Posts for 'Advertising'

Here's a great example of how online video advertising is opening up a new world of opportunities for savvy marketers: office supply giant Office Depot is dynamically creating customized video ads that are retargeted to visitors of OfficeDepot.com for specific products they browsed or purchased. Office Depot is leveraging SundaySky's "SmartVideo" and other technologies in order to re-engage visitors and drive new purchasing. Office Depot's Nicole Fraley explains how this works in the video interview embedded below, and SundaySky's president and CRO Jim Dicso recently provided me with some additional details.

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I'm on Beet.TV today discussing the VideoNuze 2012 Online Video Advertising Summit on Tues., June 19th in NYC. Thanks so much to Beet.TV's Andy Plesser, whose NYC office I visited last week. Beet.TV is a media partner for the event, which is shaping up to be an exciting day of learning and networking. Lots more to come! (click "continue reading" to watch)

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Today I'm pleased to share a video interview I did with Vuguru's Chief Creative Officer Kristin Jones at the recent NATPE Market conference in Miami, FL. Among other topics, Kristin describes Vuguru's business model, some of the successful originals that it has created, how she sees online distributors differentiating themselves and where the market for digital content is heading from here.

The interview runs about 7 minutes. (Note, I'm off camera and my audio isn't great, so the questions are overlaid in text.)

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I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 126th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for Mar. 23, 2012. This week finds Colin in London, providing him an even better perspective on our first topic this week, Sky's new over-the-top service called NOW TV, which it will launch this summer. Colin is bullish on NOW TV and likes the lessons it provides for U.S. pay-TV operators.

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Early bird discounted registration is now open for the VideoNuze 2012 Online Video Advertising Summit on Tuesday, June 19th in NYC. The Ad Summit takes the place of last year's ELEVATE conference, which VideoNuze co-hosted and which drew 400+ attendees.

I'm delighted to announce seven industry-leading companies as initial sponsors. These include Title Partners Auditude (Adobe) and YuMe; Premier Partner Adap.tv and Headline Partners Conviva, Mixpo, TubeMogul and Videology. All of these companies are bringing critical technologies to the online video advertising market and I'm honored they've decided to be a part of the Ad Summit.

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Today I'm pleased to share a video interview I did with Generate's Founder and CEO Jordan Levin at the recent NATPE Market conference in Miami, FL. In January Generate was acquired by Alloy Digital, in a deal that created a multi-platform media company targeting the young adult market. In the following interview Jordan discusses the rationale for the deal, the combined companies' top 2-3 priorities, how to judge the success of branded entertainment project and much more.

The interview runs 12 1/2 minutes. (Note, I'm off camera and my audio isn't great, so the questions are overlaid in text.)

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In another milestone for online video's evolution, independent online studio My Damn Channel is announcing today "My Damn Channel LIVE," a live daily comedy show. The show will be featured on My Damn Channel's web site and on its new YouTube channel. It will be streamed at 4pm ET starting a week from today and will be hosted by Beth Hoyt, an up and coming actor/writer/comedian.

The show is envisioned as a late-night talk show, but updated for all the elements that online offers. The format will include celebrity interviews, interaction with viewers, promotion of other My Damn Channel comedy shows and engagement with talent from other YouTube channels. Viewers will also be able to catch up on the show on demand.

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Yesterday's news that Nielsen is collaborating with GroupM, the largest media buyer in the world, to introduce "Nielsen Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings," is the latest move by the Nielsen to get its arms around the elusive problem of coherently measuring online video advertising. As I recently wrote, many in the advertising and content community believe there's a "measurement crisis" as video consumption rapidly splinters to numerous new connected devices.

Given that "what can't be measured, can't be sold," cohesive online video measurement is essential. And since Nielsen is the gold standard in TV ratings, many in the industry have expected it to pick up the mantle in online video as well. That has led to some grumbling at Nielsen's perceived slow pace of innovation, and the drag this creates on online video ad spending.

