(VIDEO) Outbrain Wants To Build A Web Canvas For Brand Stories

The content recommendation engine Outbrain has become known for providing related links to more articles at the foot of news stories. Now it wants to think bigger - and, it seems, more visually - about how it helps advertisers communicate.

The New York- and Tel Aviv-based company has hired Pinterest marketing partnerships head Eric Hadley to the new role of global marketing solutions.

Speaking with Beet.TV at DMEXCO, Outbrain CEO Yaron Galai explained why: "The idea, is some of the best storytellers and content that people will put a budget behind is within brands. They've done a tremendous job telling their stories in old print and TV.

"But, online, there really hasn't been a good canvas for brands to tell their stories. With the addition of Eric, the idea is to bring the best brands in the world and the best agencies to a point where they see the internet as a canvas for telling those stories on the Outbrain platform."

Outbrain says it served 200 billion content recommendations to an audience of 557 million, according to comScore January data.

Galai is also hoping Outbrain, through which advertisers serve marketing messages in the form of editorial content, can capitalize on new technology, found in Apple's iOS 9, that can block standard display advertising.

This interview is part of a series of videos leading up to the DMEXCO conference in Cologne. The series is presented by 4C Insights + Teletrax.

You can find this post on Beet.TV.