Posts for 'Advertising'

Online video ad buying continues to shift toward, but also improve upon, conventional TV ad buying, with the latest evidence that Adap.tv is now optimizing audience targeting against data from Nielsen and comScore.

As Toby Gabriner, Adap.tv's president, explained to me, the process starts with an algorithm the company has developed to predict a publisher's audience composition. The algorithm is based on numerous data "signals" (e.g. content type, time of day, browsing behavior, 3rd party profiling, etc.) that are continuously updated. The audience profiles are then used to focus on impressions that should index high against Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) and comScore Validated Campaign Essentials (VCE).

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Anyone working in or around the video ad tech space knows how incredibly crowded and well-funded it is. So, when a couple of weeks ago I noticed that a company I was only mildly familiar with, Altitude Digital, announced it had raised $5 million, I was intrigued. While not a blockbuster-sized round, financings of this size signal that the investors, after having done their customary due diligence, see some "white space" still available to operate in.  To learn more, I recently spoke to Devin Yeager, Altitude's COO, and Joe Salvador, VP of Video Operations.

Denver-based Altitude started up about 4 years ago as a display ad rep firm, but 2 years ago began building its own technology. More recently, Altitude has expanded into video, creating a new division called Visualtising. As a whole, the company is now processing about 12 billion display and video ad impressions per month. Altitude currently has 20 employees and is looking to double in size this year. It was also #54 ranked on Inc. 5000 list last year. Expanding Visualtising is the main purpose of the new financing.

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Video ad tech provider YuMe has introduced a new ad unit for connected TVs dubbed "Click to Ngage." Simon Hayhurst, SVP of Product Management at YuMe, told me yesterday that the new ad unit is meant to give advertisers a way to extend their creativity beyond typical 30-second pre-rolls into more of an immersive "mini-site" type of format.

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Welcome to 2013! If you were mostly checked out over the past 1-2 weeks (or were only paying attention to the fiscal cliff roller coaster), you didn't miss a whole lot in the video world. However, there were 5 items that caught my attention which I briefly describe below:

See the 5 items

I'm pleased to present the 160th edition of the VideoNuze-TDG podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon, senior analyst at The Diffusion Group. This will be our 45th podcast of 2012, and last one for the year.

Following on last week's podcast in which we counted down the top 10 online video stories of 2012, this week we look ahead to the top 4 trends we expect in 2013. We also do a quick "around the horn" on 7 topics that are also of interest.

Click here to listen to the podcast (27 minutes, 25 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

The VideoNuze-TDG podcast is available in iTunes...subscribe today!

Advertisers and content providers continue to grapple with how to optimize ads in online video, and contributing to the dialogue, this morning AOL is releasing research indicating that ads in short-form videos are more effective than ads in long-form. Based on research involving 800 participants, AOL and its research partner Qualvu found that ads in short-form video had a 25% higher brand recall, produced 42% higher purchase intent and were 26% more likely to be liked. Short-form video is defined as less than 10 minutes with long-form 10 minutes or longer.

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Below is the full video of last week's VideoSchmooze session, "Cracking the Code on Multiplatform Success," which included Peter Dolchin (VP, Viacom Media Networks), Jason Forbes (EVP, zeebox), Ran Harnevo (SVP, AOL On Network), Chris Smith (VP, Collective), with Olivier Manuel (Principal, Accretive) moderating.

The group covered a lot of ground, sharing insights on what their companies are doing with multi-platform and how they view multi-platform unfolding. Among the specific topics they discussed included:

- What is the definition of a "TV" in the online video age?

- What do marketers want - unified measurement for media buying, or separation by platform? And what do incumbent linear networks and upstart online-only programmers want?

- What is the difference between "TV Everywhere" and "Video Everywhere?" How are new programmers challenging incumbents to force more audience fragmentation and how is the ad community valuing this programming?

- Can online-only originals be financing solely on ads or do they need a dual revenue stream with subscriptions, like cable?

- Does premium content that was produced for the web get TV-style premium CPMs or will it be considered low-cost web content? How important is targeting matter and what other factors matter?

- Do ad formats need to be different on TV, mobile and online?

- How can business models align with user behaviors, and who's succeeding in doing this today?

