Posts for 'Advertising'

Hulu had a lot of updates at its NewFront/Upfront presentation this morning, but among the most interesting for me was that Hulu will offer downloading of its content, but with ads included. Since the vast majority of Hulu’s 20 million+ subscribers are on the ad-supported plan, this means Hulu is going to be breaking some new ground in downloading, relative to its ad-free SVOD peers Netflix and Amazon, both of which have been offering downloading for a while.

VideoNuze readers know I’ve been a huge fan of downloading for years since TiVo first offered it, seeing it as way for time-starved viewers to gain full access to the compelling content available on SVOD or DVR when they’re either not online (e.g. in airplanes), enduring spotty carrier connections (e.g. in trains and cars) or on expensive capped mobile data plans (as most wireless subscribers still are). Since many of us are in these modes very frequently, downloading is essential for allowing us to maximize the value of our monthly subscriptions, which in turn leads to higher satisfaction and reduced churn.

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In another sign of how important connected TVs are becoming for ad-supported content, supply-side platform SpotX announced this morning that it is offering advertisers enhanced audience measurement for ad campaigns on connected TV devices using Nielsen data.

Advertisers will be able to measure the unduplicated and incremental reach of their campaigns across SpotX campaigns on CTV alongside their traditional linear TV ads. Campaign measurement will include data on reach, frequency and GRPs of CTV ads. The Nielsen data will also be used for insights on CTV ads relative to desktop and mobile ads as well as linear TV.

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I’m excited to share that David Lawenda, EVP, Digital Sales and Sales Strategy at CBS, will be our keynote guest at the 8th annual VideoNuze Online Video Ad Summit on Tuesday, June 12th in NYC. David will be interviewed by Mike Shields, Advertising Editor at Business Insider about how CBS is extending its brand and tapping into new ad revenue streams through multiple digital initiatives. Prior to his role at CBS, David was Head of U.S. Global Marketing Solutions at Facebook and President of Ad Sales and Marketing at Univision.

In addition to David, over 25 other industry executives are already on board to speak, from Bloomberg Media, Bonnier, Dentsu Aegis, Ellation, ESPN, Essence, FOX, Group Nine Media, Havas, Hulu, IAB, Initiative, Newsy, Roku, Vevo and many others.

You can save $100 on early bird discounted tickets now and double your chances* of winning a 55-inch Roku TV, generously provided by Roku.

Don’t miss out, learn more and register now!

(*Early bird registrants get 2 entries for the Roku TV drawing.)

Some good news this morning for advertisers and content providers trying to navigate the shift from linear TV to on-demand viewing on connected TV devices. Roku has released data from research it did with MAGNA, IPG Media Lab and 4 advertisers (Applebee’s, H&M, McCormick and Truvia), finding that video ads run on Roku were 67% more effective per exposure in driving purchase intent than those on traditional broadcast and cable TV.

The study also found that to drive comparable brand lift, only 7 exposures were needed on Roku, vs. 10 on linear TV. Also interesting is that advertising on Roku appears to have a halo effect, with consumers considering brands that ran video ads on Roku to be twice as innovative as those just on linear TV.

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Marketing technology provider 4C has launched Scope, a platform for unifying cross-channel advertising across digital and TV. Scope allows marketers to gain audience insights, execute campaigns across screens and gauge performance, all via a self-service workflow. Scope spans premium content in Apple News, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, NBCUniversal, Mediaocean, Pinterest, Snapchat and Twitter.

Scope is aimed at helping marketers succeed with audience-based campaigns managed through 4 modules. First is 4C’s “Brand Compass,” a new tool which lets marketers access persona-based insights which are based on 4C’s Affinity Graph that combines TV, social and digital data on how people are connected to media, technology and each other.

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Ad tech provider AppNexus grew Microsoft’s video ad revenue from instream video inventory in Q1 ’18 by 201% vs. Q1 ’17, according to an announcement by the companies. In addition, Microsoft’s eCPMs increased by 29% in Q1 ’18 vs. Q1 ’17. Microsoft said it had expanded its partnership with AppNexus from 1 ad format in 1 market to 3 ad formats in 65 markets, including Europe and emerging markets.

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You can save $100 now on registration for the 8th annual VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit on Tuesday, June 12th at the Westin Times Square in NYC. On top of saving $100, you also double your chances* of winning a 55-inch Roku TV, generously provided by Roku.

The Video Ad Summit is the premier event of the year for anyone in the industry seeking insights and data about online video advertising and how it’s converging with traditional TV advertising, mobile and connected TV advertising and the broader digital landscape. The program includes a compelling mix of keynotes, panel discussions and research presentations covering the hottest topics in the industry. Detailed program info will be posted soon.

