• by Tyler Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_tyler, July 10, 2015

TV ad tech firm Simulmedia has long -- with long being a relative term here, as the company was founded in 2009 -- emulated a programmatic digital marketplace for television, but it is now also enabling pure-play digital marketers, namely app and game developers, to leverage TV as a marketing medium.

The company is doing this through the launch of a new business unit named SimulX, which aims to help mobile app developers get targeted TV campaigns up and running. Preetham Mallikarjuna, SVP of product strategy, will lead the SimulX team.

“Previously, Simulmedia's business was exclusively focused on helping ‘TV-first’ advertisers, brands like Wendy's, Choice Hotels, FOX, UFC,” said Dave Morgan, founder and CEO of Simulmedia. “SimulX is about delivering the same kind of value for ‘digital-first’ advertisers like mobile app developers, who now need to utilize TV and its massive reach to grow their brands and their user base."

SimulX is not a trading desk, explained Morgan. It is a marketing platform tailor-made for mobile app developers. SimulX’s key client base will consist of developers and brands themselves, per Morgan, though the unit does expect to work with some agencies as well.

And while the platform will help app developers run data-driven TV campaigns -- using data, predictive science and software -- Morgan said he’s “not a fan of the term ‘programmatic’ as it’s been applied to TV.” He added, “SimulX is not a Wall Street-like trading platform, which is how I think of programmatic."

SimulX is, however, meant to “deliver Web-like ad targeting and ROI to TV,” Morgan asserted.

In the case of the SimulX platform, Morgan is willing to put his money where his mouth is. SimulX will make money by sharing in the revenue lift generated for its TV media partners, TV networks and cable, satellite and telco TV distributors, Morgan said.

This represents another shift in the data-driven TV market, which has undergone quite a bit of change recently. It opens up TV ad-targeting to a crowd that’s not only new to TV advertising, but relatively new to advertising in general. 

It also brings TV advertising to the digital crowd in a language they understand. The significance rests in the fact that the digital crowd is now being catered to by TV-first thinkers.