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It seems like barely a week goes by these days without a new online-only original video series or new distribution agreement being announced. But even as content creators' enthusiasm for the new medium grows, there's one constant reality: if major advertising dollars don't flow into online video, these projects will not survive. Content creators, distributors and agencies need to make a coordinated, concerted effort to educate advertisers about these new opportunities in order to help drive spending.

That's why the recently announced "Digital Content NewFronts" (DCNF) are a step in the right direction. Recognizing that a rising tide lifts all boats, five of the top ten online video destinations have banded together with ad agency Digitas to host two weeks of targeted events. But as Mark Beeching, Chief Global Creative and Strategy Director for Digitas explains in the following interview, the DCNF isn't as much an event as it is part of an ongoing, inclusive dialogue between brands and content creators/distributors looking to tap into completely new customer engagement opportunities.

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More proof that online video is opening up new advertising and engagement possibilities beyond traditional TV, as premium travel lifestyle company Tumi - which has never run a TV ad - has opted to exclusively sponsor a new web series called "Bourdain's TV Crew." Tumi's SVP, Brand Management, Alan Krantzler told me last week that its commitment was driven by a desire to increase brand awareness among younger customers and to leverage Bourdain's large Facebook fan base to build its own.

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Today I'm pleased to share a video interview I did with Yahoo's EVP, Americas, Ross Levinsohn at the recent NATPE Market conference in Miami, FL. Among the topics Ross addresses are::

How Yahoo is breaking through given the proliferation of online video choices?

How did the new Tom Hanks project "Electric City" for Yahoo come about?

Why is Yahoo's user data so important to developing original programming?

What's the timetable for shifting TV spending to online video and what are the key challenges?

Are there non ad-based revenue streams Yahoo envisions for its video?

What's the big surprise he foresees for 2012?

The interview runs 12 1/2 minutes. (Note, I'm off camera and my audio isn't great, so the questions are overlaid in text.)

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London-based Videoplaza has rolled out "Karbon," its new flagship ad management platform, to serve ads to all imaginable connected and mobile devices. Katy Turner, Videoplaza's VP of Marketing, told me that Karbon is the direct result of broadcast and publishing customers demanding simplified ways of monetizing content on the variety of devices now being used.

Karbon includes The Device Library, with profiles of over 7,000 different devices' supported codecs, bit rates and resolutions and The Asset Factory, which transcodes ads for the requisite devices and delivers them appropriately. The idea is that an ad can be uploaded to Karbon once with target devices selected. The ads are transcoded so that when an ad call is made the device is detected, its profile understood, and the proper ad delivered - all in real-time.

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Real-time video ad technology platform LiveRail is unveiling the "Video Brand Safety Alliance" this morning in partnership with AdSafe Media, Affine, comScore validated Campaign Essentials, DoubleVerify, Proximic and TRUSTe. As Mark Trefgarne, LiveRail's CEO and co-founder explained to me last week, the goal of the alliance is to offer advertisers, agencies, publishers and video ad networks a higher degree of insight and safety for their in-stream video ads.

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Adobe is raising the curtain on Project "Primetime" this morning, an integrated video platform positioned to be a single workflow for premium video providers deploying across multiple devices. Primetime combines Adobe's traditional streaming and publishing technologies with video ad management from Auditiude (acquired last November) and analytics/optimization from Omniture (acquired in Oct. '09). Primetime will rollout throughout 2012, but today Adobe is making available the first piece - "Primetime Highlights," a web-based video clip editor integrated with Auditude so that media companies can quickly create and publish ad-supported clips from live events.

As Ashley Still, Adobe's director of product management, video solutions, explained to me last week, Primetime's key goal is to enable premium video providers to deliver the highest-quality "TV-like" experiences with seamless, dynamic ad insertion into linear/live/on-demand streams on any connected device. Adobe believes that today's content and ad delivery model, which often requires multiple workflows and products to interoperate, will not allow premium online and mobile video to effectively scale and monetize.

