Last month, ESCP-Europe held their annual ‘Made in ESCP Europe’, their day long pitch event which showcased 35 startups founded by ESCP grads. There several promising startups that pitched, including one in particular that caught my eye, called You Can Have It. Founded by ESCP alumn Didier Baptiste, You Can Have It seeks to solve one of the key holy grails of advertisers – how to make a direct link between relevant, high-value content and TV viewing, with a goal of achieving better results. You Can Have It is betting that the rise of the multi-device / multi-screen usage will help address this challenge.
The beta-version of You Can Have just launched this June, which is a platform to deliver consumers tailored content while they’re watching specific television programs. Companies and brands can work directly with the You Can Have It team to set up their campaign on the platform. The business model is structured around affiliate revenue (in the case of ecommerce or promotions) or a per-click model.
According to Baptiste, in developed markets such as France, the US and the UK, around 50% of TV viewers already use other devices while they’re watching, which creates an interesting opportunity to deliver more customized content to viewers. As we’ve written about before, AdTech continues to be a sector on fire in France. Although Criteo is leading the way, several others including the very promising TVTY (here and here), AdYoulike, Mobirider, and many more are making waves in the sector. So while You Can Have It is in an increasingly competitive space, they’re also a part of a thriving ecosystem to leverage and learn from.
At the moment, only the internet version is available, but one can quickly see the potential once the both the internet and mobile versions are available. Mobile devices are even more relevant in the multi-screen viewing scenario and are also, arguably, a more user-friendly means of checking-out content during TV time. According to Baptiste, development of the mobile version (set for launch in early 2015), is, however, not the most challenging aspect of their model. The first priority for them is building-out the content side of things, namely getting more companies and brands on-board. This looks to be evolving fairly quickly for them with interest already coming from potential clients in France. However, they plan to go international quickly, with the US (which is, unsurprisingly, a top priority for them), Germany, the UK and Turkey being big opportunities in the medium term and China and Brazil in the long-term.
As the platform develops in terms of functionality and users, they’ll also build-out the analytics side of things, giving them the ability to offer clients specific advice on better matching high-value content with TV programming and detailed information on the effectiveness of their campaigns. While traditional advertisers are a logical target for them, they’ve also identified small companies who, due to the prohibitive costs, rarely have the means to reach consumers via TV as a big opportunity.
While You Can Have It is still at the very beginning of their story, it is clear that they’ve identified a highly promising and rapidly evolving space. Here’s to hoping the can crack the challenge of getting brands and companies on-board and establish themselves as yet another French Adtech success story.