Ad tech company MNTN buys QuickFrame to launch 'creative as a subscription'

Mark Douglas, MNTN CEO & President, and Lucas Loeffler, QuickFrame CEO, join Yahoo Finance Live to discuss their new creative subscription model that addresses changing trends in digital advertising.

Video Transcript

- Well, let's shift gears and talk about marketing, because the marketing software platform Mountain has just purchased the video creation platform QuickFrame in its latest major deal after buying Ryan Reynolds's Maximum Effort ad agency last year. Mark Douglas, Mountain CEO and President, and Lucas Loeffler, CEO and founder of QuickFrame, join us now. Thank you both so much for being here. And Mark, I'll start with you. Tell us a little bit more about this deal, because Mountain has been quite acquisitive this past year. And why was QuickFrame the right fit right now?

MARK DOUGLAS: The reason why is we launched the service right before the end of the year we call "creative as a subscription." And the idea behind it is really simple. We want all of our advertisers to have lots of creative for their television ads, and to have it at a reasonable price, and to have it frequently every quarter. And so Maximum Effort was the driver behind that in delivering on that creative. And the first ad they did was the Peloton ad that, you know, unexpectedly went very viral. And so QuickFrame is, essentially, the next extension of that. They take-- they're essentially like Uber for creative, and they take that to all companies. So any company can participate in Creative-as-a-Subscription on top of the Mountain platform.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Mark, great to see you. I'm going to throw this question to Lucas, because I recently put TikTok on my phone, and I'm allowing the Chinese government to spy and learn all about me. And it's addicting. You go through those videos really fast.

So the question I would have for you, if I've got a 30-second traditional kind of ad, but I know, when I'm on the TikTok platform, you've gotta get me within 3 seconds, 3 to 5 seconds, how do you take that 30, create that thing that you know I'm going to go through, but make sure that I'm there long enough so that somebody gets paid?

LUCAS LOEFFLER: Yeah, so it's a really great question. I would actually advocate that you want to get the user's attention in, maybe, a 1/3 of a second. QuickFrame actually specializes not only in editing video, but also creating original video. And so today, we actually create a piece of original video content every hour on average through a marketplace of thousands of different content creators in close to 60 different countries.

And so brands large and small, as Mark mentioned, basically request to have a new video made. And those creators, very similar to Uber, apply for that project and then go create the video.

ADAM SHAPIRO: So just in the real world, Lucas, if, for instance, this discussion, we will cut this discussion and put it onto the web, but could we then come to your platform and say, get me a TikTok from this? How much would it cost us, if Yahoo Finance did that, to create the TikTok experience and then get it posted?

LUCAS LOEFFLER: Sure. So on average, the piece of original video is created for close to $750 per video. But because you're a friend of the company and Mark, we might be able to cut you a deal.

ADAM SHAPIRO: [LAUGHS] Well, thank you.

- Mark--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

MARK DOUGLAS: Sure, go ahead.

- No, go ahead.

MARK DOUGLAS: I was going to say, and better yet, when you're doing your TV ads on the Mountain platform, there's no additional cost. It's just bundled in with the cost of our platform-- so with the media the media you're spending. And so that's the idea behind Creative-as-a-Subscription. You get more and fresh creative and get it often, because it's just bundled with the Mountain platform.

- Well, Mark, And that's a great segue into my next question, because your company-- on its website, even-- has said that television is the most powerful ad medium in the world. We were just talking a little bit about TikTok and social media advertising. So why do you think television is still such a powerful-- if not the most powerful-- way of reaching consumers?

MARK DOUGLAS: Yeah, it's really simple, is that you really commit time to TV. You sit on your couch, you lay in bed, and you commit to being told a story or watching your favorite reality show. And when you do that, the advertising-- if it's fresh, if it's culturally relevant, you know, if it's timely-- is something that people really pay attention to.

So it's not-- in a sense, it extends the entertainment experience. And so no other medium has that other than television. And so that is what makes TV just continues to be so powerful as an advertising medium.

- Mark, you know, in the traditional model, the advertiser of the company comes to you, create us a TV ad. And then, now, you can go over to Lucas, take this TV ad, and create the TikTok. But would it make sense for you to be partnering with the other side of this, which are the networks and the local TV stations, to create a kind of loop? So that those who want to advertise, they come to you to create, but then they have placement in the same process?

MARK DOUGLAS: Yeah, so that's exactly what we do. So we basically have partnerships with every television network in America. And so our customers come to us in order to drive, like, performance ads-- like ads that they can measure. And so we're growing very quickly.

And as a result, we want-- the biggest problem we saw is just getting the ads. And so that's why we acquired Maximum Effort, that's why we acquired QuickFrame, was to solve that problem. But all of that creative then goes into the programming you watch, essentially, on every TV network.

- Lucas, I want to turn this last question and give you the last word here, because we're about a month out from the Super Bowl-- which is, of course, a major tentpole event for advertisers. Can you tell us a little bit about how QuickFrame is going to, potentially, be involved in that experience, and why and how much-- how important it is to have these sort of well-produced ads around these major events?

LUCAS LOEFFLER: Yeah, so you're hitting on a key topic for our business, which is being able to support seasonality. And so where I think QuickFrame is incredibly supportive isn't just for the tentpole, but for the always-on marketer who needs to think multichannel. And so we actually support channels beyond CTV-- Social, eCom, just to name a few. And so our brands actually will look at us as being able to support the Super Bowl commercial, but more often than not for the weekly and ongoing social content that Adam had mentioned before. So we try to focus on shorter-form, tend to be a little bit cheaper-- more cost-effective, as our head of marketing would say-- original content that is basically everything but that seven-figure or super-expensive Super Bowl spot.