- What lessons does mobile, with the dominance of iOS and Android, offer to connected TV space? Will a "connected TV operating system" emerge and if so, who will drive that?

- How does social help the discovery process and combat DVR usage?

And much more!

Watch the session video

YouTube has posted a gallery of the top 20 most-viewed ads of 2012. Topping the list, with almost 21 million views is "Nike Football: My Time Is Now," the 3-minute plus film which debuted for last summer's Eurocup. My personal favorite, with 17.7 million views and in the #3 position, is "The Bark Side," (see below) Volkswagen's 2012 Super Bowl teaser spin on its clever 2011 Super Bowl ad, "The Force" which is now up to 55 million views itself. The top 20 ads have over 200 million views combined.

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Video ad technology provider Videology has released an excellent infographic (after the jump below), jam-packed with useful data about Q3 online video advertising spending and performance. The data is based on 1.3 billion video ad impressions served by Videology in the U.S. from July 1 to Sept. 30. I'm normally not a huge fan of infographics, but this one has highly relevant data, presented clearly and concisely.

A few of the data points that jumped out for me:

- Despite the buzz over mobile and connected devices, 90% of video ads were still served online.

- Almost two-thirds of video ad impressions were placed on sites classified as entertainment-oriented (the third quarter in a row this has been the case). A distant second, with 8.4% of video ad impressions were portal sites.

- Educational Services was the category of video ads with the highest click-through rate while Retail ads had the highest viewing completion rate.

- Just 10.1% of video ad impressions were targeted to the tech-savvy 18-24 demo; the majority (63.9%) were targeted to the 25-54 demos.

See the infographic

A new study released by Jun Group, an opt-in video ad platform, has found that users are twice as likely to interact with a brand upon watching an incentivized video ad as they are after watching a pre-roll. The results are based on 7.7 million incentivized video ad views from Jun Group campaigns between May-August 2012 along with industry data on pre-rolls.

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Adobe has announced the beta release of its full Project Primetime publishing, monetization and analytics platform for video delivered to connected devices. Adobe is also introducing two new Primetime components, MediaWeaver, a dynamic ad insertion service and Primetime Media Player, a cross-platform player tightly integrated with analytics components of Primetime.

Adobe is positioning Primetime as a comprehensive solution for professional content providers eager to move past cobbling together multiple products that often result in sub-optimal user experiences with online and mobile video. Primetime was originally unveiled in February, with the Highlights component that allowed quick clip and metadata creation from live programming.

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Validating the appeal of long-form (over 20 minutes) online video, the completion rate for such content set a new record of 93%, in Q3 '12, according to data released yesterday in FreeWheel's latest Video Monetization Report. FreeWheel specializes in delivering video ads against professional video only, and services most of the major TV networks, so long-form primarily means TV programs.

Completion rates were in the 80%-90% range until Q2 '12 when they nudged up to 91%. The increase in completion rates has occurred despite the fact that the number of ads in long-form have increased from just over 3 back in Q1 '11 to almost 7 in Q3 '12. Viewers clearly love their online access to favorite TV programs and are willing to sit through more ads as a quid pro quo for that access.

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Adapt.tv and Digiday released their latest "Video: State of the Industry" report yesterday, and among the key findings were that 62% of respondents see online video ads as a complement to TV, up from 56% last year, while just 10% see it as a replacement. In addition, 48% of respondents from brands and agencies said that TV and online video ads are planned together, with another 25% saying they will be planned together within the next 12 months.

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Visible Measures is unveiling its "Certified Publisher Program" (CPP) this morning, to help establish standardized MRC-accredited online video campaign metrics for publishers to report to advertisers and agencies. The program, which is free to publishers and advertisers, is meant to enhance consistency and transparency. This in turn reduces the friction of agencies needing to expend resources normalizing self-reported and highly variable publisher results.

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I'm pleased to present the 155th edition of the VideoNuze-TDG podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon, senior analyst at The Diffusion Group, who joins from London. First up this week, we discuss AOL's video success and the larger concept of video syndication. Earlier this week, AOL revealed that its video revenues jumped from $10 million 2 years ago to $100 million in 2012, largely due to syndication. Colin and I dig into why syndication is so compelling and what's ahead.

