Posts for 'Advertising'

The initial program for the 5th annual VideoNuze Online Video Ad Summit on Tuesday, June 16th in NYC is now set.  

I'm thrilled that Neeraj Khemlani, Co-President of Hearst Entertainment & Syndication and President, Hearst Digital Studios, will be our keynote guest. I will be interviewing Neeraj about critical industry trends, how established media companies are positioning themselves for the online video era and how viewers' behavior is impacting advertising. Plus, we'll discuss Hearst's investments in Vice, AwesomenessTV, BuzzFeed, Roku and others.

So far, 26 executive speakers are on board, from industry leaders like Bonnier, Conde Nast, Digitas, Heineken USA, MediaVest, Reuters TV, Roku, Starcom, Viacom, Zenith OptiMedia and many others.

The jam-packed program will feature 14 sessions on the convergence of TV and video advertising, programmatic from both the buyers' and publishers' sides, how video monetization is being modernized from both the buyers' and publishers' side, mobile video, connected TVs, the NewFronts/Upfronts, viewability and online video ad innovation.

The Ad Summit will once again be a must-attend day of learning and networking with industry leaders from brands, agencies, content providers, technology companies and others in the ecosystem. Last year's Ad Summit drew over 420 attendees and featured 40+ speakers.

Discounted, early bird registration is open, and a reminder that all early bird registrants will be entered to win a 55-inch TCL Roku TV, generously provided by Roku.

Learn more and register now!

Video supply side ad platform Altitude Digital has raised $30 million from FastPay, a provider of liquidity and financial workflow solutions to the media industry. The new funds will be used for growing Altitude's ARENA platform and data infrastructure, expanding mobile capabilities and growing internationally. The new financing brings total capital raised to date to $45 million.

continue reading

Akamai has integrated Adobe Primetime ad insertion into its network to enable server-side online video advertising. Red Bull Media House and Turner Broadcasting are both trialing the joint solution.

While other server-side ad solutions exist, John Bishop, CTO of Akamai's media business told me last week he sees this as a "Server-Side 2.0" offering because the ad requests run directly through Akamai's CDN, thereby eliminating slower communications paths that can hinder scalability.

continue reading

Programmatic TV technology provider clypd has raised a $19.4 million Series B round to expand all departments in the business, and enter new markets in Europe and Asia-Pacific. With the new round, clypd has raised approximately $30 million.

European broadcaster RTL Group led the round, with participation from prior investors. RTL has become a very active investor in U.S. online video and technology companies, buying a 51% stake in multichannel network BroadbandTV for $36 million in June, 2013, a 65% stake in programmatic video ad platform SpotXchange for $144 million in July, 2014 and acquiring fashion and beauty MCN StyleHaul for $107 million in November, 2014.

continue reading

YouTube is poised to be the next major content provider to join the great subscription VOD land grab for consumers' video spending. Per a Bloomberg report yesterday, YouTube has sent a letter to its content creators sharing its intention to launch an ad-free subscription service, though neither the price nor launch date was specified. Content creators would keep 55% of subscription revenue based on their pro rata viewership.

Plans for a YouTube subscription service were initially mentioned by its CEO Susan Wojcicki last October at the Code Mobile conference.

continue reading

Boston-based YouTube ad buying platform Pixability has raised an $18 million Series C round, led by new investors Jump Capital and Edison Partners, with participation from existing investors. The new funds will be used for product development and international expansion. The company has raised $28 million to date.

Pixability's core capability is enabling brands and agencies to create and manage data-driven video ad campaigns targeting specific audiences within YouTube channels. This is extremely valuable because while YouTube's massive user base is very attractive to brands and agencies, the site's diverse content makes it virtually impossible to understand how to optimize YouTube ad spending.

continue reading

Innovid has raised $10 million in additional capital from Cisco Investments and existing investors, bringing total capital raised to date to $37.6 million. The new funds will be used for product development. Cisco and Innovid announced a partnership back in September, 2013, to deliver interactive, contextual video ads to second screens.

Aside from the financing, the big news from Innovid is the huge growth in its Innovid Atom video ad serving platform for brands and agencies. According to CEO and co-founder Zvika Netter, who I caught up with on Friday, Innovid has gone from 20 brands using its platform last July, to 110 now. This is expected to rise to 145 by the end of Q2 '15. Included among these are Kraft, Disney, Toyota, Chrysler and dozens of others.

continue reading

At Facebook's F8 developer conference yesterday, the company announced a series of initiatives that, taken together, demonstrate it is positioned to be a very big player in video and YouTube's biggest competitor long-term. Following are the most important announcements and my take on their implications. I also note the key missing pieces that are almost certainly on Facebook's video roadmap.

continue reading

TubeMogul and Videoplaza, an Ooyala company, have announced a partnership to build a premium programmatic ad marketplace, which will enable brands, agencies and trading desks that use TubeMogul's buying platform to access inventory from international broadcasters and publishers that use Videoplaza's sell-side programmatic solutions Karbon and Konnect.

continue reading

A reminder that early bird discounted registration is open for the 5th annual VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit on Tuesday, June 16th in NYC. All early bird registrants will be entered to win a 55-inch TCL Roku TV, graciously provided by Roku.

