VideoNuze Posts

FreeWheel has released its full year and Q4 2012 video monetization report, showing that video ad loads and ad completion rates hit their all-time highs since the first report in 2010. From Q4 '11 to Q4 '12, ads per video in long-form content (20+ minutes) were up from 6.92 to 9.4; in mid-form (5-20 minutes) were up from 1.22 to 1.27 and for short-form (under 5 minutes) were up from .54 to .66.

Despite the increase in ad loads, their completion rates were up across the board as well in Q4 '12 vs. a year earlier as well: long-form up from 88% to 93%, mid-form up from 68% to 81% and short-form up from 54% to 68%. (see both charts below) For now at least, consumers continue to show a strong willingness to sit through ads in order to view free, professional content, on which the FreeWheel report is based.

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Last week Olympic champion Lindsey Vonn crashed horrifically in the Super G at the 2013 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships, tearing two ligaments and ending her season. Terrifying though it was, it's exactly the kind of video clip (see below) that the skiing world and Vonn's fans want to be able to see immediately.

In this particular situation, Universal Sports, which had the championship's broadcast rights, was able to deliver, posting the clip, which includes audio of Vonn's agonizing cries, within minutes of the incident. As Universal Sports' VP/GM, Digital Media, Elliott Gordon and Director, Streaming Operations, Gus Elliott, explained to me, fast time-to-market drives numerous benefits for the sports network and is enabled by a relatively new relationship with SnappyTV.

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Online video ad buying continues to shift toward, but also improve upon, conventional TV ad buying, with the latest evidence that Adap.tv is now optimizing audience targeting against data from Nielsen and comScore.

As Toby Gabriner, Adap.tv's president, explained to me, the process starts with an algorithm the company has developed to predict a publisher's audience composition. The algorithm is based on numerous data "signals" (e.g. content type, time of day, browsing behavior, 3rd party profiling, etc.) that are continuously updated. The audience profiles are then used to focus on impressions that should index high against Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) and comScore Validated Campaign Essentials (VCE).

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I'm pleased to present the 166th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. This week Cisco released its VNI Mobile Data Forecast, which Colin and I both wrote about (here and here). Each of us was particularly focused on the role of mobile video, which Cisco forecasts will account for 66% of all mobile data by '17.

Colin and I discuss the critical role of wireless carriers' tiered data plans as the big driver of what happens with mobile video adoption. To the extent that caps remain relatively low and plans quite expensive, video usage on carrier networks will be suppressed. However, users are already savvy about moving video usage to WiFi networks, typically within the home. As a result, "portable" video (as we think of it) - is soaring.

Both of us share a number of specific data points we're seeing and hearing about which support the shift to video viewing on smartphones and tablets. Although we agree it's still a bit of a murky picture, we both believe strongly that consumer behavior is clearly shifting to watching video on smartphones and tablets. Over which types of networks they will do so going forward is an issue to be tracked closely.

Click here to listen to the podcast (19 minutes, 49 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

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Last week at NATPE, I had the pleasure of interviewing Frank Cooper, PepsiCo's Chief Marketing Officer, Global Consumer Engagement. Frank provides great insights into how PepsiCo's brands are evolving from a traditional approach to marketing to the consumer, to one that is more focused on engaging them with the brands. Part of doing this involves adopting a "beta culture" throughout the company, where campaigns are iterative and not necessarily fully polished at the outset.

Frank sees content as a key element in engaging consumers and believes there's a huge opportunity in episodic content online, where PepsiCo brands themselves will become more active. That said, he's very pragmatic about branded entertainment, explaining that these days everyone is vying for the consumer's precious attention. Brands can't do sub-par work if they expect to be competitive in their entertainment offerings.

Among the other topics Frank discusses:

- The increasingly important role of data in informing content choices, channels and other decisions.

- How expectations of those under age 25 differ from those older than 25.

- Success metrics of two recent campaigns, Mountain Dew's "DEWmocracy" and Pepsi Refresh and what the company learned from each of these.

- The organizational challenges consumer packaged goods companies face in adapting their marketing practices.

And more.

Watch the interview

Cisco has released its 6th annual Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast, for 2012-2017, with heady growth predictions, including a 13x increase in mobile data traffic from .9 exabytes/mo in 2012 to 11.2 exabytes/mo in 2017. Cisco points to 4 key growth drivers over the forecast period: more mobile users (5.2B, up from 4.3B), more mobile devices/connections (10B, up from 7B), faster average mobile speeds (3.9 mbps, up from .5 mbps) and more mobile video (66% of mobile traffic, up from 55%).

Most intriguing from my perspective is the mobile video forecast. With the proliferation of tablets and smartphones, "mobile" video has become a huge topic of interest in the industry, even though the term still means different things to different people. For example, while some loosely lump viewing video on an iPad within the home over a WiFi network as "mobile" video, I've thought of this as more "portable" video over an extended fixed network. Cisco defines mobile video as carrier-based, which I believe is more accurate.

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At the NATPE conference in Miami Beach last week I did a series of short one-on-one video interviews, which I'll be posting to VideoNuze over the next couple of weeks.

First up is Rob Barnett, CEO of My Damn Channel, which announced its new "My Damn Channel Comedy Network" at NATPE. In the interview, Rob talks about My Damn Channel's positioning and how the new comedy network differentiates itself. He delves into how he sees bigger online video properties emerging in the same way as happened in cable TV.  Other topics Rob discusses:

- More than 30% of the company's videos are now viewed on mobile devices and durations are being mainly kept to 2-3 minutes max as a result.

- Why My Damn Channel continues to focus on the series format, rather than one-off comedic clips.

- The important role of the "human element" in curating how creative work gets noticed and promoted.

- Brand extensions and the importance of entrepreneurs doing one thing right before moving on to others.

Watch the interview

Last week, when Time Warner Cable and the L.A. Dodgers sealed a deal creating a new regional sports network to carry the team's games, the Dodgers' CEO Stan Kasten released a statement that read in part, "Our fans deserve the best - the best players, the best baseball and the best experience - whether that's at the newly renovated Dodger Stadium or on television."

That's a wonderful aspiration, but there's one significant problem with it: the reality is that non-fans (or at least those that don't tune in regularly to watch the team play) will be paying the lion's share for all of these "bests." Given the reported terms of the new Time Warner Cable - Dodgers deal, by my calculations, the non-fans' tab could amount to a staggering $6 billion over the life of the deal, making it the single biggest non-fan "tax" the pay-TV world has yet tried to assess on beleaguered non-sports fans.

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