VideoNuze Posts

Watch an ad longer and all kinds of effectiveness measures should increase. That’s a pretty bankable assumption. But in a world where viewers are going to great lengths to avoid ads, just getting them seen and paid attention to have become huge challenges. For example, earlier this week a report from Adobe and PageFair estimated that publishers are now foregoing $22 billion per year due to increased use of ad blocking software.

All of this has triggered a range of new video ad approaches to deliver improved monetization. One of them is “outstream” video ads, where the video ad plays outside of the video stream, instead running in a text article, newsfeed or slideshow, as opposed to instream (i.e. pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll). I’ve been a fan of outstream ads for a while as I think they unlock lots of new premium inventory for publishers while balancing the viewer experience.

continue reading on VideoNuze iQ

I’m excited to announce our next VideoNuze conference: SHIFT // 2015 Programmatic Video & TV Advertising Summit, which will be on Tuesday, December 1st in NYC at the Time-Life Conference Center.

SHIFT // 2015 is an immersive new one-day conference which will bring together senior industry leaders and influencers who have a stake in the success of programmatic video & TV advertising. SHIFT // 2015 is the first conference laser-focused on programmatic video & TV advertising, which eMarketer forecasts will account for almost $4 billion, or approximately 40%, of online video ad spending in 2016, up from just $190 million in 2013.

As VideoNuze readers know, I’ve written extensively about how video viewers are fragmenting across countless devices, services and platforms, which has in turn created unprecedented challenges for advertisers and content providers. As David Cohen, UniversalMcCann’s Chief Investment Officer said in his keynote interview with me at this past’s June’s Video Ad Summit, re-aggregating target audiences and delivering the right video ads - efficiently and at scale - have become the media industry’s top priority (last week’s market meltdown in media stocks underscored its urgency).

This is why programmatic video & TV advertising has such huge potential - offering the ability to shift (hence the conference name!) to an automated, data-driven and flexible approach. Programmatic enables ad buyers to target and reach their audiences wherever they watch video, and content publishers to recognize the full value of their inventory.  

Despite this potential, it is still early days for programmatic video and even earlier days for programmatic and cross-screen TV. For many industry executives, programmatic’s complex ecosystem and “alphabet soup” of participants is difficult to understand. Questions about viewability, channel conflicts, pricing integrity, measurement, attribution, etc. swirl. As a result, there’s still caution around programmatic video & TV.

By comprehensively addressing these and other key topics, I’m confident SHIFT / 2015 will create new value for market participants. The SHIFT // 2015 program will focus on the most critical aspects of programmatic video & TV advertising, with experienced industry executives delivering actionable insights and data that help attendees to be smarter and more productive back at the office. SHIFT // 2015 will pick up on important themes raised on our programmatic sessions at the Ad Summit, which drew 450+ attendees and featured 55 speakers.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past couple of months talking to industry colleagues about the opportunity for SHIFT // 2015 and have been hugely gratified by the response. I’m very aware of the proliferation of conferences and believe SHIFT // 2015 is differentiated by its deep-dive focus on programmatic video & TV.

I’ve set the bar high for SHIFT // 2015 to be a must-attend day for executives at publishers, distributors, agencies, advertisers, trading desks, networks/exchanges, technology providers/platforms, research and investment firms, journalists and anyone else seeking to learn more about programmatic video & TV and accelerate its success.

SHIFT // 2015 is an important new initiative for VideoNuze which will build off momentum from our many prior Video Ad Summits and VideoSchmoozes. Early bird discounted tickets are now available as are discounted charter sponsorships (contact me to learn more). I’m excited to share a lot more about SHIFT // 2015 in the coming months and I welcome your input. I hope you’ll join us on December 1st!

Demand-side video ad platform TubeMogul reported a very strong Q2 yesterday, with $105 million of total advertising spend on its platform, up 72% vs. Q2 ’14 and revenue of $45.4 million, up 58% vs. Q2 ’14. TubeMogul once again upped its full-year guidance, for total ad spending (to $395-$401 million) and revenue (to $164-$170 million).

While desktop pre-roll video ads still account for the dominant share of TubeMogul’s business, the company reported an upside surprise of between 5-10% of spending coming from programmatic TV (“PTV”), a useful indicator of how TV advertisers are beginning embrace programmatic. Mobile accounted for between 10-15% of spending in Q2 and the company’s new display offering accounted for under 5%.

continue reading

At a time when the rapid rise of Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and other streaming services is upending the traditional broadcast and cable TV industries (see last week’s market meltdown for more on that), Hulu is pursuing the tried-and-true,  announcing at the Television Critics Association (TCA) Summer Press Tour that it would not release all of its original content for immediate binge watching.  Instead, Hulu will release new episodes one at time each week, following a typical TV release schedule. So, only when the full season has run, will all episodes be available for binge watching enthusiasts.

continue reading

Supply-side video ad platform SpotXchange released new data this morning highlighting huge growth in mobile video advertising and private marketplaces by premium publishers.

SpotXchange said it experienced 800% growth in mobile video ad spending in the first half of 2015 vs. the first half of 2014 as mobile accounted for 19% of total spending on its platform vs. just 4% a year ago. There’s almost certainly more rapid growth ahead, as recent data from Ooyala revealed that 42% of all video views in Q1 were on mobile, with 50% expected later this year. eMarketer is forecasting mobile video will account for $2.62 billion or 34% of the $7.8 billion expected to be spent on online video ads this year.

continue reading

I'm pleased to present the 285th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

It’s been a wild week for major media companies as mixed earnings reports, fears that cord-cutting is accelerating and anxiety over ad dollars leaving TV all combined to send big media stocks plummeting. Meanwhile, with Netflix expanding internationally, Hulu and Amazon gaining ground and many other SVOD services launching in 2015, the question of what role SVOD will play for consumers and in the media ecosystem of the future is becoming more relevant all the time.

Those are the topics of today’s podcast, as we start by analyzing recent Parks research (which both Colin and I wrote about, here and here) revealing high levels of churn for various SVOD services. Colin is less concerned about high churn than I am, as I see high churn as indicative of a broader challenge SVOD services have with consumers, namely, not being seen more as transactional opportunities, given how frictionless it is to add/drop these services.

Colin and I agree that great content is going to be the key to SVOD services retaining subscribers. But with more people walking around with binge-viewing bucket lists, I think it’s going to be harder than ever to hook viewers on shows they didn’t have an interest in already, especially given the proliferation of great content. We explore these dynamics further.

Listen in to learn more!

Click here for previous podcasts

Click here to add the podcast feed to your RSS reader.

The VideoNuze podcast is also available in iTunes...subscribe today!

Tremor Video released data gleaned from 40 billion ad calls in its premium video marketplace, finding, among other things, that 7 out of 10 advertisers are now buying multi-screen campaigns. That’s a bit higher than the 58% Videology reported for Q1 ’15 back in May based on its data.

Both data points illustrate how aggressively advertisers are embracing both online video and mobile video advertising. Mobile in particular now accounts for 50% or more views on many popular sites, including YouTube, making a mobile component mandatory.

continue reading on VideoNuze iQ

Viacom announced that it has added 3 new executives to its Viacom Vantage data-driven ad product, which was itself announced in late April. Joining Viacom are Bryson Gordon as SVP of Data Strategy, Gabe Bevilacqua as VP of Product Management and Kodi Foster as VP of Data Strategy. Together they’ll oversee development of new data products to micro-target viewers which are overseen by Kern Schireson, EVP of Data Strategy and Consumer Intelligence for Viacom Media Networks.

continue reading