There is a ton going on in online video advertising, and the Ad Summit will dive deeply into all of the hottest topics such as programmatic, viewability, convergence, mobile, branded entertainment, innovation and much more. The Ad Summit will once again be a must-attend day of learning and networking with industry leaders from brands, agencies, content providers, technology companies and others in the ecosystem. Last year's Ad Summit drew over 420 attendees, featuring 40+ speakers.

There are 10 terrific industry-leading companies on board so far as sponsors, including Premier Partners DashBid, FreeWheel and Pixability, Headline Partners Altitude Digital, LiveRail/Facebook, Ooyala, Teads.tv and TubeMogul plus Branding Partners Brightcove and Roku. I'm grateful for their generous support!

Learn more and register now!

Looking to benefit from the rising tide of mobile device usage, video ad tech provider Teads.tv has extended its inRead video ad format (also called "outstream") to mobile via a new SDK.  With the new SDK, content providers can place inRead video ads within their mobile apps. The format's big differentiator is that it runs against text articles, slideshows and news feeds, essentially unlocking tons of new high-quality inventory for lucrative video ads.

continue reading

Ooyala has released its Q4 '14 Global Video Index, once again showing the powerful rise in mobile as a preferred viewing platform for online video. A record 38% of video views in December, 2014 occurred on mobile devices, up from less than 18% in December, 2013. For the full fourth quarter of '14, mobile accounted for 34% of video views.

When it released its Q3 Global Video Index in December, '14, Ooyala forecasted that mobile video's share will cross 50% industry-wide by Q3 '15. Since 2011, mobile's share of video plays has increased 16-fold.

continue reading on VideoNuze iQ

Adobe Primetime has added two important features that help content providers better monetize their video ad inventory and improve the user's experience.Primetime now allows content providers to import first, second and third-party audience data into Audience Manager, the company's data management platform. The result is better targeting to specific audience segments.

And second, Primetime has enabled cross-device frequency capping for ads in authenticated content. This means that a viewer who switches from using, say, an Android tablet, to an iPhone, to watch TV Everywhere programming won't be served the same ad (note the capping is still at the household-level for now).

continue reading

Early bird discounted registration is now open for the 5th annual VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit on Tuesday, June 16th in NYC. As an extra incentive, one early bird registrant will win a 55-inch TCL Roku TV, graciously provided by Roku.

The Ad Summit will once again be a premier day of learning and networking with industry leaders from brands, agencies, content providers, technology companies and others in the ecosystem. Last year's Ad Summit drew over 420 attendees, featuring 40+ speakers. This year's event will be at a new venue, the Time-Life Building's spacious 8th floor conference center. Detailed program info will be posted soon.

I'm thrilled to have 9 fantastic companies on board as initial sponsors, including Premier Partners FreeWheel and Pixability, Headline Partners Altitude Digital, LiveRail/Facebook, Ooyala, Teads.tv and TubeMogul plus Branding Partners Brightcove and Roku. All of these companies are key players in the online video advertising ecosystem and I'm honored they've decided to be a part of the Ad Summit.

If you'd like to learn more about speaking and sponsorship opportunities, please contact me.

Learn more and register now!

Integral Ad Science, which specializes in evaluating media quality for online advertisers, has acquired Veenome, a highly complimentary startup that measures specific contextual attributes of video ads. Veenome looks at web pages to determine things like whether ads are played in-banner or in-stream, how many players are on a page, what kinds of content is displayed, where the player was positioned, and more. Veenome builds on Integral's existing video ad evaluation technologies.

continue reading

Mobile lifestyles are becoming more prevalent, mobile devices are getting better and mobile video content choices are exploding. No surprise then, that with lots more mobile video viewing happening, mobile video advertising is booming. A recent check-in call with Frank Sinton, CEO of Beachfront Media, confirmed this, and he also shared insights on key challenges that remain.

continue reading

More evidence of TV Everywhere's momentum today, as FreeWheel's Q4 2014 Video Monetization Report found that 56% of long-form and live ads were viewed via authentication. That's more than 4x greater than the 13% authentication rate for long-form content in Q4 '13. Total long-form viewing was up 43% in Q4 '14 vs. the prior year.

The new data follows Comcast's news last week that 30% of its Xfinity TV subscribers use TV Everywhere monthly. (Note Comcast owns FreeWheel).

continue reading on VideoNuze iQ

I'm pleased to present the 261st edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. This week we return to the topic of TV Everywhere, which we've discussed on previous episodes. While TV Everywhere's challenges are well-understood, this week Comcast released encouraging adoption data, which we dig into.

Comcast also announced it now offers over 70 linear networks via TVE, in addition to on-demand choices. Related, NBC said this week that it will offer authenticated access to its linear feed via its app, but only in its O&O markets. Colin notes that's a very different approach than CBS is using for linear, which is only available via its All-Access service that costs $5.99/month.

Aside from improved content for TVE, Colin and I also observe that monetization is also improving, with technology providers BlackArrow and This Technology, as examples, recently sharing product updates on dynamic ad insertion (here and here).

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!