VideoNuze Posts

At the recent Online Video Ad Summit, MediaCrossing's CEO and founder Bill Lederer led an in-depth discussion of programmatic video with executives from Yahoo, Horizon Media and Adap.TV. For those not familiar with programmatic, it's essentially the use of technology to automate the buying and selling of media. Programmatic has become a significant factor in the online video advertising space as an augment to content providers' direct sales efforts. If you need a soup-to-nuts understanding of programmatic and its potential, this session is a great primer.

The video is below and runs 35 minutes, 22 seconds.

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At last month's Online Video Ad Summit, I did a great one-on-one interview with Lori Conkling, who's the EVP, Strategy and Business Development for Media Innovation and Cross Company Initiatives at NBCU (yes, Lori concedes that's a mouthful!). Lori joined the relatively new NBCU group several months ago from A&E Networks, where she oversaw multi-platform distribution strategy for the company's 10 networks.

In the interview, we touch on a broad range of topics including: fragmentation in audiences, devices and advertising, the criteria NBCU uses in determining which new technologies/opportunities to pursue (e.g. financial, lessons to be learned, etc.), NBCU's interest in original online-only programming, the status of TV Everywhere, mobile video usage patterns, and lots more. For anyone looking to get a peek into how big media companies are thinking about online video, the interview is a must-watch.

The video is below and runs 39 minutes and 29 seconds.

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Two weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal debuted its "WSJ Startup of the Year" documentary series, another great example of how online video is enabling print publications to expand well beyond their traditional roots. The series will run for 5 months, featuring 24 early-stage businesses (culled from 500 applicants) competing with one another across a number of challenges while being mentored along the way by over 40 high-profile business leaders. The series plays out in videos created by WSJ and submitted by the startups themselves. It is created in collaboration with Ish Entertainment, founded by Michael Hirschorn, former programming head of VH1.

I've long been a big fan of print publications tapping into online video's potential to enrich their readers' experiences. Print publications like the WSJ have strong brand identities, editorial skills, promotional platforms and advertising relationships they can leverage for their video initiatives. WSJ has been a leader through WSJ Live, which, as of last year, was already producing 100+ hours of live and on-demand original programming/month.

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Final bidding was scheduled to close last Friday in the Hulu sale process, with the list of potential buyers apparently narrowed to DirecTV, Chernin Group/AT&T and Guggenheim Digital Media. According to various reports (here and here), Hulu's active owners Disney and Fox (Comcast is a passive owner) have been insisting on a number of content licensing related deal points.

Hulu's next-day access to its 3 broadcast owners' hit shows has always been the heart of the company's value proposition. But a lot has changed in the online video landscape since Hulu was initially formed in March, 2007. As a result, in my view, there are at least 3 key reasons Hulu's owners are justified in bargaining hard over content licensing rights: the importance of TV Everywhere, the growth of well-funded over-the-top licensees and the potential of online video advertising. Following, I delve into each.

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Remarkably, it's already been 4 years since the CEOs of Time Warner and Comcast unveiled the concept of TV Everywhere in a high-profile press event. Since then numerous successful services have launched (e.g. HBO GO, WatchESPN, etc.), yet the prevailing consensus - which I agree with - is that TV Everywhere hasn't yet been adopted at nearly the level anticipated.

I've written in the past about the 5 key things I believe are holding back TV Everywhere and 1 of them is "authentication" - the process of verifying a user and providing rights to watch programming covered by their subscription. Picayune as it might seem at first blush for pay-TV subscribers to remember and input their user name and password to be authenticated, it has turned out to be a genuine barrier to adoption.

That's why Comcast's announcement yesterday of "Home Pass" which auto-verifies and logs in dual Comcast video and broadband subscriber when accessing Xfinity TV (the company's branded TV Everywhere initiative) is significant. Rather than fumbling for their credentials, users can simply visit the Xfinity portal and begin watching nearly instantly.

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These days everyone has their own favorite device on which to consume video. While improved convenience is great for content providers and advertisers, the resulting fragmentation also causes huge headaches developing for multiple devices.

In a session at the recent Video Ad Summit, executives from Adobe, AOL, Scripps and TheBlaze shared their insights on the challenges and opportunities of surging video consumption across devices, how to generate an ROI and what it all means for advertisers.

The video is below and runs 22 minutes, 14 seconds.

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TVs connected to the Internet - whether through set-top boxes, game consoles, Blu-ray players and/or as Smart TVs - are one of the hottest trends in the video landscape. Connected TVs allow viewers to have all of the traditional lean-back, long-form experiences they're accustomed to, but with online video/over-the-top's benefits of convenience and selection. Connected TVs crack open pay-TV operators' grip on TV delivery and give advertisers new opportunities to engage audiences.

Nonetheless, it is still early in connected TVs' evolution, and at the recent Video Ad Summit, we dedicated a session to debunking 5 key myths that have grown up around connected TVs and video advertising. Moderator Tom Morgan, CEO and co-founder of Net2TV, led a discussion of these myths with executives from LG, Media Storm and YuMe, which was based on thought-leadership from YuMe (full presentation available here).

The video is below and runs 30 minutes, 21 seconds.

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For many viewers, a pre-roll ad is just a 15 or 30-second interruption before the content plays. But now advertisers can make their pre-rolls full-blown interactive experiences with multiple engagement opportunities. At the recent Video Ad Summit, Patty Everett, Associate Media Director at Turner Media explained how, using a sample campaign to illustrate her points in discussion with Jack Flanagan from Innovid.

In the session, Patty details how an interactive pre-roll for Cartoon Network's Hall of Game awards drove awareness, voting and ultimately tune-in. Patty also explains the key challenges in developing interactive pre-rolls and what advertisers need to do to succeed. Advertisers and publishers looking to get more out of their pre-roll will get great insights.

The video is below and runs 13 minutes, 20 seconds.

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