Xaxis, WPP’s programmatic media and technology platform, announced today the formal launch of Light Reaction, a new mobile-first performance advertising business with an innovative outcomes-based, pay-for-performance media model. Light Reaction’s performance model is designed to combine scientific insight into how audiences perceive, relate and react to advertising with the data resources and scale of Xaxis to deliver highly accountable results for global brands. At launch, Light Reaction will be available in 20 markets across North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Light Reaction’s response-oriented methodology and model is designed to maximize the volume of outcomes a brand is able to achieve. In an engagement with German retailer Walbusch, Light Reaction was tasked with the specific outcome of driving new customer sales. Utilizing real-time creative optimization, Light Reaction’s campaign increased new customer sales by 17 percent, while decreasing new customer acquisition costs by 8 percent. Walbusch utilized Light Reaction’s pay-for-performance model and only paid for directly attributed new customer sales.
Light Reaction’s performance marketing platform leverages the mobile-first technology of recent Xaxis acquisition ActionX, a mobile app and cross-screen advertising; the programmatic capabilities of the QuismaX performance products previously provided by GroupM’s QUISMA; and Turbine, Xaxis’ proprietary data management platform, which provides real-time audience segmentation and modelling capabilities. Advertisers will have the opportunity to pair Light Reaction outcome-focused media products alongside Xaxis audience products. Light Reaction will be led by general manager Paul Dolan, who previously served as executive vice-president, general manager, performance marketing at Xaxis.
“Light Reaction makes it easy for global advertisers to garner the outcomes they want with zero upfront risk and unparalleled capability to scale results across multiple channels,” says Dolan in a press statement. “We’ve developed a model for performance marketing that allows brands to meet precise objectives of customer response while drawing a direct line between ads and results.”
In addition to leveraging audience data, high-performing media inventory and real-time programmatic technologies, Light Reaction is developing tools that tap the emerging field of perceptual science to help advertisers stand out amidst the crowded digital real estate of consumers’ mobile devices. This understanding of the perceptual pathway by which audiences process and respond to dynamic creative will enhance Light Reaction’s ability to maximize desired outcomes under the broadest possible set of conditions. While Light Reaction’s mobile-first approach reflects the ever-increasing prominence of mobile, its products are channel agnostic. Advertisers can run coordinated campaigns across multiple channels to capture outcomes wherever they may be.
“Mobile is the only digital media channel that’s essentially always-on, making it a huge target for global advertisers,” adds Brian Lesser, global CEO of Xaxis. “With Light Reaction we’re arming clients to cut the through the clutter of the space with a platform that takes performance marketing to a new level of customization and accountability, particularly in driving outcomes via mobile devices.”