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Five of the top 10 online video destinations - AOL, Hulu, Microsoft, Yahoo and YouTube - are joining with ad agency Digitas to launch the first-ever "Digital Content NewFronts" (DCNF). The DCNF's goal is to "shape a new and practical marketplace for connecting the wealth of native digital content with brand marketers and their media and marketing agencies." From April 19th to May 2nd, each of the 6 companies will host a day-long event in NYC showcasing their programming and ad opportunities. The DCNF actually builds on the 1-day NewFront event Digitas has been holding for the last 3 years.

I think the combined approach of the DCNF is the right idea at the right time. Given the wealth of premium original online video that each of the 5 destinations is pursuing - all of which is ad-supported - the DCNF could become an important catalyst in educating advertisers and agencies about these new opportunities and therefore why they should shift some of their spending. As I've recently written, a bevy of Hollywood A-listers and others are getting involved in original online video productions, helping create a "virtuous cycle" of anticipated growth.

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Visible Measures is announcing this morning that the Media Rating Council (MRC), which certifies media measurement services, has accredited a number of the company's metrics, including its "TrueReach Views," a metric that spans paid, owned and earned media. Brian Shin, Visible Measures' founder and CEO, told me last week that it's the first time a metric has been accredited that covers all of the ways a brand's video campaign can now be propagated online.

Brian noted that the accreditation is also unusual for the MRC because it typically audits metrics that are tied to conventional ad serving. Conversely, in the case of TrueReach, MRC took account of social activity for the first time, requiring it to verify that Visible Measures' technology and methodologies accurately reflected viral distribution properly. Brian said that MRC did sample testing and vetted its documentation as part of the accreditation process.

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The tone of last week's Cross-Platform Video Measurement Summit in NYC, was set upfront, as first speaker Patti Wakeling, Unilever's Global Media Insights Director, plainly stated that a "measurement crisis" is upon the research industry. Noting the wide diversity of devices that now deliver video, and rapidly changing consumer behaviors, Ms. Wakeling concluded that "consumers are way ahead of the research community."

These simple truths are no doubt what packed 300+ attendees into the Time Life Auditorium for an afternoon of discussion about how confusing the video landscape has become for traditional TV advertising and what the ecosystem - advertisers, agencies, content providers and measurement service providers - should be doing to address the situation.

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Online video and social media have become Super Bowl advertisers' new best friends, extending the ROI of expensive game buys to new levels. Helping quantify the impact, a new study by Kantar Video reveals that over $11.1 million in "earned media" (essentially incremental free online views) has been generated by all Super Bowl advertisers in the first 3 days following the game, from over 148 million total views. Viewership of this year's Super Bowl ads is up 267% vs. last year.

The top 10 ads alone accounted for $8.6 million of the total, providing an average of $862K in earned media per ad, or about a quarter of the $3.5 million each ad cost to run during the game. Viewership of the top 10 ads for the first 3 days is over 95 million views. Honda's Ferris Bueller spoof, "Matthew's Day Off," has gained the most earned media, approximately $2.3 million, from over 14.7 million online views.

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A+E Networks will use FreeWheel's Monetization Rights Management system to manage video ads running against its content consumed on Apple iOS mobile devices, the companies announced this morning. A+E will be able to deploy video ads on its own mobile properties as well as those of third-party syndication partners. FreeWheel gives A+E the ability to manage ad sales rights, forecast inventory, determine ad loads in specific commercial breaks, and monitor performance, among other things.

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The 2012 presidential election is already in full swing, and in early primary states that's meant a barrage of TV ads from well-funded candidates. But with viewer behaviors shifting away from traditional TV, the Internet has become an increasingly important way of reaching voters. And with online video usage surging, the latest battleground is how to leverage this new medium to their advantage. Enter the new "Jivox Political Ad Kit," an interactive, multi-screen, social media-enabled product from video ad technology provider Jivox.

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