Posts for 'Advertising'

Since I read Dish Network's press release last month announcing its new Auto Hop feature, I've been scratching my head, wondering (like many others), what Dish's cryptic CEO Charlie Ergen was really thinking about with the move. Auto Hop is such a blatant poke in the eye to broadcasters' ad-based business model that Ergen surely knew it would evoke a legal and business response - as it has.

Therefore, I was hoping an article in last Friday's WSJ, based on the first interviews with Ergen about Auto Hop, would clarify his motivations. While some have called Auto Hop a negotiation tactic with broadcasters over retransmission consent fees (which, in part it is), rather, I think Ergen's larger message with Auto Hop is that the traditional TV ad model is irreparably broken and it's urgent the industry figure out what's next. Not doing so risks the ultimate unraveling of the great American broadcast TV industry.

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There are lots of things to be excited about when it comes to online video, but the main appeal continues to be targeting, according to BrightRoll's latest U.S. Video Advertising Report (free to download). Targeting was cited by 43% of respondents as the most valuable aspect of online video (up from 41% in 2011), far outpacing the next favorite attribute of reach (cited by 28% of respondents). All other attributes had 10% or less appeal.

Like 2011, contextual and behavioral again lead in terms of targeting methodologies, with the former cited as most valuable by about 37% of respondents and the latter by 34%. Demographic and geographic trailed. Behavioral targeting will increase by 24% over 2011 with two-thirds of respondents said that over 40% of their ads in 2012 will include behavioral targeting.

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Online video advertising platform provider Mixpo is announcing this morning that is supporting Microsoft Advertising's deployment of the VPAID standard on MSN, MSNBC and other properties in its network. VPAID is an IAB standard for video players and ad units that enables market efficiencies for in-stream interactivity. VPAID helps make ads more engaging to viewers, more effective for advertisers and more monetizable to publishers. Here is a sample ad for Nordstrom Rack using the Mixpo ad platform that offers interactive elements to shop, see social media updates and find the closest store.

(Note: Mixpo is a sponsor of the June 19th VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit and will have a team on hand doing demos and answering questions.)

If you watch TV programs via VOD from your pay-TV operator, then you've probably had one or both of two curious experiences I've had: either the same, untargeted ad plays repeatedly at the breaks, or no ad (and therefore no monetization for the content provider) plays at all. With over 600 million monthly VOD views occurring these days, the lack of dynamic, targeted ad insertion in VOD diminishes the user experience and leaves lots more money on the table.

There are multiple reasons to explain all of this, but one of the main ones is that there are very hard technology problems involved to solve it, as the pay-TV infrastructure (notably the set-top boxes) vary widely in their capabilities. Creating a platform that runs across pay-TV operators' different infrastructure, at scale, to enable advertising, has been a very tall mountain to climb. Now, after years of hard work and investment, BlackArrow, the company that decided to address the situation, looks like it has finally arrived at the summit.

In this interview at the recent Cable Show, BlackArrow's CEO Dean Denhart explains that the company now has agreements covering 30 million subscribers, with Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Rogers, which are all rolling it out. He walks me through a handful of slides that explain exactly how the BlackArrow system works and the progress programmers, advertisers and pay-TV operators are making. And importantly he discusses how the online video and on-demand TV worlds will converge over time. Watch the interview (15 minutes, 18 seconds)

Watch the interview

Talk to anyone around the online video ad space about key challenges, and the topic of audience measurement - or the lack thereof - quickly comes up. But in an interview I did at the Cable Show with Discovery's Chief Digital Officer JB Perrette, he re-frames the problem as actually not being with measurement itself, but rather that there isn't an accepted "currency" throughout the industry.

As JB explains, the industry is drowning in data, but since everyone has their own, there's no Nielsen-like standard yet to use for buying and selling of online video ads. JB notes Nielsen itself is trying to evolve, but is challenged with its current panel-based measurement approach. JB adds that changing a standard where billions of dollars are at stake takes time, but he's confident eventually it will happen.

JB also discusses Discovery's deal to acquire Revision3 and how Discovery is "buying the capability to develop content across all screens," how marketers are looking for authentic engagement opportunities, why "TV is the last frontier of difficult navigation," and the role that brands play in a world with infinite content choices. Watch the video (13 minutes, 46 seconds).

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There were 4 separate research studies released yesterday from important video technology providers, all pointing to continued change and growth in video viewership and monetization. Below I've shared key highlights from each, along with links to obtain the original research.

