An Entirely New Approach to Ad Verification and more...
Proof Of Play (POP) and it’s revolutionary approach to advertising accountability was created from the extensive experience of Power-Link Software, a software suite that has provided ad reconciliation solutions for the past 15 years to over 6,000 stations in North America and Europe. Founded in 1991, by Richard H. Rowland, who after over a decade working as a radio station chief engineer, discovered a great need for methods to interface traffic and digital audio storage systems. An invention was born of necessity when he wrote an interface between the traffic and automation system at Rowland Gulf Radio.
Advertising accountability needed a new approach
POP positions itself as an integrated third party to test and approve commercial airplay. Working *with* the broadcaster, we can produce a much more accurate and relevant report to the ad buyers while enabling many operational benefits for the radio operation.
Account executives now have a new tool to send “live reports” to ad buyers. Our “live reports” are reports that change as the Ad flight progresses. These reports can contain: future schedule times of ads, current activity of ads, activity over a specific date range or simply a final tally of ads aired at the point of billing. With our Sound Proof routines working in the background the advertiser and broadcaster will be instantly assured of correct media delivery Each time an ad is aired it is examined for similarity to itself at other times or against
a master copy or another audio source. This will insure that any erroneous, unexpected,
incomplete or unauthorized airplay “covering commercials” are immediately detected and
reported to station personnel within minutes.
As this system identifies and reconciles each Ad when it is aired, it is also a great platform for generating a real time “Call To Action”. A Call To Action is typically a toll free number, web address, email address or application bookmark for allowing a listener to instantly respond to an Ad. POP will provide a web based process to allow the addition and control of these “Calls To Action” so that when certain Ads hit the airwaves, their pre-assigned real time data is made available to applications running on smart devices enabling an immediate and documented listener response. Our Apple certified programing team is currently building an API and sample iPhone apps that simultaneously display: advertiser’s Logo, contact methods,
coupons, web sites, Google Map data and an relevant Google Search using the Advertiser and
the product. Any combination of these “calls to action” can be pushed out to smart devices so
that listeners can now immediately and verifiably respond to ads.
Call Centers or other pre-air notification
Call Centers will benefit from POP’s ability to give them a pre-notification or a “heads up” of when their commercial is about to air, with reasonable certainty from recent airplay. As it will know that commercials for that station are airing accurately, it can predict the airing time of an Ad more precisely and alert a call center to readiness. Any type of pre-airing activity can be assigned to better ready the advertisers or call systems to receive calls and transact flawlessly.
For consumers, POP enables a “consumer shopping aid” that allows a listener to go to the station’s website and search for a product of interest. POP will then return the most recent Ads aired on the station - or from the parent company’s local cluster of stations - that were advertising the product of the consumer’s interest. We also have procured RadioAdFinder.net so that ads airing in another market can also be searched as well.
Media Check = Media Readiness
Power-Link’s Media Check product has been an undeniable hit with radio station personnel who are conscientious about having production media ready at the proper airtime. To make a great product better, we are moving the Media Check functions to the POP web site so it can take advantage of POP’s extensive and indexed air play history and media comparison. This will also allow a 24 hour ability to inspect the station’s readiness and past performance in terms of media errors.
Social Media - Instant Updating
Calls to Actions can be submitted to social media sites (Eg: Facebook, Twitter etc) so that real time data complete with contact information is pushed out to listeners who use these sites. Proof Of Play introduces several new revenue opportunities as many of the functions mentioned here merit additional charges. Proof Of Play’s fully computerized method will allow stations to actually profit from it’s services as the comparatively low price can be easily offset by the extra revenue created.
BIO: Power-Link President and founder, Rick Rowland (pictured here with his wife, Erika at Central Park in NY) is developer and author of all software systems. A graduate of Brown, Rick has spent over 15 years in radio engineering. Career highlights include serving as engineering consultant for the South Africa Broadcast Company, engineering at stations such as WQIK / Jacksonville and KPLZ / Seattle, and now for the past 15 years, he has developed and operated Power-Link Software Systems. (second language: French)
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