Nuance and Widespace Partner to Expand Nuance Voice Ads to Europe

Nuance Communications and Widespace, a mobile advertising company in Europe, have partnered to bring Nuance Voice Ads to brands advertising in Europe.

Widespace has integrated Nuance Voice Ads' speech recognition technology as part of its mobile advertising platform for iOS and Android. And with support for both voice recognition and text-to-speech in more than 40 languages across North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia, Nuance Voice Ads lets brands create unique conversational mobile ad experiences with consumers all over the world.

The world’s first mobile ad powered by Nuance Voice Ads was built and integrated by Widespace, and will launch in the Expressen app, one of Sweden's national daily newspapers, and Tv24, a TV guide service.

"The future of advertising is in smartphones and tablets, not least due to the opportunities that they enable for dialogue," said Alexander Lydecker, vice president of advertising sales at Expressen, in a statement. "Speaking with ads increases both engagement and retention. It's particularly exciting for Expressen to be a pioneer for this ad format, and we are eager to hear the response from our curious and forward-thinking readership base."

"Smartphones provide opportunities for interactivity in ways that other media can't," said Patrik Fagerlund, Widespace co-founder and CEO, in a statement. "Our vision is to continuously create better user experiences, which in turn improve advertisers' results. Nuance Voice Ads provide people with a memorable and engaging experience as a result of two-way conversation, versus a simple visual and limiting interaction."

"To have both Europe's leading mobile advertising platform quickly integrate Nuance Voice Ads and launch in Sweden with one of world's largest consumer brands is incredibly exciting," said Mike McSherry, vice president of advertising at Nuance Mobile, in a statement. "Working closely with Widespace, we've been able to create an incredibly compelling conversational mobile ad experience supporting the Swedish language. And with support for more than 40 languages worldwide, we look forward to many more conversational ad experiences coming to mobile consumers."