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If you're an agency or advertiser trying to run online video ad campaigns these days, you're encountering a fractured, laborious work flow resulting from the numerous ad technology providers you need to deal with. That's the kind of friction that impedes online video getting its fair share of ad spending. To address this problem, Adap.tv is launching its "App Center" this morning, which centralizes the process for buyers to access multiple ad technologies. Adap.tv co-founder Teg Grenager explained App Center and took me through a demo yesterday.

Read more about App Center

I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 133rd edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for May 18, 2012. This week's topic: Dish Network's new "Auto Hop" feature, which automatically skips ads in DVR-recorded broadcast TV.

Listen to the podcast

It's no secret that with consumer behavior fragmenting over different video sources and media-related activities, advertisers are having a tougher time than ever reaching their targeted audiences. Especially elusive are younger, lighter TV viewers. No surprise, these lighter viewers skew younger with about 31% of 18-49 age group in the category. They're also choice targets for advertisers: they're wealthier, more educated and more diverse.

To help prove the efficacy of online video advertising as a method for reaching these viewers, yesterday Google/YouTube and Nielsen released new research demonstrating that lighter TV viewers (who average 39 minutes per/day) are more effectively and cost-efficiently reached with online video advertising that compliments traditional TV advertising.

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As this week's TV advertising upfronts kick-off, the inconvenient truth of live TV viewing's ongoing decline should be on the minds of everyone in the ecosystem. The days of forcing viewers to tolerate almost a minute of advertising for every two minutes of TV programming they viewed are fading. With DVRs now approaching 50% of American homes, viewers are more in control than ever, and live viewing's decline will accelerate. One bit of good news for both TV networks and advertisers is that online video advertising is maturing in time to help. Following are 4 reasons why online video advertising's appeal should grow:

Read the 4 reasons

I visited the SeaWell Networks booth at the recent NABShow and got a demo of their new network-based ad insertion capabilities from CEO Brian Collie. SeaWell's Spectrum technology helps service providers manage delivery of adaptive bit rate (ABR) streams to multiple devices, in partnership with ARRIS. At the NABShow, Brian demo'd how Spectrum can dynamically and seamlessly insert ads into video based on an individual user's behavior. SeaWell just completed an $8 million financing. See video below (5 minutes, 43 seconds).

Watch the video

As with TV, it's awfully hard to predict which particular programs and initiatives unveiled at last week's Digital Content NewFronts ("DCNF") will succeed and which will flop. But one thing that I'm fairly certain of is that the aggregate effort by digital outlets to create high-quality originals portends significant audience fragmentation ahead. To me, the historical parallel is as follows: what cable TV has done to broadcast TV in re-distributing audiences, online is about to do to cable TV and to broadcast.

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I'm pleased to announce more great speakers and sessions for the VideoNuze 2012 Online Video Advertising Summit on June 19th in NYC.

Early-bird, discounted registration is now available (note, the VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit takes the place of last year's "ELEVATE" event).

State of the Online Video Ad Market: Big Growth Ahead

- David Hallerman - Principal Analyst, eMarketer (presenter)

Description:
eMarketer is forecasting that in-stream and in-page online video advertising will triple from $3.12 billion in 2012 to $9.3 billion in 2016. In this lead-off session, principal analyst David Hallerman will explain what's behind the numbers, and what he sees as key opportunities and challenges in the growth ahead. For anyone trying to get their piece of this multi-billion dollar market, this session will be invaluable.

Upfronts, NewFronts and the Transition of Ad Spending - The Agency Perspective

- Mike Bologna - Managing Partner, Director, Emerging Communications, GroupM

- John McCarus - SVP, Group Director, Brand Content, Digitas

- Chris Smith - VP, Video and Mobile, Collective Media

Description:
TV advertising still dominates the market, but digital video providers are making an aggressive push for their fair share. In this session, get insights from the agency side about how digital is influencing buyer behavior the Upfronts, what effect the Digital Content NewFronts (DCNF) had on shaping demand, and how products like Collective's TV Accelerator are bridging the TV and online video advertising worlds.

The VideoNuze 2012 Online Video Advertising Summit will bring together executives from brands, agencies, technology providers and other stakeholders for a highly-focused day of learning and networking. Stay tuned for many more exciting speakers and session!

Early-bird, discounted registration is now available (note, the VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit takes the place of last year's "ELEVATE" event).

