VideoNuze Posts

At the recent Video Ad Summit, one of our most popular sessions, as always, was a fireside chat debriefing the NewFronts and Upfronts with senior ad agency executives. This year, Maureen Bosetti (Chief Investment Officer, Initiative) and Adam Shlachter (President, VM1, Zenith Media) participated, with Tim Hanlon (Managing Director, FTI Consulting) moderating.

The wide-ranging discussion began with Maureen highlighting the continued strong relevance of the upfronts for clients who need to plan ahead and efficiently allocate spending to reach mass audiences. But the upfronts are becoming less about linear TV specifically (which is of course shrinking, in turn driving up pricing for scarcer inventory) and more about longer-term investments in video holistically.

This is a much more complicated buying process which, especially given how audiences are fragmenting to new video outlets on multiple devices. Adam and Maureen discuss some of the key challenges including how to use clients’ data, how to navigate TV networks’ disparate audience targeting initiatives and how their agencies are organized to succeed, plus lots more.

Adam and Maureen also share their thoughts on the NewFronts, which they see as maturing in certain respects, though still not offering the level of scale and efficiency as traditional TV.

All in all the session provides numerous insights from the buy side on how the TV/video ad landscape is fast-evolving and what’s being done by agencies to help clients stay ahead of the curve.

Watch the video now (32 minutes, 5 seconds).

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One of the big benefits of online video advertising is vastly improved audience targeting beyond typical demographics found in traditional TV.  TV networks are responding by investing significantly in data and audience segmentation to stay competitive.

What they’re prioritizing, how they’re overcoming key challenges and how these efforts synch with online video and other digital initiatives were all in focus at our recent Video Ad Summit session, “Optimizing Video Ad Targeting Through Data and Insights.”

The panel featured Gabe Bevilacqua (VP, Product Management, Viacom Vantage), Denise Colella (SVP, Advanced Advertising Products & Strategy, NBCU), David Ernst (VP, Audience Measurement & Innovation, Discovery Communications), Mark Gall (Chief Revenue Officer, Alphonso), Vikram Somaya (SVP, Global Data Officer, ESPN) with Mike Chapman (Managing Partner, Accenture Strategy) moderating.

For anyone seeking a better understanding of how TV networks are moving beyond purely demographic-based targeting, the session offers a ton of insights.

Watch the video below (33 minutes, 23 seconds).

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I'm pleased to present the 330th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Colin and I were both very enthusiastic about news earlier this week that Comcast will integrate Netflix into its X1 set-top box, a move we’ve been advocating for a while. In this week’s podcast we discuss how complicated this negotiation must have been, and why joint subscribers will be the big winners.

Surely a motivating factor for Comcast was the acknowledgment that viewers are spending more time on SVOD, which new research from IBM Cloud Video highlighted this week.

More specifically, the research showed how important video has become for Amazon Prime members, with 75% of them now watching. By not charging for video in Prime, Amazon is potentially a big disruptor in the video/TV industry down the road.

Listen now to learn more!

Click here to listen to the podcast (24 minutes, 9 seconds)

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NeuLion is powering a 4K streaming option for tomorrow night’s UFC 200 pay-per-view event to viewers with Sony HDR Ultra HD TV sets in the U.S. and Canada. The stream is enabled by viewers who download the UFC app from Google Play and pay a $10 additional fee on top of the standard $59.99 PPV pass. All of the 4K encoding and delivery is done by the NeuLion Digital Platform. A parallel 4K telecast is also available to DirecTV viewers using their set-top boxes.

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Three-quarters of Amazon Prime members are watching the service’s video offerings, according to new survey data released by IBM Cloud Video. 61% of Prime members surveyed said they signed up for the service for the shopping benefits, but also watch the video, while another 14% said they signed up specifically for the video. Just 7% of members surveyed said they didn’t know about the video offerings, with another 18% saying they were aware, but didn’t watch.

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Yesterday, Recode reported that Comcast will integrate Netflix into its X1 set-top box. Loyal VideoNuze readers know that I’ve been advocating for this type of partnership for almost two years, back to when I articulated the benefits in “Why the Timing is Now Perfect for a Netflix-Comcast Partner Deal” in October, 2014. There are lots of benefits to Comcast and Netflix by partnering (as I’ll further explain below), but the biggest winners once the integration is complete later this year, are the companies’ mutual viewers.

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The convergence of TV and online video advertising is happening, but there are still many operational challenges to realizing its full potential. At the recent Video Ad Summit, we zeroed in what still needs to be done in a session titled “How to Move Ads at the Speed of Today,” which included Melinda McLaughlin (CMO, Extreme Reach), Peter Olsen (EVP, National Ad Sales, A+E Networks) and Mitch Weinstein (SVP, Director of Ad Operations, IPG Mediabrands), with Steve Grubbs of Prohaska Consulting serving as moderator.

The panelists dug into issues including the diverse ad operations workflows for TV vs. online video, the confusion caused by today’s metrics, the huge amount of time industry executives currently waste just trying to sync up on common standards and terminology, why reach is so important, yet so elusive across TV and digital, plus lots more.

It’s a fascinating, well-grounded discussion of the practicalities required to make converged campaigns and spending really take off.

Watch the video (33 minutes, 5 seconds).

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The opening session of our recent Video Ad Summit, “Convergence Realized: Why TV and Video are Now Inseparable,” featured panelists David Bickford (Head of TV Sales & Multi-Platform Group Director, Bloomberg Media), Jon Heller (Co-founder and Co-CEO, FreeWheel), Nick Johnson (SVP, Digital Ad Sales Strategy, Turner Ad Sales) and Paul Williamson (Chief Investment Officer, Publicis Media Exchange U.S.).

Tim Castree (Managing Director, North America, Videology) moderated the session and also shared a 10-minute presentation at the beginning providing some of the key contextual drivers for why TV and video are converging for advertisers and publishers (Tim’s slides are posted here).

Topics of discussion included changing viewers’ behaviors leading to fragmentation, the resulting measurement challenges and what’s being done to overcome them, how advertisers are coping with “patchwork” metrics, how content providers should think about cross-screen distribution, how advertisers are planning campaigns across different and much more.

Watch the video (52 minutes, 43 seconds).

Watch now!