Last year's Video Ad Summit drew over 400 attendees and 50+ executive speakers. The 2018 Video Ad Summit will once again be a must-attend event.

I'm grateful to the 10 industry-leading companies on board as initial sponsors, including Premier Partners Extreme Reach and Verizon Digital Media Services; Headline Partners 4C, AppNexus, Beachfront Media, Operative and Taboola and Branding Partners Brightcove, Cedato and Roku.

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

Learn more and register now!

(*Early bird registrants get 2 entries for the Roku TV drawing.)

In the hubbub of NABShow last week, Comcast Technology Solutions made several announcements, including one for a new product called AdStor, which caught my attention. AdStor is a cloud-based platform that hosts ads in a centralized library. Josh Arensberg, VP/GM at CTS told me in a briefing that the main goal of AdStor is to streamline how ad buyers and sellers interact, to accelerate ad delivery across multiple platforms. The result is reduced operating expenses and new revenue opportunities.

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VideoNuze readers are invited to attend 4C’s closed-door VIP breakfast session in New York this Thursday, April 19th, “The Modern Microscope: Using Data to Predict Marketing Success.”

At the event, executives from global brands and agencies, along with press & analysts, will gather to hear from industry experts including:

- Terry Kawaja - Founder & CEO of LUMA Partners, who will discuss how technology is changing to empower marketers to reach their audiences

- Susan Bidel - Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, who will share research and insights about where marketers are on this journey

- Seth Stephens-Davidowitz - New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Everybody Lies, who will explain how data and audience insights is helping marketers get there

- Other speakers include Krishan Bhatia (EVP Business Operations & Strategy, NBCUniversal), Marni Walden (former EVP and President, Global Media, Verizon), Lance Neuhauser (CEO, 4C) and Anupam Gupta (Chief Product Officer, 4C).
 
The VIP breakfast will be at The Ace Hotel New York, 20 W 29th Street, on Thursday, April 19th, 8am – Noon.
 
Learn more about attending here.

One of the biggest challenges all ad-supported video providers face these days is how to optimally balance the viewer’s and the advertiser’s experiences. Given the range of non-ad-supported outlets (e.g. Netflix, Amazon, etc.), viewers are getting more accustomed to the pleasure of uninterrupted consumption. Meanwhile, advertisers are more challenged than ever to have their messages seen and their spending optimized.

There’s probably no better example of how to achieve the balance than YouTube’s TrueView ad format, which all of us have no doubt encountered and acted on, since its launch 6 years ago. With the choice to skip the ad after 5 seconds of countdown, viewers feel like they’re in control. And because advertisers don’t pay unless a minimum of 30 seconds of the ad has been watched, the TrueView format is highly cost-effective.

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A reminder that early bird discounted registration is available for the 8th annual VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit on Tuesday, June 12th at the Westin Times Square in NYC. By registering early you save $100 and also double your chances* of winning a 55-inch Roku TV, generously provided by Roku.

The Video Ad Summit is the premier event of the year for anyone in the industry seeking insights and data about online video advertising and how it’s converging with traditional TV advertising, mobile and connected TV advertising and the broader digital landscape. The program includes a compelling mix of keynotes, panel discussions and research presentations covering the hottest topics in the industry. Detailed program info will be posted soon.

Last year's Video Ad Summit drew over 400 attendees and 50+ executive speakers. The 2018 Video Ad Summit will once again be a must-attend event.

I'm excited to have 8 industry-leading companies on board as initial sponsors, including Premier Partners Extreme Reach and Verizon Digital Media Services; Headline Partners AppNexus, Beachfront Media and Operative, and Branding Partners Brightcove, Cedato and Roku. I’ll have other sponsors to share soon.

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

Learn more and register now!

(*Early bird registrants get 2 entries for the Roku TV drawing.)

Viewers are watching TV on more devices than ever. While this makes viewers’ lives more convenient and enjoyable, for advertisers, it has created massive new challenges to keep up. The good news however, is that with the rise of digital delivery, the ability to get ever closer to the advertiser’s nirvana of one-to-one, highly targeted ads, is becoming more realistic.

To help advertisers understand the range of advanced TV ad options, Videology released a handy primer late last week.

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In his keynote interview at New Bay’s Advanced Advertising conference yesterday, I was impressed with how Hulu’s SVP of Ad Sales Peter Naylor continually said that viewers are now in charge and have vastly higher expectations of their TV experiences. Nothing could be truer in the online video era and by putting viewers first, Hulu has hit on a winning formula.

