Welcome to Project Vixtape
This is our origin story
Project Vixtape has been forming for several years from different parts of the world simultaneously. Now we are on the eve of WebSummit, which takes place in our backyard in Lisbon, it’s time to announce who we are and what we are doing:
First, who are we?

Michael Fiorentino
A NYC ad tech marketing executive with a history in interactive video and a vision about how media, data and ads should be exchanged in an ideal future. This led him to Europe, and specifically Lisbon because of the supportive community and the convergence of technology and creativity that is growing each year.

Nelson Novais
Nelson thought of the idea to build a modern programmatic DOOH/digital signage company while he was on a treadmill at the gym. He has worked with IT consulting, project management and IoT and runs an app development studio in Porto.

José Moreira
José is a CTO, full stack developer and tech innovator with experience in programmatic technology and decentralized media distribution. José (whose name is pronounced “Joe-zay” btw) is committed to making a media serving platform that uses the next generation of technology, which includes decentralized blockchain-like distribution.
And we should mention that we are also supported by a larger ensemble cast of developers, creators and curators. We will mention more about them in the future :)
How we met:
It’s only appropriate to mention that we met each other at last year’s WebSummit event. At the time we were exhibiting our earlier prototype concepts at booths to get market feedback. Nelson and José focused on a digital signage technology called RealTimeAds and Michael was presenting research and business design concepts around the streaming television space.
Michael walked up to Nelson’s booth and could quickly tell that they were in a similar space but their B2B vs. B2C focus made them different enough to not be directly competitive.
Fast forward several months later
Both sides had met with investors and industry partners to get feedback, which was both positive and negative.
Michael was encouraged by the positive responses to his research and perspective on the industry, but was advised to avoid the consumer-facing streaming OTT market because of the giant players entering the space. He was also told to stop outsourcing his technology development and to find co-founders in case he “got hit by a bus”. So Michael was actively co-founder dating in New York City and Lisbon while building out the IP and initial media content.

Nelson and José were given different feedback: people had faith in their technology, but their go-to-market strategy was lacking because it seemed limited to Portugal. So they continued developing the technology platform concept while also building out a diverse team of developers who could provide engineering for other companies. That part of their business grew quickly.
One day in the summer Michael was in his office in Lisbon and he felt a sudden urge to find a cord, so he went looking in a storage unit under the TV. While he was looking for the cable, a pamphlet made by Nelson and José landed on his lap.

Michael remembered their initial interaction and realized that with his revised plan, they were now in the same market. That seemed serendipitous enough so he called the number and spoke to Nelson.
After getting a sense of their approach to the market, it became clear that Nelson and José needed a sales/marketing lead and Michael needed technical co-founders who knew programmatic technology (and there are very few programmatic tech people in Portugal). Michael was very pleased to hear that Nelson and José were coding their platform in the same languages that Michael was planning to build. At one point Michael asked, “can you serve media content AND ads programmatically?” and after receiving a positive confirmation, they realized that they should see how they could combine their efforts.
Michael hopped on a train to Porto/Matosinhos and they had an intense work session to go through the project goals. By the end of the day both teams had agreed that merging into one company as a combined project made the most sense.

So from that moment on, the old company names were updated to Project Vixtape, and the focus is on delivering a blend of interesting media and ads that are more subtle and respectful.
So wait, what does Project Vixtape do?
Here’s a quick description.One might even say it’s an elevator pitch. We hope you like it:
Project Vixtape helps venues such as lounges, bars, gyms and hotels to show interesting and respectful messages on their TVs by delivering a blend of culturally relevant content with brand messages.
We are a promotional platform where creators can share their media, venues can earn additional revenue, marketers can advertise in an easy and cost-effective way, and users genuinely like and engage with the content shown.

In some ways we are a publisher for digital signage (aka DOOH), but instead of just showing 100% ads, we specialize in showing media content and ads on TVs where people prefer to have visual ambiance that helps enhance their mood for the better.
Some more context/our viewpoint on ads
When the world was full of just printed billboards, there was no clear way to track how useful an ad is or how many people saw it.

But now signage is turning digital and we are coming close to a point where every screen can become a place where people can advertise. So we are going to see a lot more screens in the next few years, with potentially a lot of poorly executed advertisements surrounding us.
Marketers who are used to buying programmatic digital ads can now extend their digital campaigns (on computers, mobile phones) to outdoor/out of home signage and they expect the same features around data, tracking and metrics to be extended also. There are several companies who are aggressively pursuing ways to track people’s faces, their unique phone IDs or connect to their social accounts so they can serve very specific ads to individuals.

But here’s the thing — just because we can get that specific doesn’t mean that we should. Showing more relevant content is generally a good thing and in some cases there could be a reasonable use for 1-to-1 targeting, but it doesn’t have to be the default option when we are on the go or in public spaces.
We think that ads are here to stay, at least for the next 10 years. So how can we make these public ads better? We can start by making rules about having the mix of entertaining content and sponsored content. Native ads are more slick, but being transparent about which content is sponsored is important. And if a screen or projection is being supported by advertisers, their sponsorship costs should be consider some sort of give back, such as promoting content from cultural institutions or artists.
We value innovation, respect and creativity
Based on these ideas, Project Vixtape is introducing new features
Cross-Device Interaction

Users can connect their phones to the content shown on screens to learn more about what they’re watching. This also allows users to engage with sponsored content [ads] on their own terms, where they can access links, sign up for more info or purchase things if the user is interested.
Blended Media Mix

People rarely have the attention spans to watch a full videos anymore. Instead of fighting this, we edit existing artistic and branded content into a video mix. The word “Vixtape” derives from “Video Mixtape”, after all.
Marketplace Ecosystem

We are connecting content creators, advertisers, venues and users in a fair exchange process. The most relevant content is selected based on each stakeholder’s preferences and contextual data is used to inform our algorithms how to select clips. And we’ll mention this again: we are not relying on surveillance economy tactics to observe a user’s personal data profile.
We can go into considerable detail when talking about product features, so it’s best to save that conversation for another day.
What’s next?
We built our media serving technology and now we are entering into a testing period to refine our business models. We are seeking partnerships with venues, advertisers and cultural institutions to showcase and refine our offering.
If you want to see a demo of Project Vixtape in action or collaborate with us in any way, please get in contact with us.
Your interest is appreciated and we look forward to showing you more on our ambitious project.