Next up, Colin shares insights he gained from a presentation at the OTTTv World Summit in London by Marina Kalkanis, Head of the BBC's Programmes OnDemand Core Services team, which is responsible for the media and metadata services supporting BBC online. Marina's team oversaw BBC's online simulcast and on demand streaming of the London Olympics.

Colin was impressed by the scale of the BBC's Olympics operation and how video was consumed online and on mobile devices. One key takeaway - BBC found online/mobile complimenting linear TV, similar to NBC's experience in the U.S.

Click here to listen to the podcast (20 minutes, 11 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

The VideoNuze-TDG podcast is available in iTunes...subscribe today!

Interactive video ad tech provider Jivox is announcing this morning that its platform can now deliver mobile ads on the iPad Mini and iPhone 5, without any additional work by publishers or agencies. Jivox uses a single ad tag that detects the type of device, browser and OS so that an appropriately sized ad is adaptively chosen and delivered. In addition, Jivox can detect which devices have higher quality Retina Display and will deliver high resolution ads to those.

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At the VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit in June, we had a great panel on best practices in online video advertising, which included Darren Feher, President and CEO of Conviva, Beth Lawrence, EVP, Ad Sales, The Weather Channel, Ravi Pahilajani, Associate Media Director, Razorfish, Aleck Schleider, VP Product Vertical, Videology and moderated by Larry Thomas of Latergy.

The session video is embedded below:

Advertising on connected TVs is continuing to improve, as Rovi late last week announced a new polling feature in its Rovi Advertising Network. Jeff Siegel, SVP, Global Media Sales, told me that this is one of the top capabilities advertisers have been asking for. Advertisers will typically seek a viewer's opinion on something and as a reward will offer a coupon or other incentive.

Rovi is a key player in the budding connected TV advertising market, as it both powers and sells ads for connected TV manufacturers Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, Panasonic. NPD recently estimated that 27% of TVs shipped in Q1 '12 had Internet connectivity. However that number can be a little deceiving, since not all these buyers will actually connect their TVs. Jeff explained that Rovi breaks the TV market into four buckets: total number of TV sets shipped, the percent of these that are connectable, the percent of these that are actually connected, and finally what they are used for.

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Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group and I are back for the 150th (whoohoo!) edition of the weekly VideoNuze-TDG podcast. This week Colin and I talk about how on-demand viewing - through both DVRs and online - is changing the landscape for TV networks and advertisers.

First up, Colin shares some eye-opening numbers from the start of this year's TV season, as reported by the NY Times. Certain shows like NBC's "Revolution" and "The New Normal" plus CBS's "Hawaii Five-o" gained a whopping 40% more viewers due to DVR-based viewing in the 3 days following their premieres. This new viewing dynamic, particularly among the coveted 18-49 cohort, underscores the new reality of on-demand's importance in assessing a show's potential. Premiere night alone is no longer determinative (if it ever was!).

On-demand viewing is also a conundrum for advertisers and agencies when creating media plans. And that's why this week's announcement by Nielsen of its Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings solution is a big step forward in monetizing audiences across screens. Online has emerged alongside DVRs as a legitimate viewing alternative, and advertisers need to harness its potential. Colin and I discuss how Cross-Platform helps create a "common currency" measurement with TV, which will appeal to TV ad buyers, while helping content providers better value their online ad inventory. It's a complicated topic, but as Colin notes, the shift from "broadcaster-centric to consumer-centric" is causing huge ripple effects in the ecosystem.

Listen in to learn more!

Click here to listen to the podcast (18 minutes, 9 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

The VideoNuze-TDG podcast is available in iTunes...subscribe today!

There's been a lot written about how challenging it has become for brand advertisers to reach audiences effectively given the splintering of attention across screens. No longer is it sufficient to simply buy TV ads and expect to reach all targets; online and mobile must be added as complimentary channels.

This isn't easy, but as a new report released yesterday by Collective, "The Multi-Screen Advertising Playbook," shows, it is possible. Sharing results from a series of its clients' multi-platform campaigns, Collective provides specific details on how online campaigns augment TV buys to achieve marketing objectives.

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