BST.L Regulatory News (BST)

27 June 2018

Big Sofa Technologies Group plc

("Big Sofa" or the "Company")

Launch of Video Observer

· Development of a unique solution based on owned IP to analyse in-home behaviour at scale

· Video Observer utilises cameras installed by individuals and monitored remotely by Big Sofa

· $200,000 pilot project of Video Observer completed with 84.51˚ - total of more than $500,000 of commissioned work with 84.51˚ over last nine months

Big Sofa (AIM: BST), a fast-growing international video analytics provider to consumer brands and market research agencies, announces the launch of Video Observer, an automated software solution that analyses in-home behaviour globally and at scale.

In addition, Big Sofa is pleased to confirm it has completed its first successful pilot for Video Observer with 84.51˚, the consumer insights subsidiary of Kroger, the second largest retailer in the world. 

Video Observer captures previously inaccessible, real-time behavioural information and data from fixed cameras in participants' homes alongside mobile/wearable cameras used in home or in-store. Video is securely streamed from these devices to Big Sofa's physical servers in key countries where it is monitored and managed remotely by the Company.

Using proprietary technology, Big Sofa is able to obfuscate faces and personal data from the captured video, as required to conform to data protection and compliance restrictions, and scrub non-relevant content. As video is uploaded, Big Sofa employs a range of A.I. and human-led tools to transform unstructured video into robust, nuanced and quantifiable data.

Successful pilot project with 84.51˚

The beta version of Video Observer was launched in Q1 2018, following which, Big Sofa completed two pilot projects for 84.51˚, totalling $200,000. This is in addition to the $150,000 subscription Big Sofa also secured with 84.51˚ in the first half of 2018, generating high quality, subscription-based earnings. 84.51˚ has commissioned a total of more than $500,000 of work since the inception of the commercial relationship nine months ago and Big Sofa continues to build upon this partnership to develop material revenue streams.

The first of these projects looked specifically at homes enabled with smart technology and exploring the ways in which consumers behave in these environments and engage with the technology.

The second involved the capture of three months' worth of video, which will form the foundation of a wider consumer research piece. 100,000 videos, totalling 20,000 hours, were captured. Big Sofa's in-house activity detection technology and other proprietary techniques were used to scrub this down to 1,500 hours, encompassing the relevant product interactions.

Simon Lidington, Chief Executive Officer of Big Sofa, commented: 

"Our distinct combination of sophisticated video capture techniques coupled with our increasingly automated analytics capabilities provides the foundation for Video Observer, which is a proprietary solution developed in-house and we believe is unique within the market. Video Observer enables our clients to access authentic consumer insight at a scale and level of granularity that was previously unattainable, observing individuals' behaviours over weeks or even months. 

We consider video to be the unrivalled medium with which to gain understanding of true human behaviour, reducing the reliance solely on reported actions, and thereby continuing to transform the consumer insight industry."

Enquiries

About Big Sofa Technologies Group plc

Big Sofa is a B2B technology business servicing the marketing and consumer insight industries with video analytics.

Our software platform collates, analyses and organises large volumes of raw/unstructured video content enabling companies to perform detailed and sophisticated consumer insight analysis; and make genuine use of their video content.

Until recently, video has been difficult and expensive to capture, upload, store, manage and analyse as a consumer insight tool. However, proliferation of smart phones has empowered consumers to speak directly to brands resulting in an evolution of consumer insight and data analytics techniques, with video emerging as a key platform in a massive $33 billion consumer research market.

Big Sofa's shares are admitted to trading on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market under the ticker BST.L.

To find out more, visit www.bigsofatech.com

Follow us on twitter at @bigsofatech