Louis Prunel is a born serial entrepreneur. Right from the tender age of 13, Louis knew that what he wanted to do most in life was to build and grow companies. Lots of companies.

A fan of fast growth, his areas of predilection are tech solutions, media and digital advertising. By the time he turned 40, Louis had already co-founded Lentillesmoinscheres.com, and founded or co-founded with long time business partner Martin Comar, no less than six other ventures in digital advertising of which Arthur Media Group, Welcoming , Cloud Media, P comme Performance, AdVideum and catalogue-service. Passionate about everything to do with entrepreneurship and business, he is not only a serial entrepreneur but a serial investor backing companies such as Feed, Bizon and misterbandb.

When Louis first came up with the idea of creating BeOp, his latest venture and the subject of our story, in 2015, digital advertising hadn’t much evolved from the static, intrusive content blocking banners we still often see today. Harbouring a premonitory conviction that targeted ad-tracking, personal data gathering and ad monopolies won’t prove to be viable long-term, Louis thought about creating a new advertising system. A platform that would engage users and provide brands with vastly improved advertising solutions, without infringing on user’s privacy.

Needless to say, the technology required to create an independent, cookieless, contextual targeting, conversational advertising platform didn’t exist six years ago. Louis had to invent it. For this he enlisted the help of tech whizz Nicolas Sadki.

Although Nicolas at that time was managing a global media company, he jumped at the chance to partake in Louis’s visionary venture!

Introducing BeOp

BeOp is an innovative advertising platform for advertisers, agencies and publishers that can be used either in a “self served” or “over-the-counter” model. It allows advertisers and publishers to create, distribute and promote highly engaging advertising campaigns that are both fun and conversational (click-on video quizzes, opinion polls…). The idea is to involve the audience in an adventure (BeOp explains that their campaigns are more “Story Doing” than “Storytelling”). The conversational ads are placed at the bottom of premium publisher’s articles so they don’t block content. Being contextual, BeOp’s ads are also respectful as no user data is necessary for them to perform.

As they are interactive, advertisers get much more from their campaigns with BeOp : User’s responses to the ads provide precious insights that can be exported or even fed directly into their data management/customer relations platforms.

Why BeOp ?

The enforcement of GDPR regulation since 2018 and growing public awareness of data privacy issues, added to the growth of ad tracking solutions and blockers in smartphones means that the advertising landscape is changing and brands are having to adapt.

Since launching their platform, Louis and Nicolas have themselves embarked on their own advertising campaign, converting publishers and advertisers to BeOp’s solution one by one. Their strong central argument is that BeOp ads deliver 3 times more brand attribution at first display than other digital branding solutions, video and social media posts included. With an average engagement rate of over 1 %, a time of 34 seconds spent on the conversational ads and a bounce rate 30% lower than that of other ads, BeOp’s solution’s user engagement and rates are far superior to that of traditional ad solutions. Clients are reaping the benefits and the idea is catching on. Today, BeOp’s premium publisher’s base includes 90% of all French publishers, and their growing advertiser base includes many global brands like Audi, Porsche, Coca Cola, and Samsung.

At Breega to say we’re a big fan of innovative disruptive solutions is a bit of an understatement, so when Louis Prunel, with his investor hat on, contacted Co Founding Partner, Maximilien Bacot in 2019 to see if he could invest in us after a mutual contact suggested he check Breega out, Max took the opportunity to turn the tables and find out if we could invest in him.

Louis tells us:

“That was a pretty fun first meeting. Recognising a fellow entrepreneur, we clicked with Max straight away, we wanted to hear all about Breega’s startups and what they do but what Max wanted to do was hear all about BeOp”.

Why Breega

Having self funded their venture up until two year ago, BeOp were considering VC funding when they met Maximilien, but hadn’t yet started meeting with potential investors. According to Louis and Maximilien there was an instant fit, both being passionate about business and entrepreneurship. BeOp ended up accepting Breega’s funding proposition straight away. Louis says:

“At BeOp, we’re well connected in our sector, and we have the most amazing team, but even so Breega’s operational help has been very appreciated. It is very comfortable to know without doubt that if we do need Breega’s help, we’ll get it. Lots of investors say they help their companies but with their board members and Ops team, Breega actually does. This is a VC that is truly invested in every sense of the word :)”.

So where does the future lie for BeOp ? Since the beginning of the year, in spite of the ongoing Covid pandemic, BeOp has over doubled its growth, celebrating a returning customer rate of more than 80%. The startup opened their New York branch a year ago and created their advertisers sales team in January. A first campaign with fashion giant, Tommy Hilfiger has already been signed. Louis is expecting further growth in the US and elsewhere:

“After 25 years, the digital media advertising system was aging badly especially when compared to Walled garden’s proprietary advertising offers that are now dominating the market. BeOp’s new and totally independent system re enchants digital media advertising for all parties, vastly improving most KPI’s for publishers and advertisers and driving growth”.

Louis sees that the world of advertising is changing. And BeOp is part of that change:

“We’re convinced that personal data will disappear. As BeOp targets context and environment, not individuals, our solution is naturally GDPR compliant and perfectly adapted to the future and where the advertising industry is headed.”

BeOp’s mission is to become the best digital branding platform ever, a branding platform second only to television. According to Louis, with his passionate, highly talented and motivated 40 member team, they’re well on their way and ready to take on the tech giants. And Breega is ready to bet they’ll make it. 🙂

Discover BeOp