Google has taken the beta tag off of AdWords for video, opening up the ad platform targeted to small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to run video ads on YouTube. To help drive interest, Google is also offering $50 million of free advertising credits to prospects. I wrote about AdWords for video last September when it was first announced, and I continue to be enthusiastic about its potential to broaden video-based advertising to SMBs for which traditional TV advertising was out of reach.

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Adobe's VP, Monetization (and former CEO of Auditude) stopped by the VideoNuze booth at the NABShow yesterday for a video interview (see below) in which he shares highlights from the company's newly-released 2012 Digital Video Ad report. The data is based on over 2.5 billion video ads that Adobe served in the second half of 2011 across customers like MLB, Comcast, Fox News and other premium video providers.

Key findings included:

- Mid-rolls have an 87% completion rate, 30% higher than pre-rolls

- Ad completion rates of 94% on mobile devices (tablets and smartphones) are the highest of any viewing environment

- Ad completion rates for live content are 85%, which is 23% than for VOD

All in all, the report concludes that advertising in online video is becoming more similar to broadcast TV as the ad loads are increasing and viewers become more tolerant.

The full report is located here.

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At yesterday's IAB Digital Video conference, 10 industry executives (see list at bottom of this page), debated how best to define "premium video." It's not an academic question, because for many brands and agencies, the concept of "premium" determines whether the video will qualify for ad spending at all. And of course, the more "premium" the video is, the higher the pricing its ad inventory will command, which in turn drives the video's profitability. At a time when more original online video is being produced than ever (much of it deficit-financed), understanding in advance what is premium - and therefore monetizable - is critical to achieving success.

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Innovid, which enables online video advertisers and publishers to add interactive elements such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and sharing to their campaigns, is announcing that VAST and VPAID ad tags will now be auto-created within its iRoll Studio.

The enhancement eliminates the work flow process step of advertisers and publishers needing to submit their ads back to Innovid for tags to be created before campaigns can be trafficked out. This in turn reduces cost and resources to turn typical pre-roll ads into an iRoll ad.

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The VideoNuze 2012 Online Video Advertising Summit on June 19th is continuing to gain momentum, with eight leading industry organizations on board as media partners: CTAM, NATPE, OPA, REELSEO, Beet.TV, The Diffusion Group, The Ad Club of New York and Jack Myers Media Business Report.

All the media partners are offering special discounted early bird registration to the Video Ad Summit which they will promote through their various communications channels. I'm delighted to have these partners working with VideoNuze, helping ensure the Video Ad Summit's success (note this event takes the place of last year's ELEVATE conference which drew 400+ attendees).

In addition, MWW Group, one of the ten largest independent global agencies, will be the public relations partner for the Video Ad Summit. MWW and The Fortex Group, which it acquired last year, have been long-time partners with VideoNuze for its events.

The Video Ad Summit has an amazing group of industry executives speaking, and I'll be adding them to the web site shortly - so keep an eye out!

The Video Ad Summit is generously supported by sponsors Auditude (Adobe), YuMe, Adap.tv, Collective, Conviva, Mixpo, TubeMogul and Videology.

Click here for early-bird registration

Video ad technology provider FreeWheel added another big content provider to its customer roster yesterday, announcing that it will be powering video ads for a group of NBCU's broadcast and cable networks' properties.

In particular, the deal also covers NBCOlympics.com, the network's destination for the London games this summer. FreeWheel noted that as a result advertisers will be able to make specific digital ad buys and combined broadcast/digital packages, which NBC will be able to deliver. This opens up potential targeting at a more granular level than has been available with traditional TV.

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The age-old question of whether viewers will pay to skip ads will be put to the test in the online video industry with "SkipIt," a clever new service SpotXchange is launching today. For participating publishers, a SkipIt "chicklet" appears when a video ad starts playing; if the viewer clicks on it, the ad closes and the content continues. Each ad skipped costs the viewer $.10, which is automatically deducted from their pre-funded account. When an ad is skipped, the advertiser receives a credit from the publisher who is paid a percentage of the viewer's fee by SkipIt. (see SkipIt's video at bottom for more)

Initial publishers testing SkipIt include CineSport, Film Annex, IDG TechNetwork, OneScreen, Tech Media Network and Tetris Online. Combined, SkipIt estimates this will represent 20 million video ads presented each day to over 100 million viewers.

Michael Shehan, SpotXchange's CEO, explained a couple of weeks ago when he previewed SkipIt for me that the service is intended to empower viewers with more choice about which ads they watch, reduce wasteful spending by advertisers and deliver a more satisfying experience by the content publisher.

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