Civolution and Vetrya Power International Media Group De Agostini Editore s nd Screen App Designed for the Italian You Market

Digital De Agostini's Super! 2nd screen app enables teenagers to interact with its programmes and win presents

Eindhoven, The Netherlands, January 30 2014 - Civolution, the leading provider of technology and solutions for identifying, managing and monetizing content, and De Agostini Editore, an Italian multinational company leader in creating content, products and services that operates in 30 countries and publishes in 13 languages, today announced the launch of Super!, an innovative 2nd screen app targeting the Italian youth market.

"We are the first in Italy to deploy a 2nd screen app with a teenage audience in mind. Given the Italian youth market's love of smartphones and tablets, we are looking forward to high level of engagements, said Pierfrancesco Gherardi, Managing Director, De Agostini Digital. We strongly believe in delivering original and innovative experiences to our end users. I believe that enabling viewers to interact with the programmes will be critical to TV future successes. The Super! app further evidences our capacity to adapt to the changing media landscape and to develop new strategies to delight our audiences.

The immersive app, deployed by the group's DTT channel Super!, enables teenagers to use an avatar to interact with their favourite programmes. To incentivise its audience to participate, Super! will reward the top 5 weekly users with prizes and gifts. The smartphone and tablet app was developed by Vetrya and relies on its powerful Tivin platform which integrates Civolution's Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology SyncNow to synchronise the experience between the two screens. Upon registration, the young viewer is requested to create an avatar that will be used to interact with the programmes including access to original content, taking part in quizzes and collecting stars to receive valuable gifts such as speakers, headphones, handsets, sunglasses and more.

'The second screen model is the new paradigm in interactive TV. We are investing heavily on these new innovative digital services as we truly believe that these will transform the world of television as we know it today,'' said Luca Tomassini, founder and CEO of Vetrya. 'Through our partnership with Civolution, using our platform tivin (www.tivin.it), we offer a series of 2nd screen interactive TV services - couch commerce, voting, social TV - that can be monetized by publishers and broadcasters exploiting the natural channel of return internet through specific applications. We are proud to enable the innovative television channel Super! towards full convergence between the world of traditional TV and broadband''.

We have seen a strong rise in demand for ACR technologies over the past few months to sync innovative 2nd screen apps or enable TV-Synchronized advertisements. This is a good indicator that the media and advertising industry continues to embrace the multi-screen TV reality and the need to bridge the two together, said Andy Nobbs, CMO, Civolution. We are pleased to be working again with our Italian partner Vetrya to enable De Agostini Editore to create stronger ties with their younger audiences, who as digital natives' will naturally adopt companion screens apps while watching the TV that's most relevant to their age-group.

The synchronization between the content and the second screen relies on Civolution's widely deployed and highly scalable SyncNow ACR solution. SyncNow enables real-time identification and second-accurate synchronization between broadcast, on-demand or recorded content and interactive applications on companion devices - tablets, smartphones and laptops - to present compelling synchronized interactive user experiences. SyncNow already powers a range of 2nd screen consumer applications for movie and show producers, broadcasters, second screen platform providers and advertisers worldwide.

Super! in a nutshell:

> First 2nd screen app specifically targeting teenagers in Italy.

> Part of Super! De Agostini Editore's DTT channel. On average, Super! reaches 4.5 to 5% of the 4-14 year old national audience and 45,000 7-22 year old viewers.

LINK:	http://www.civolution.com/news/e2352a6842bf5efabb0638cb6f823a32/?tx_tt...
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