VideoNuze Posts

Though online video has become a hugely popular source of on-demand video for consumers, it's not the only one available. Pay-TV operators have invested heavily in deploying their own on-demand systems through set-top boxes, which have gained strong acceptance. Comcast, for example, now reports 400 million on-demand sessions per month with about 40K TV show episodes and movies available.

However, when it comes to monetization, there's a significant difference between pay-TV VOD and online video. Whereas online video advertising has developed a robust ecosystem that will drive around $4 billion in revenue this year, pay-TV VOD advertising is nascent, as it has suffered from years of underinvestment.

More recently, though, companies like BlackArrow have developed dynamic ad insertion (DAI) capabilities for VOD, which have been deployed to around 30 million homes. In a fascinating discussion at the June 4th Video Ad Summit, Ashley Swartz from Furious Minds led a deep dive discussion of pay-TV VOD DAI and its relationship to both TV and online video with executives from BlackArrow, Comcast and OMD. For anyone trying to better understand these platforms and their monetization potential, the discussion provides great learning and insights.

The video is below and runs 31 minutes, 22 seconds.

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Beachfront Media, which last month announced its Beachfront.iO mobile video ad platform, is introducing a new interactive video unit, enabling features to drive deeper brand engagement (see samples here). Advertisers can select up to 4 different calls to action to add to their pre-roll ad, including Facebook/Twitter links, click-to-call buttons, map-it functions and links to app store for further downloads and others. A "skinned final screen" is also available for enhanced branding.

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SVOD services like Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime Instant Video are all the all the rage these days and a core part of their popularity is their ever-expanding library of TV series. No question, binge-viewing a TV season or series on an SVOD service is now one of life's little pleasures.

In SVOD's wake, one technology that always seems to get overshadowed is the DVR. But, according to data from NPD, watching TV shows on DVRs is actually more than twice as popular as watching them on SVOD services like Netflix. When asked how they watched TV shows in Q1 '13, viewers cited DVR/TiVo 42%, and SVOD 16%. As seen in the chart below, DVR/TiVo was in third place, after linear viewing on the TV network itself.

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The leadoff session at the recent Video Ad Summit focused on changing consumer viewing behaviors and how they upend the traditional concept of programming by day-parts. We had a great cross-section of perspectives from panelists including Ken Lagana (SVP, Sales, CBS Interactive), J.R. McCabe (SVP, Video, Time, Inc.), Andrea Palmer (VP, Group Media Director, Digitas) and Chris Smith (VP, Video and Mobile, Collective), with Jonathan Carson (former Global President, Digital, Nielsen) moderating.

The video is below and runs 43 minutes, 12 seconds.

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In this week's 185th edition of the VideoNuze-nScreenMedia podcast, Colin Dixon and I mix things up a bit by introducing a new format of having a guest join us. We plan to do this periodically to get insights on new data or news. Our inaugural guest is Sudhir Kaushik, director of products, insights and optimization at Ooyala, which this week released its Q1 '13 Global Video Index (my post on it is here).

In the podcast, Sudhir sheds more light on Ooyala's key findings. We touch on topics including what's driving the surging growth of mobile video, distinctions between smartphone and tablet viewing, the important role of long-form content in shaping viewership patterns, the decline of the desktop as a viewing platform, the emergence of live programming as the dominant engagement format, what surprised Sudhir most in the data and much more.

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One of the highlights of the June 4th Online Video Ad Summit was an in-depth session on the recent NewFronts, Upfronts and the larger changes in the video advertising landscape, featuring Michael Bologna, Director, Emerging Communications at GroupM and Adam Shlachter, SVP, Media, Digitas, with Jim Nail, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research moderating.

It was a dynamic, wide-ranging discussion that touched on the following topics: what impact the NewFronts will have, how to de-duplicate audience viewing given the proliferation of screens, why advertisers continue to pay more despite smaller TV audiences, what role new ad creative can play in online, how new targeting techniques play vs. traditional content-as-a-proxy-for-audience mindsets and lots, lots more.

The video is below and runs 35 minutes, 18 seconds.

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At the June 4th Online Video Ad Summit, Nancy Hall, SVP, Eastern Sales for ValueClick Media, shared real-world examples of how using audience targeting data can drive improved video ad campaign results across devices. ValueClick tested 6 different campaigns in different verticals to determine impact on brand lift, purchase intent and sales. Nancy walks through the details of each and shares the results, which show how targeting data helps drive performance.

The video is below and runs 15 minutes, 46 seconds.

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Online video platform provider Ooyala has released its Q1 '13 Global Video Index, showing, among other things, that mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) accounted for more than 10% of online video views in the quarter, a new record. The total share of tablet video viewing alone grew by 33% in Q1.

It's not just the number of views that are up for mobile, but also time spent: watching long-form video (10 minutes or longer) on mobile devices grew from 41% of all time watched in Q1 '12 to 53% of all time watched in Q1 '13, an increase of 29%. Digging in deeper, for tablets, 25% of all viewing time was for content 60 minutes or longer.

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