading contextual-first, global digital advertising platform, today announces the integration of Playground xyz’s media portfolio into its Asia-Pacific (APAC) business – creating a powerful suite of AI-powered, advanced contextual ad solutions to help advertisers tap into audience mindset and achieve standout attention rates.

Acquired by GumGum in 2021, Playground xyz is one of the world’s top attention-based advertising platforms. The company has developed a raft of award-winning creative ad formats, including Hang Time, Super Skin and Hoverboard, that provide a canvas for enhanced creativity and increased consumer attention rates in digital campaigns. These formats are now fully integrated into GumGum’s fleet of ad solutions.

Playground xyz’s APAC media business will adopt the GumGum brand for unification and global alignment. Playground xyz’s Attention Intelligence Platform (AIP) will continue as a standalone data solution delivering global market-leading attention measurement for GumGum’s media business and the broader industry across Display, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, OLV and more.

AIP’s proprietary metric, Attention Time, uses eye-tracking technology to calculate the amount of time an individual looks at an ad in seconds. A 2019 study with Kantar found Attention Time is 7.5x more powerful at driving brand awareness, and 5.9x more effective at increasing recall, compared to standard viewability measures.

The integration of GumGum’s media businesses in APAC represents the final piece of the global rollout of The Mindset Platform. Launched in North America and Europe last year, The Mindset Platform brings together GumGum’s high impact media products, advanced contextual targeting platform Verity and AIP. Together, creative, context, and attention bridge the gap between brands and consumers, allowing advertisers to meet audiences with the right mindset for the ad message to drive increased attention, better outcomes, and boost ROI.

“In an increasingly crowded and distracted digital ecosystem, the ability to tap into consumer mindset and capture and measure attention has become mission critical for brands,” says Sorrel Osborne, Head of Media, APAC, at GumGum. “The rollout of The Mindset Platform in APAC offers our clients the essence and core DNA of Playground xyz with the increased scale of GumGum. Our combined media and data offering gives brands the tools they need to stand out and achieve better outcomes, with real-time attention insights, a combination of high impact ad products, and cutting-edge contextual intelligence.”

Global pizza brand Domino’s was the first brand to leverage the power of The Mindset Platform for its “50% off” pizza campaign in the United Kingdom. The campaign achieved an average overall return on ad spend (ROAS) of 225% and an additional 3000 hours of attention on one creative element (against control). The campaign won the award for Game-Changing Technology at The Drum Awards for Digital Advertising in 2023.

GumGum is a contextual-first, global digital advertising platform that captures people’s attention, without the use of personal data. We believe that an advertising ecosystem based on understanding a consumer’s active frame of mind rather than behavior builds a more equitable and safer future for consumers, publishers, and advertisers alike. Founded in 2008, GumGum is headquartered in Santa Monica, California and operates in 19 markets worldwide. For more information, visit gumgum.com.

Also published in: Martech Series