Posts for 'Advertising'

Varick Media Management, which specializes in programmatic ad buying, has chosen Tremor Video's demand side platform, powered by VideoHub, as its preferred partner for premium programmatic campaigns. Neeraj Kochhar, Managing Director of Buy-side Platforms at Tremor Video, told me that it's the first big agency that's been announced as a VideoHub DSP customer, though others are using the platform as well.

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BrightRoll has released findings from its 3rd annual U.S. ad agency survey, including among other things, that agencies believe targeting is by far the most valuable benefit of online video advertising. Cited by 56% of respondents, targeting alone exceeded all other benefits combined: reach (20%), price relative to TV (8%), other (8%), ad unit format (7%) and ability to reuse creative (2%).

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Ad tech provider This Technology has been awarded a patent covering key dynamic ad insertion (DAI) functionality, the company has announced. The patent relates to "identifying dynamic ad inventory and defining attributes like ownership, length and interactivity, which are all critical requirements for targeted advertising delivery."

That's a mouthful, and fortunately I spoke to This Technology's CEO Jeff Sherwin last week, who provided a plain-English explanation of why this is important.

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Once again demonstrating the rapidly blurring lines between online video and TV on-demand, ad tech provider BlackArrow has announced that it will be powering dynamic ad insertion (DAI) in on demand content viewed on connected and mobile devices by Time Warner Cable subscribers. BlackArrow has already supporting DAI for TWC in traditional set-top box VOD and linear streams over IP.

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Super Bowl XLIX will go into the books as one of the most exciting ever, full of unexpected twists and turns, right up until the last few seconds of the game. Importantly, the Super Bowl experience continues to change, with streaming, extended online ad viewing and social sharing. Below I've rounded up the most relevant data I could find about these trends. If I've missed anything, please let me know.

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I'm pleased to present the 258th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Super Bowl Sunday is upon us. In today's podcast Colin and I first explore the huge role online video has had in driving up the value of Super Bowl ads, which NBC now approximates at $10 million per spot. But despite the ads' tens of millions of incremental online views, we're both still somewhat mystified why the ads don't place more value on viewer engagement, a topic I explored yesterday.

We then turn our attention to NBC's plan to stream 11 hours of programming on Sunday (including the game) without any TV Everywhere style authentication.

As Colin explains, "Super Stream Sunday" is correctly focused on educating viewers about TV Everywhere. But Colin notes one big drawback, which is that the game won't be available on smartphones, since Verizon has the exclusive mobile streaming rights. That means smartphone-wielding millennials could be disappointed.

Listen in to learn more!

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Yesterday, NBCU's EVP of Sales and Sales Marketing Seth Winter announced that all of this Sunday's Super Bowl on-air and online ad units are now sold out. At $4.4-$4.5 million for on-air spots, these are the most expensive Super Bowl ads ever. Winter also reiterated something he said a few weeks ago: he believes a 30-second Super Bowl ad really provides a $10 million value "because of all the incremental exposure that the creative receives on all the different social media platforms like YouTube or publicity."

The comment resonated with me, because way back in 2007, in "On the Road to the $10 Million Super Bowl Ad," I suggested that eventually Super Bowl would in fact reach this level (note that NBC isn't selling the ads for $10 million - yet. It's only saying that's their value).

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Please save the date for the 5th annual VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit, on Tuesday, June 16th, in NYC.

Online video advertising is booming, and the Video Ad Summit has become the industry's top event for learning and networking. Over 425 decision-makers at agencies, brands, content providers, technology companies and others in the video ecosystem attended last year's Video Ad Summit which featured 18 sessions and 45 speakers. In addition, 18 of the industry's leading companies sponsored last year's event.

With all of the industry's growth, I expect the 2015 event to be even bigger - jam-packed with thought-leader keynotes, panel discussions, fireside chats, presentations and tech demonstrations. Not only will we dig into the big opportunities, but we'll also have candid sessions on key challenges such as viewability, fraud, measurement and ROI. As always, you can expect a high-impact full-day program.

The Video Ad Summit is moving to a more spacious venue in 2015 as well - the Time-Life Building's 8th floor conference center, conveniently located in midtown at 6th Avenue and 51st Street. Assuming the weather cooperates, we'll have lunch and cocktails outside on the terrace.

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

Last week I attended AdExchanger's Industry Preview 2015 conference in NYC, a gathering of 500+ digital marketers. I attended mainly to gain insights about the larger digital marketing landscape, of which online video advertising is an increasingly important part for advertisers, content providers and technologists.

While there was only one video-specific session, video weaved its way into a lot of what happened on-stage. One session in particular that generated numerous valuable video-related insights was titled, "This is Digital Publishing in 2015" and included Zazie Lucke (Head of Global Media Marketing, Bloomberg), Dao Nguyen (Publisher, BuzzFeed), Troy Young (President, Hearst Digital), Jon Steinberg (CEO, Daily Mail, North America) and was moderated by Wenda Harris Millard (President and COO, Medialink).

