Brand Affinity Technologies

Brand Affinity Technologies (BAT) unlocks the marketing power of celebrity through research, endorsements, and interactive experiences. BAT’s research engine provides daily analysis of more than 40,000 celebrities and athletes, and powers BAT’s other offerings. BAT’s Endorsement Platform is used by advertisers to identify, license, and activate the most effective talent for digital and cross-media campaigns, based on brand and targeting considerations. BAT also leverages its research and technology engine to engage fans directly through Fantapper, which brings interactive apps to celebrity content across the web.

Founded in 2007, BAT was labeled by Fortune Magazine in August 2010 as the future in endorsements.

Founders

When brothers Chad Steelberg and Ryan Steelberg set out to build BAT, they envisioned an entirely automated Platform that would put the power of celebrity into the hands of every advertiser & marketer.

As technology veterans, the Steelbergs have extensive backgrounds in building market-changing businesses including dMarc Broadcasting, developer of the technology platform that fundamentally changed radio advertising (sold to Google in 2006); 2Can Media, one of the first and largest Internet advertising sales organizations (sold to CMGI in 1999); and AdForce, the world’s largest independent ad serving and management solution at the time of its sale in 1999. Brand Affinity Technologies (BAT) is founded on the same underlying principal that all of these ventures have shared: efficiency and profitability go hand in hand.

Product and Services

Endorsements

BAT relieves legacy barriers so national and local advertisers can easily use cross media endorsements in offline, digital, and social campaigns. BAT’s proprietary & patented Endorsement Platform provides real-time affinity metrics on more than 40,000 athletes and celebrities. In days instead of months, BAT's Platform let's advertisers identify and secure ideal celebrity talent, launch BAT-enabled campaigns, and track & optimize ad performance. BAT has worked with many brands, including: Intuit, Ford, Pepsi and Samsung.

@BAT Social

@BAT is celebrity-driven social media endorsements and advertising. @BAT uses BAT's intelligence to identify the best social media endorsers for a brand, and activates them quickly. A previous study showed that @BAT endorsed campaigns result in 50% improvement in CPA over non-endorsed advertising, and click-through rates are 21x higher with endorsed @BAT campaigns.

Beelya Memorabilia

Beelya is the largest infrastructure for traditional and virutal memorabilia from the largest pool of celebrity talent.

Fantapper

Fantapper is BAT’s first consumer product. It lets fans interact in real-time with any celebrity image or text, no matter where they are online. It automatically brings up the most popular web apps, connecting fans to celebrity videos, news, social networks, storefronts, custom messages and content, and more, all without leaving the webpage. Fantapper can be downloaded for free at fantapper.com.

History

  • Brand Affinity Technologies acquired Fantapper in November, 2010
  • Brand Affinity Technologies acquired ROI Media Direct in June, 2010
  • Brand Affinity Technologies acquired Beelya in January, 2010

Recognition

Brand Affinity Technologies has received many awards for its technology and services:

  • 2011 American Business Awards for Best New Product or Service of the Year Finalist
  • 2011 Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award by the Orange County Business Journal
  • 2011 OnMedia Top 100 Companies
  • 2010 OMMA Award Finalist for Intuit campaign
  • 2010 AlwaysOn Global 250 Companies
  • 2010 OnMedia Top 100 Companies
  • 2009 Southern California Venture Network Award
  • 2009 OC Metro 40 Under 40 Award
  • 2009 Sports Business Journal 40 Under 40 Award