SHERMAN OAKS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BEN, the entertainment AI company that places brands into influencer, streaming, TV, music, and film content, today announced a new executive hire, record-breaking company growth, and expanded AI capabilities in Q3.
BEN has seen exponential growth in 2020, and has continued to expand its team, AI tools, and client roster. In Q3, BEN signed more than 42 new clients, including Clarins, Kitsch, Forever 21, and Schutz, and executed more than 3,000 placements across influencer marketing. BEN’s European team also successfully signed new video game clients, deepening the reach of influencer marketing initiatives within the gaming space. Thanks to the combined efforts of its teams, BEN expanded its reach in the gaming, beauty and fashion, and music verticals, and the company saw a 20% growth in revenue last quarter. In order to continue on this growth trajectory through the end of the year and beyond, BEN aims to hire 40+ new employees starting in Q4.
In tandem, BEN made a notable addition to its executive team, welcoming Lindsay Cohen as its new EVP of Strategy, Client Services, and Marketing. Cohen is a former BEN client and brings a wealth of client-side experience to her new role, as she has overseen influencer, social media, and brand marketing for companies including Twitch, Ubisoft, Dolby, and HBO. She brings years of deep expertise in building household-name brands, developing internal teams, and launching innovative and award-winning influencer marketing campaigns. At BEN, she will provide client services and strategy for influencer marketing; lead BEN’s brand marketing; and support the company’s growth as it continues to scale across verticals like gaming, music, and fashion and beauty.
“BEN has developed cutting-edge technological infrastructure, enabling brands to scale their marketing campaigns through authentic content partnerships with guaranteed ROI. These efforts cement BEN as an industry-leading company in the product placement and influencer marketing space,” said Cohen. “I’m excited to join the team during this time of rapid growth and innovation, and to contribute to our groundbreaking work for clients with AI technology at the forefront.”
To advance its innovation in influencer marketing and continue leading the industry in AI-powered capabilities, BEN introduced three new AI tools this quarter — influencer prediction, improved discovery, and audience engagement. BEN’s influencer prediction capability is an industry-first, AI-driven pricing tool for influencer marketing that allows BEN’s team to provide greater financial transparency to brands and influencers, all while vetting and standardizing pricing across the marketplace based on data-backed machine learning models. This tool clarifies a traditionally opaque process, helping influencers monetize their content and brands make the most informed partnership decisions.
BEN also introduced an improved discovery tool that uses AI to automatically analyze, evaluate, and add to the company’s robust library of influencers. This tool allows BEN to keep a steady pulse on all social media accounts, from the accounts of rising micro-influencer, to those with already well-established platforms. Finally, BEN’s enhanced audience engagement tool helps the team determine which influencers have the healthiest channels in terms of authentic followers and level of audience engagement. Combined, BEN’s influencer prediction, improved discovery, and audience engagement tools provide a deeper look into the social media landscape, enabling BEN to facilitate partnerships with the most authenticity, value, and ROI.
“It’s been a year of hard work and discovery at BEN. We’re seeing breakthroughs on the AI front that are completely reimagining the way we look at entertainment marketing,” said Ricky Ray Butler, CEO of BEN. “Our expanded tools are a result of our team consistently iterating on out-of-the-box solutions for clients. We’re thrilled with the new capabilities and the results we’ve seen with them, and we look forward to experimenting and ideating on the next wave of technology.”
To continue developing its AI capabilities and executing exemplary client campaigns, BEN kicked off a collaboration with NVIDIA, the world leader in accelerated computing and AI. BEN will be one of the first influencer marketing companies to participate in NVIDIA Inception, a virtual accelerator that nurtures cutting-edge AI startups.
BEN chose the NVIDIA DGX A100 system for its proven performance with deep learning. As the world’s most advanced AI system for analytics, training, and inference, the DGX A100 provides leading-edge performance to develop and train complex AI models, enabling customers to gain deeper insights and improve product placement and influencer marketing campaigns.
BEN looks forward to continuing to improve its AI toolkit, highlighting the company’s dedication to continually innovating in the AI space. With this technology, BEN will be able to train its AI models more quickly and efficiently than ever before, adding deeper precision and greater value to its predictive analytics.
About BEN Group
BEN Group Inc. is an entertainment AI company that places brands into influencer, streaming, TV, music, and film content with guaranteed ROI. BEN Group consists of the world’s largest influencer marketing business, the world’s largest product placement agency, and Greenlight, a global rights and licensing business.
With its proprietary AI and platform, BEN is the first and only company using machine learning and deep learning neural networks to identify high-impact opportunities for authentic, non-disruptive product placement and influencer marketing. BEN combines its AI with 40+ years of experience and a team of industry experts to connect brands with the right audiences and content opportunities in meaningful ways. BEN works with the world’s top brands, including Microsoft, General Motors, Unilever, Tencent, and General Mills.