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Not so long ago, content on YouTube was mostly user-generated, leaving advertisers uninterested. But now things have changed dramatically. Content has been professionalized by a vast range of independent creators, who are attracting huge audiences, especially among younger viewers. This was the key context for the 2014 surge in M&A activity among multichannel networks (MCNs) like Maker Studios, Fullscreen, AwesomenessTV, etc.).  

In parallel, there have been significant innovations in how to monetize YouTube content. The latest is Outrigger Media's new OpenSlate demographic data, allowing advertisers improved targeting across 250K+ YouTube channels and Nielsen-backed audience guarantees in a program called "OpenSlate Select." The demo data complements OpenSlate's traditional "SlateScore" scoring of YouTube channels based on engagement and influence.

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I'm pleased to present the 256th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

This week Colin and I share our predictions for the video industry in 2015. In addition, we look back at our predictions for 2014 and share how we did (yes, accountability!).

Listen in to learn more!

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Tremor Video has unveiled its video supply side platform, with 40 publishers on board, including existing customers USA TODAY Sports, Bonnier Corp. and Young Hollywood. The platform allows publishers to manage inventory on multiple devices, tapping into programmatic demand-side sources. Tremor's SSP also gives publishers the ability to create private marketplaces for specific advertisers.

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Video ad platform Teads has raised $30 million, half of which is an equity investment from existing investors Gimv, Partech, Elaia and BPI, with the other half in a mid-term line of credit from Bank of China, HSBC, BNPP and BPI. The new funds are intended to accelerate technology development and expand in the U.S. plus new areas including Brazil, Russia, South Korea and Japan.

Teads is a supply side platform, which counts among its customers The Washington Post, Reuters, Forbes, The Telegraph, The Guardian and many others. Advertisers that have used Teads include AT&T, Cartier, Gucci, Microsoft, Nestle, P&G, Samsung and Volkswagen, among others.

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I'm pleased to present the 254th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

As is our custom for the final podcast of the year, today Colin and I discuss our top 10 online video stories of 2014. Needless to say, it was an incredibly busy year for online video, making it quite a challenge to narrow our list to just 10 top stories. If you disagree with any of our choices, then as always, we welcome your feedback.

Stepping back and reviewing the list, I think there's an argument to be made that when observers look back 10-20 years from now, 2014 could well be viewed as the big turning point for online video - the year when all of the critical pieces to online video becoming a completely mainstream experience fell into place. These pieces include viewer acceptance, burgeoning content, robust monetization, wide deployment of connected devices and mobility. At a minimum, buckle up, because the stage has been set for a huge 2015.

Colin and I would like to thank all of our listeners for tuning into our podcast this year, and wish all of you happy holidays!

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One of the highlights of the recent VideoSchmooze: Online Video Leadership Forum was the Best Practices in Video User Experiences session, which featured Mike Green (Brightcove), Anne Hunter (comScore), Paul Marcum (Bloomberg) and Steve Minichini (Assembly), with Jesse Redniss (BRaVe Ventures) expertly moderating.

The session included discussion of how viewers' video use cases vary by device (e.g. day-parting, information vs. entertainment content, etc.), the role of custom video in driving engagement, the effectiveness of auto-play video and ads (by Facebook and other content providers), how to combat bots/fraudulent traffic (estimated at 36% of all ads by comScore), appropriate buying criteria for video ads (GRP/reach, engagement, etc.) and lots more!

The full session video is included below.

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Below is the full video of the opening season at the recent VideoSchmooze: Online Video Leadership Forum, featuring Dounia Turrill, SVP, Client Insights, Nielsen and Bruce Leichtman, President and Principal Analyst, Leichtman Research Group, with me moderating. It was a fascinating session with Bruce and Dounia dispelling many of the myths around the changing video landscape, while zeroing in on the trends that matter most.

Among the topics we explored were cord-cutting and pay-TV seasonality, how SVOD is substituting for linear TV viewing, how Netflix is penetrated across different demographics, whether CBS All Access and HBO OTT will succeed, why too much attention is paid to millennials' viewing habits, why TV Everywhere is being marketed incorrectly, and how ad dollars are shifting from TV to online video, plus others.

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I'm pleased to present the 252nd edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Colin and I recorded the podcast shoulder-to-shoulder in NYC, where we were both at VideoSchmooze on Thursday. There were many great insights from panelists throughout the morning and we share 4 quick takeaways on this week's podcast. (Note, I'll be posting all session videos over the next couple of weeks.)

Our takeaways include discussion around Nielsen's new Total Audience report, which showed a decline of linear TV viewing across all age groups, most particularly among 18-24 year-olds; funding of high-quality online originals; a data point shared by comScore's Anne Hunter, that 36% of online video ad impressions are by bots, not humans; and last, the rise of autoplay video content, driven by Facebook.

Listen in to learn more!

Click here for previous podcasts

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The VideoNuze podcast is also available in iTunes...subscribe today!

Video ad technology provider BlackArrow has announced Virgin Media as its first European customer, signaling a broader international expansion starting in 2015. BlackArrow will be powering dynamic ad insertion on Virgin's VOD TV platform and its Virgin Anywhere multi-screen service. Virgin, which was acquired by Liberty Global last year for approximately $16 billion, has deployed its digital TV service to 5.3 million screens in the UK.

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