VideoNuze Posts

At last month’s SHIFT // Programmatic Video & TV Ad Summit, David Szahun, American Express’s Director of US Media, Global Brand Marketing and Digital Partnerships shared his insights about the evolution of programmatic video & TV and why he’s bullish on both. In particular, David zeroed in on the need for “premium programmatic video” which he defines as a direct buyer-to-publisher relationship, with a fixed CPM, guaranteed premium reserve inventory and first-party data overlay. David explains more about why he believes this is valuable.

In a follow-up interview with me, David also provides thoughts on why programmatic TV is developing more slowly than video, why addressable TV with automation isn’t here yet, how American Express is organized and what role its agency plays, and the key challenges for programmatic. Throughout, David is quite candid and thoughtful about how AmEx views programmatic and how it’s being incorporated into the company’s marketing mix.

Note, all of the SHIFT session videos are now included in the player below.

watch the session video

Wochit, whose technology allows publishers to quickly create short-form, shareable videos from a rights-cleared library, has reported strong 2015 momentum, along with new features.  Wochit said it grew revenues 300% in 2015 while doubling the number of customers. The US grew 200% and Europe 450%, with similar growth rates expected in 2016.

Wochit is benefiting from the larger industry trend of publishers’ desire to inexpensively create engaging video that often accompanies traditional text-based stories. With users’ insatiable appetite to watch short-form video on social/mobile, Wochit-created videos give publishers the ability to greatly increase their footprint, as well as tap into video advertising.

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Just before the holidays, Innovid, one of the pioneers of online video advertising, raised a $27.5 million round, including $12.5 million in debt. It was one of the larger financings in the video ad tech space in the last several months and followed a March, 2015 $10 million investment in Innovid by Cisco. Innovid’s CEO and co-founder Zvika Netter caught me up on plans for the new funds and the company’s transition to a leading video ad server. Following is an edited transcript.

VideoNuze: Congratulations on the new financing. How will you use the funds?
 
Zvika Netter: We plan on using the funds for 2 main purposes: First, technology - We are continually innovating based on both what our partners need to help grow their businesses and how we envision the Future of TV advertising. And second, international expansion – 80% of our clients are global brands and agencies. We’ve been asked by most of them to provide similar solutions and services in new markets in EMEA and APAC.

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Videology announced this morning that its clients will be able transact video ad campaigns on a new viewability currency (“vCPM”) for a guaranteed price on guaranteed viewable impressions. The impressions are measured by third-parties Moat, DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science.

Clients can use the MRC viewability standard (50% of pixels on screen for at least 2 consecutive seconds) or the stricter Extended Viewability Standard (100% of pixels on screen for at least 50% of the video’s duration with audio on and not autoplay).

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Sky Q, which is Sky’s next-generation video service launching in 2016, will incorporate AirTies mesh technology to facilitate whole home pay-TV service on multiple devices. With AirTies mesh technology in Sky Q’s set-top boxes, routers and accessory devices, each is turned into a hot spot, so that linear, OTT and recorded video can be accessed on screens even in harder-to-reach locations in the home.

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iSpot.tv has announced it is now measuring TV ad performance in linear, time-shifted, VOD and OTT video across 10 million connected TVs. iSpot is tracking TV ads’ view rates, impressions and unduplicated reach, providing unprecedented granular insight into actual TV ad performance.  

iSpot’s founder and CEO Sean Muller explained that the new measurement system is enabled by deals the company has made with select TV manufacturers to integrate its technology with newer connected TVs automatic content recognition. As the ads viewed are anonymously relayed to iSpot, they are checked against the company’s database of ads, gleaned from its core platform which tracks the entire media schedule in linear TV. The ads are then sorted as linear national, linear local or VOD/OTT as well as live vs. time-shifted. The length of each ad’s play is tracked to provide the view time metrics.

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Supply-side platform ConvertMedia has introduced a portfolio of outstream video ad units. While video is the hottest ad category, the scarcity of premium inventory and expense of creating high-quality video continues to be an issue for publishers eager to attract video ad dollars. Outstream ads - video units that can play against text and other non-video content - have become a popular way of addressing this issue.

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I'm pleased to present the 307th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Netflix reported its Q4 ’15 results this week, beating its forecast for international subscriber growth while falling short on domestic subscribers, for the second quarter in a row. We have our differences in how we interpret the results, with Colin focusing much more on the international story, while I’m paying more attention to the domestic shortfall.

Still, Colin and I agree that Netflix will be defined more as an international company going forward and will face a slew of new challenges addressing disparate countries around the world. How they navigate these challenges will greatly impact their future performance.

Listen now to learn more!

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