One great example of Hulu being viewer-first is how it provides subscribers with the choice of “Limited Commercials” for $7.99/mo or “No Commercials” for $11.99/mo. Naylor reiterated what Hulu has said many times before, that the majority take the ad-supported plan, which on the surface seems incongruous given Netflix’s and Amazon’s success with ad-free services.

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I recently caught up with Walt Horstman, SVP and GM of TiVo’s Advanced Media and Advertising business unit. TiVo, which was known for its DVRs, was acquired in the Fall of 2016 by data provider Rovi, and the combined company was renamed TiVo. It is pursuing an ambitious vision of using data to increase the value of relationships among viewers, content providers and advertisers. An edited transcript follows. 

VideoNuze: What is TiVo doing with advanced advertising?

Walt Horstman: There is a lot going on at TiVo in terms of advanced media and advertising and data.  I’m nearing on my one-year anniversary at the company, and we’ve been really heads down looking at the number of assets that we’ve got across the company, through a lot of acquisitions over the years, that we’ve now consolidated under this business unit, Advanced Media and Advertising, and it’s coming together very nicely with a very impressive set of capabilities. We really are focusing on two key objectives within the media ecosystem. We call these our two Virtual Cycles.

continue reading the interview

Video ad tech provider Extreme Reach has released its 2017 Video Advertising Benchmark Report, which shows improvements in key video ad metrics. Importantly, ad fraud is decreasing, as filtered bot traffic decreased 31% across all content publishers and 40% for aggregators in 2017. Extreme Reach attributed this to advertisers’ demands for better accountability and improved vigilance by ad tech providers.

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Video supply-side platform Beachfront is expanding its partnership with cybersecurity provider WhiteOps to also ensure fraud-free connected TV video ad inventory. WhiteOps specializes in bot detection and human verification. The new CTV collaboration is focused in particular on mid-tail and long-tail video. Beachfront said last November that CTV ad requests jumped to over 2 billion in Q3 '17, with a completion rate of 97% and viewability of 100%.

Connected TVs are one of the hottest areas of online video, as consumers rapidly adopt the devices and smart TVs to be able to access OTT video. While CTVs were initially used mainly to access ad-free SVOD services, ad-supported services have gained share recently. eMarketer estimates there were 168 million connected TV users in the U.S. at the end of 2017, which will rise to 194.4 million by 2021.

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Israel-based AnyClip has launched its Content Platform, enabling its library of brand safe premium video to be contextually targeted across publishers’ web sites. As Ari Applbaum, AnyClip’s VP of Marketing explained to me in a briefing, this results in video embedded in a “walled garden of safe, secure web sites, which is compelling to advertisers.”

AnyClip has traditionally pursued a syndicated video business model, inserting video clips into publishers’ sites. What’s being launched today is a new underlying technology platform called Luminous, which uses AI to more deeply analyze video and create metadata. Luminous can filter out objectionable content such as nudity, violence, profanity, guns, etc. Luminous can also screen for celebrity, brand identification and sentiment as well as IAB categories (see below).

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Early bird discounted registration is now open for the 8th annual VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit on Tuesday, June 12th at the Westin Times Square in NYC. By registering early you save $100 and also double your chances* of winning a 55-inch Roku TV, generously provided by Roku.

The Video Ad Summit is the premier event of the year for anyone in the industry seeking insights and data about online video advertising and how it’s converging with traditional TV advertising, mobile and connected TV advertising and the broader digital landscape. The program includes a compelling mix of keynotes, panel discussions and research presentations covering the hottest topics in the industry. Detailed program info will be posted soon.

Last year's Video Ad Summit drew over 400 attendees and 50+ executive speakers. The 2018 Video Ad Summit will once again be a must-attend event.

I'm excited to have 7 industry-leading companies on board as initial sponsors, including Premier Partners Extreme Reach and Verizon Digital Media Services; Headline Partners Beachfront Media and Operative, and Branding Partners Brightcove, Cedato and Roku. I’ll have other sponsors to share soon.

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

Learn more and register now!

(*Early bird registrants get 2 entries for the Roku TV drawing.)

I’m pleased to present the 409th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

On this week’s podcast we dig into NBCUniversal’s decision to reduce the number of ads in commercial pods by 20% and ad time by 10% across all its networks in prime time. Colin and I agree that it’s a clear recognition that the traditional TV ad experience isn’t sustainable for viewers or advertisers.

But how the move will ultimately work out for NBCUniversal isn’t clear. Colin is skeptical that the math is going to add up, citing larger industry headwinds, such as Netflix’s massive content investments, that will keep depleting TV audiences. While the challenges are steep, TV does have certain inherent advantages and the move is a start in the right direction. It will be fascinating to see how things unfold.

Listen in to learn more!

 
Click here to listen to the podcast (24 minutes, 6 seconds)

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