Ep. 152: Turning What’s Happening on Screen Into an Ad Signal with Abbey Ramsey of Anoki AI

AdTechGod (0:25)

Welcome to another episode of the AdTechGodPod, where I speak to the commercial leaders of our industry. Today, I'm joined by Abbey Thomas, Chief Commercial Officer at Anoki AI.

Before Anoki, Abbey served as Chief Revenue Officer at OpenAP, held multiple senior leadership roles, worked at Tremor Video, served on the IAB Board of Directors, and more. She's got a wealth of knowledge, so I'm really excited to have her with us today. But most importantly, she's really had a front row seat, so she's worked in the evolution of advertising from video, advanced TV, connected television, and now AI. So Abbey, I'm really excited to have you with me today. Thanks for joining.

Abbey Ramsey (1:02)

Thank you so much. Hello, AdTechGod. I'm honored to be in your orbit, and I would like to first reintroduce myself. So I'm Abbey Ramsey, and I-

AdTechGod (1:13)

Oh, congratulations.

Abbey Ramsey (1:14)

Thank you. Thank you. So I'm officially changing my name, Abbey Ramsey, and very excited to reintroduce myself.

Yeah, I have spent my career building the bridge between technology and revenue, mostly emphasized on all things video through the many, many years, and as Chief Commercial Officer at Anoki, I'm building the future of AI video, and I'm coming to you live from Vettas Beach, California.

AdTechGod (1:45)

I want to hear about your background, but first, prior to your employment background and your work history, I'd love to hear about your background in the video. What do you have there behind you? I see a bunch of albums and music and-

Abbey Ramsey (1:58)

This is so influenced-

AdTechGod (2:01)

You're still Venice.

Abbey Ramsey (2:02)

who I am. I love technology and I love building businesses, but I equally love rock and roll. Anyone who knows me knows I live for live music.

My home, actually, fun story, was once owned by Dennis Wilson, the Beach Boys. My living room here, a little piece of rock and roll heaven, and it helps inspire me, keep me on my toes. Music is what allows me to move my energy around, if I need to pick me up or I need to focus on something. My go-to is Led Zeppelin usually, but kind of all things, yeah, rock and roll.

AdTechGod (2:39)

I learned a lot on this first five minutes of this episode. Abbey, I'd love to hear it from you.

You've worked at some amazing companies. You have an incredible background. You're a commercial revenue leader in our space. You're female, which makes it even better and more impressive. But I would love to hear your career journey, your background, and what made you join Anoki.

Abbey Ramsey (3:00)

I actually started in what was like the very, very beginning of what I would call AdTech, which was the earliest infrastructure. My brother worked at a company called Atlanta Broadband Enterprises and was laying the foundation for what would become streaming. It was all of the microfibers and wiring for cable. His company eventually sold to Comcast.

Through that, working with my brother, I kind of had an early look at how technology could unlock access to audiences and also very niche, incredibly specific audiences. We were in Atlanta, in the residential markets, and in some of the college towns. And seeing what type of opportunities that brought for local advertisers led me into my next big phase of my career, which was MTV. I was working as an intern at MTV, thanks to University of Georgia as an advertising major, and MTV came calling. And at this time, MTV was the destination.

AdTechGod (4:07)

It was hot. Yeah. MTV was hot back then. Very funny.

Abbey Ramsey (4:11)

This is pre-Spotify, pre-YouTube music, pre-Apple music, pre-Pandora, all of that. I even remember working on the first Apple music campaigns. And I remember being at MTV and they were starting to, you know, The Powers That Be and Judy McGrath and Tom Frost. And we're looking at MTV and ntv.com and realizing like, we have this massive digital asset. What are we doing with it? Like, how do we monetize this? And ntv.com launched one of the first fully streaming video home pages. And I was on the team that helped bring that to market. And it bombed. I think we were way ahead of our time.

The market was not ready for auto play streaming video on a home page load. We were early and that happens. We weren't necessarily wrong. I think we were just early. But I remember this moment in the office when I think it was Lionsgate asking if they could trade some of their television GRPs for some added value digital impressions. And I remember thinking, oh, there it is. There it is. The tides are starting to turn.