Rob Hall launches adtech startup Parallel in Sydney

Rob Hall has launched adtech company Parallel in Sydney and London, marking his return to the sector after the sale of Playground xyz to GumGum.

Parallel focuses on digital advertising and is introducing what it calls Customer Suitability, a media-buying approach designed to assess whether an ad placement is appropriate for the person viewing it. The system is aimed at video environments and platforms.

Hall co-founded Playground xyz in Sydney in 2015 and later served as Chief Data Officer at GumGum after the acquisition. Parallel launches with a team of six across London and Sydney and has secured AU$4 million in seed funding from Shearwater Capital.

Customer suitability

Its platform uses artificial intelligence, large data sets and digital twins, described as synthetic replicas of consumers, to model how viewers may respond to combinations of advertising creative and surrounding content. Those scores are then fed into live campaign buying.

According to Parallel, the system matches a brand's creative and audience inputs with 1,000 Australian or UK human-calibrated digital twins, though brands can also use their own audience data. The platform simulates likely responses across different content, assigns a resonance score to each combination and re-scores campaigns as new content appears.

Hall said the industry has long checked placements for brand safety and brand suitability, but has not routinely tested whether a placement is suitable for the consumer.

"Today, impressions are checked for brand safety and brand suitability, but never for whether they're right for the customer. That's Customer Suitability: the missing piece, and the one Parallel set out to solve," said Rob Hall, Chief Executive Officer, Parallel.

"Using the customer's voice as a signal adds huge value to the millions of activation decisions brands make every day. Delivered via human-calibrated digital twins, we simulate and score the resonance between a customer, an ad and the content it runs against, then push that into real-time activation," said Hall.

Performance testing

Parallel said its digital twins achieved 80.4% accuracy when compared with real human responses, and that the models can test millions of possible combinations in seconds.

Hall described the product as a virtual focus group that runs before an impression is bought. Parallel also cited industry research from IAS showing that improving the fit between creative and content can lead to 4x higher unaided recall, 2x greater favourability and 1.5x higher receptivity.

Parallel said its own backtests linked its simulations with gains in media metrics, brand lift and conversion rates.

"Backtests against our simulations show positive gains to media metrics, brand lift and conversion rates," added Hall.

Agency support

The pitch has drawn support from agency executives. Jack Cantwell, Global Client Lead at Dentsu, said the tool could help brands make better use of their data and respond more quickly in automated buying environments.

"One powerful lever for creating meaningful competitive advantage is gaining a high-resolution, dynamic understanding of audiences, and another is agile execution. Parallel is well positioned to help brands maximise the value of their data and capitalise on algorithmic opportunities, creating impact through the full marketing value chain," said Jack Cantwell, Global Client Lead, Dentsu.

Stefan Kurkic, Head of Programmatic at Wavemaker Global, framed the idea more simply as a test of whether an ad is likely to create a positive experience for the customer.

"Customer Suitability introduces a new way of thinking about media investment by asking a simple question: is this likely to be a positive experience for the customer?" said Kurkic.

Investor backing

Backer Shearwater Capital also invested in Playground xyz and has returned for Hall's new venture. Zac Zavos, Managing Partner at the Sydney-based firm, said Parallel reflects a broader effort to find new optimisation metrics for advertisers.

"Rob stands out globally as one of the true leaders in adtech. Playground xyz shaped how a whole industry thinks about attention in digital media. Along the way, he and the team built a great business that we were fortunate to back," said Zac Zavos, Managing Partner, Shearwater Capital.

"With Parallel, they have again made a breakthrough for brand advertisers. Consumer Suitability is the ideal metric to optimise toward right now, and we were excited by the depth of technology and data science the Parallel team has brought to life. We are thrilled to back them again as the company launches in two markets concurrently," said Zavos.