After 15 years, multi-millionaire investor Kevin O’Leary earned his moniker Mr. Wonderful deals season on “Shark Tank.” Now he’s using that reputation to launch a new venture with a cheeky play on his name.
Businessman spoke exclusively with O’Leary, 70, about his latest endeavor, WonderAds, the TV ad agency he founded with Shazam founder Philip Inghelbrecht and Tatari CEO to give small businesses equal access to big TV advertising. The platform allows businesses to run and buy ad campaigns that they can track and optimize on their own dashboard.
Most private companies with fewer than 500 employees cannot and do use television advertising he never knew how to use it, says O’Leary Businessman.
“They go to the cable outlet and buy TV ads at some crazy price because they have no idea what they’re doing,” he says. “(WonderAds) handles all of that.”
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The TV advertising industry was valued at USD 235.9 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach more than USD 337 billion by the end of 2024.. O’Leary says WonderAds was created after he saw the complications that could arise when trying to buy and use TV ads as a marketing technique in his business.
“We’re modernizing the way TV advertising is done with technology. If you’re a brand, what that really means is giving you the tools to measure the effectiveness of your ads and allowing you to buy TV ads,” Inghelbrecht said. “Television advertising has always worked, it’s just that it’s been difficult for people to reach, if anything, it’s been deliberately opaque by traditional agencies.”
WonderAds is essentially “the AI of TV advertising,” O’Leary muses it offers businesses the option to purchase smaller packages that better suit their needs (and budgets) instead of going to the big networks and agencies and getting “entangled” in expensive advertising campaigns.
O’Leary said now is the perfect time to introduce WonderAds because high inflation means businesses have to be “extremely specific” when they spend money on marketing and advertising.
“(Inflation) affected everything because number one it affected media costs,” he says. “But it’s also influenced by what kind of discretionary income the consumer you’re going after has. So they become much more discerning about what they buy for products and services.”
O’Leary’s portfolio includes more than 85 businesses, including an estimated $8.5 million invested in approximately 40 “Shark Tank” businesses.
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“I’m not the type of person to promote things for the sake of promoting them,” O’Leary says. I promote the things I eat, use and spend because I know for sure that it works.”
O’Leary’s net worth is estimated at $400 million.