VideoNuze Posts

YouTube has been the undisputed 800-pound gorilla of the online video market since the beginning of time. And it's key message to advertisers at last night's "Brandcast" NewFront event was to emphatically remind them of its massive size and its reach into the youth market, factors it believes should drive advertisers' attention and spending.

Whereas last year's Brandcast was all about the 100 new channels that YouTube was funding/launching, this year's event was more of a return to its roots: it's ability to give native digital talent the platform to reach and grow huge audiences. Because a lot of this talent resonates first and foremost with younger digital natives (in Nielsen parlance "Generation C"), YouTube says it's in a unique position to deliver these audiences.  YouTube cited Nielsen data that it reaches more 18-34-year-olds than any cable network.

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Looking past the thumping music and flashing lights that pervaded AOL's NewFront presentation yesterday, the big theme from the company's new slate of original productions was far quieter: it wants to be the online home for authentic programming from thoughtful creators.

Going this less mainstream route means AOL isn't trying to out-TV TV - like for example Netflix is trying to do with "House of Cards" and its other new shows (how many times have you heard Netflix executives compare their efforts to HBO's?!). Though it is collaborating with some well-known talent such as Sarah Jessica Parker, Gwyneth Paltrow and Hank Azaria, AOL's new programs are mainly built around online and offline personalities who have unique perspectives on the world.

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I'm pleased to share that Lori Conkling, NBCUniversal's EVP of Strategy and Business Development for Media Innovation and Cross Company Initiatives, will be a featured speaker at the June 4th Online Video Ad Summit in NYC. Lori joined NBCU recently to drive strategy and monetization of the company's cross-platform content. In her role, Lori is also a key executive in advanced advertising, content windowing and mobile. Lori previously ran distribution at A&E Networks; at NBCU she reports into Lauren Zalaznick.

At the Video Ad Summit, I'll be interviewing Lori about the choices and challenges involved in architecting a successful cross-media strategy. Today, media companies have unprecedented opportunities to engage with their audiences, but determining which ones have the best ROI and should be pursued is harder than ever. In the interview, expect insights about changing consumer behaviors, the shift to on-demand viewing, second-screen apps that work, effective monetization, TV Everywhere, mobile/connected devices and lots more.

Early bird discounted registration for the Video Ad Summit is available until May 17th. You can save $100 by registering early, and as an added bonus, all early bird registrants will be eligible to win a Samsung 40-inch Smart TV, presented by VideoHub. We'll do the drawing just before lunch. Startups and students are eligible for even deeper discounts, contact me to learn more.

I look forward to seeing you on June 4th!

Getting a branded video to go hugely viral is like catching lightning in a bottle - it's hard to predict and very rare. But a viral video's huge branding benefits through free, or so-called "earned media" impressions, makes it extremely appealing.

Now Visible Measures, which has been tracking video viewership across devices for years, and Publicis Groupe's VivaKi and Starcom MediaVest have developed a planning tool called CONTAGION that uses data to help brands and agencies actually plan for how viral a branded video campaign could be. CONTAGION is launching today for use by Publicis Groupe agencies for a year before becoming available to the broader market.

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I'm pleased to present the 177th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. Earlier this week, Netflix reported solid results for Q1 '13, adding a total of about 3 million new subscribers, 2 million in the U.S. and a million internationally. Netflix projects it can ultimately obtain 60-90 million U.S. subscribers, which would be 2-3 times as many as HBO, the biggest "premium TV" network.

As I wrote earlier this week, if that were to occur - and it's still a big if - it would mean Netflix would have to get a lot of middle and lower income American homes to layer on another $8/mo or more to their already substantial pay-TV bills, OR there would have to be material cord-cutting that essentially frees up household budget for SVOD subscriptions. Colin suggests a third way, which would be "cord-shaving" - subscribers cutting back on existing pay-TV services like sports networks or premium channels to make room for Netflix in their budgets.

That of course leads to the question of what HBO might do as it observes Netflix's continued growth. It's hard to see HBO standing still, yet, for reasons HBO has discussed in the past, unbundling itself from pay-TV would be a huge step for the company. Last but not least, Amazon - which become Netflix's biggest U.S. SVOD competitor - is rumored to have a set-top box introduction planned, which could also shift the competitive balance in the U.S. Bottom line, there are a lot of twists and turns yet to occur in SVOD in the U.S.

Listen in to learn more!

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Grab Media, which has been at the forefront of what I've called the "Syndicated Video Economy," is gaining traction with its recently-released "GrabPress" video plug-in for the WordPress content management system. GrabPress allows publishers of any size using WordPress to quickly customize and embed a feed of video from Grab Media' s ever-growing catalog of 500K+ video clips directly into their web pages. Grab Press has been downloaded 3,500 times to date.

Grab executives recently explained to me that while the company's core mission of connecting video providers with a distribution network of publishers remains the same, the mechanism for doing so has changed significantly over the past year. The big driver of this is that advertisers have become reluctant to place video ads against syndicated video content showing up in right column 300x250 units. As such, Grab has sought, with GrabPress, to enable video content to be more contextually integrated with publishers' own content.

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Early bird discounted registration is open for the June 4th VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit in NYC. You can save $100 by registering early, and as an added bonus, all early bird registrants will be eligible to win a Samsung 40-inch Smart TV, presented by VideoHub. We'll do the drawing just before lunch.

At this 3rd VideoNuze Ad Summit, I'm once again expecting a packed house from around the video ecosystem of content providers, agencies, brands and technology companies. As always, the Video Ad Summit will be a high-impact day of learning and networking. Speakers from companies such as Google/YouTube, GroupM, Digitas, MTV Networks, Forrester Research, AOL, CBS, Turner Media and many others will be sharing insights on the rapidly evolving online video advertising landscape.

I'm extremely grateful to all of the 18 industry-leading companies that are supporting this year's Video Ad Summit: Premier Partners Adap.TV, Adobe, Akamai, TubeMogul, ValueClick and YuMe; Headline Partners Altitude Digital, AOL, BlackArrow, Collective, Innovid, LiveRail, VideoHub and Videology, plus Branding Partners EXPO, Extreme Reach, Mixpo and Real Media. All of them will have representatives at the event and it will be a great opportunity to engage with them.

I look forward to seeing you on June 4th!

I'm pleased to share the final 3 video interviews that I did at NABShow 2013 today. Below you will find interviews with Kevin Norris, president and CEO, Brevity, Dustin Encelewski, Director of Product Marketing, Elemental Technologies and Tim Street, VP, Mobile Video, mDialog. All of the interviews are in the final player at bottom.

Enjoy!

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