VDO.AI Expands Its NDTV Deal With Two Native Video Formats

VDO.AI expands its partnership with NDTV, rolling out native video and ticker advertising formats

VDO.AI has expanded its collaboration with NDTV, rolling out two proprietary formats, VDO Native Video and VDO Ticker, across the news platform.

Partners: VDO.AI and NDTV, working together for several years
Formats: VDO Native Video, designed to sit within article environments; VDO Ticker, a scroll-synchronised headline unit
Stated aims: stronger video monetisation, higher recirculation, greater session depth
Technology: contextual delivery, frequency controls, viewability-focused delivery
Spokespeople: Arjit Sachdeva, co-founder, VDO.AI

The Balancing Act Every Publisher Knows

News publishers are caught between two pressures that pull in opposite directions. Advertising revenue rewards more inventory. Audience retention punishes it.

The traditional response has been to add units and accept the cost in experience, which works until readers stop returning or install something that removes the problem for them. Formats designed to sit inside the content rather than on top of it are the industry's attempt to stop paying that cost.

What The Two VDO.AI Formats Actually Do

VDO Native Video is built to live within an article, so video advertising blends into the reading journey rather than blocking it. That is a placement argument as much as a technical one, and it depends on the unit being legible as advertising while not behaving like an obstacle.

VDO Ticker takes a different route. It uses a scroll-synchronised headline format intended to push readers towards more content, which serves recirculation and session depth at the same time as it carries a commercial message. A publisher gets a monetised unit that also does the job an internal promo module would.

Why Contextual Delivery Is In The Pitch

The stated technology stack is contextual delivery, frequency controls and viewability-focused delivery. Each of those addresses a specific complaint.

Contextual delivery matters more than it did five years ago, as addressability built on third-party identifiers has become less dependable and advertisers have had to relearn how to buy against content rather than against people. Frequency controls exist because the fastest way to make a tolerable format intolerable is to show it four times on one page. Viewability is what the advertiser is ultimately paying for.

The Argument Being Made

Sachdeva placed engagement at the centre of the monetisation case rather than treating the two as a trade-off.

"Engagement sits at the centre of how we think about monetisation."

For a premium news environment, that is the only defensible position. A publisher whose value to advertisers rests on attention and credibility cannot spend either one cheaply, because both are what the inventory is actually selling.