Posts for 'Advertising'

The program is now locked down for the SHIFT // 2015 Programmatic Video & TV Ad Summit on Tuesday, December 1st in NYC, with over 50 industry leaders speaking on 14 sessions. A ton of work has gone into developing the program, and I’m confident it will be the highest impact conference of the year focused on programmatic video & TV.

Speakers represent the full ecosystem, including A+E Networks, ABC, AMC Networks,  American Express, Assembly, Bloomberg Digital, Business Insider, Fox Networks, Havas Media, Hill Holliday, Horizon Media, Magna Global, MediaVest, Meredith, NBCU, RAPP, Razorfish, Roku, The Weather Company, Tribune Media, Truffle Pig, Viacom, VivaKi, Xaxis plus many others.

Donna Speciale, President of Turner Broadcasting Ad Sales, will be our morning keynote guest, interviewed by Matt Prohaska, CEO and Principal of Prohaska Consulting. Lou Paskalis, SVP, Bank of America, will be our afternoon keynote guest, interviewed by Michael Kassan, Chairman and CEO, MediaLink.

I’m also pleased to share that Lior Manor, an internationally-recognized mentalist, will be doing a 20-minute show during cocktails, courtesy of Jinni. He’ll also be on stage briefly in the afternoon which will spice things up. He’s an incredible entertainer and will add a fun element to SHIFT.

Many thanks to our 18 generous sponsors, Title Partner Adobe; Premier Partners Altitude Digital, FreeWheel, Jinni, TubeMogul and Videology; Headline Partners Beachfront Media, comScore, JW Player, Levels Beyond, Ooyala, Operative, Placemedia, SpotX and Teads.tv; and Branding Partners Alphonso, Cedato and Roku.

Please join us for this must-attend day of learning and networking!

Learn more and register now!

FreeWheel has released its Q3 ’15 Video Monetization Report (VMR), which reveals the continuation of a number of important industry trends. Both ad views and video views grew 28% vs. Q3 ’14, consistent with growth rates seen over the past few quarters.

Live video was once again the fastest-growing genre, with a 113% year-over-year growth, compared to 30% for long-form and 9% for short-form. Sports was again the biggest driver of live with 63% of sports video viewed live, compared with 17% of news video viewed live (other genres were in low single digits). News had the biggest proportion of short-form (76%), while Entertainment (60%) ad Kids (59%) had the biggest proportion of long-form.

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Fraud in video advertising is a significant problem causing billions of dollars in losses throughout the industry. To help drive a common understanding and gain consensus around what should be done, last Thursday Videology and White Ops released a valuable new white paper, “Eradicating Bot Fraud: The Path to Zero Tolerance.”

The paper explains all the different causes of video ad fraud, focusing on bots, or non-human traffic, which are considered the most pervasive type of fraud. Bots distort the market because they trigger an ad view even though no human being ever actually saw the ad. Bots are active in all types of video, from long-tail to premium. Videology and White Ops found that a higher percentage of traffic at night contains bots and that users age 65+ are 69% more likely to be hosting bots through an outdated browser.

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Today is the last day to get discounted early bird tickets for the SHIFT // 2015 Programmatic Video & TV Advertising Summit on Tuesday, December 1st in NYC. Early bird registrants save $100 on regular tickets and will be entered to win a 50-inch Sharp Roku TV, generously provided by Roku. Further discounts are available on 5-packs and 10-packs. And, startups and students can register for the reduced $195 ticket (contact me for the code).

SHIFT will feature 45+ industry leaders from ABC, Altitude Digital, Assembly, Bloomberg Digital, comScore, Fox, Havas Media, Hill Holliday, Horizon Media, Magna Global, MediaVest, Meredith, Operative, Razorfish, Roku, SpotX, The Weather Company, TubeMogul, Viacom, Videology VivaKi, Xaxis and others. Donna Speciale, President of Turner Broadcasting Ad Sales, will be our keynote guest, discussing the company’s data and audience-based buying initiatives.

Please join us for this must-attend day of learning and networking!

Learn more and register now!

For all the billions of dollars that are now spent on online video advertising, surprisingly little is known about viewers’ reactions and engagement with specific ads, beyond core metrics like view-throughs and click-throughs. To provide far greater insights about ads’ impact, Sticky, a biometric eye-tracking analytics company, is pioneering new approaches combining eye-tracking and facial coding. Jeff Bander, Sticky’s president, recently briefed me and shared data from campaign research it conducted with AOL.

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VideoAmp, a startup focused on optimizing cross-screen video ad campaigns, has raised a $15 million Series A round led by RTL Group, with participation from existing investors. The new funds will be used for product and business development. VideoAmp has raised $17.2 million to date. RTL is already active in the video space, having invested in both SpotX and clypd.

A video ad tech financing like this would have happened on a near-weekly basis just a few years ago, but with investor confusion about the space due to fragmentation (see the LumaScape), as well as uncertain market conditions, VideoAmp’s raise is quite unusual. Yesterday I spoke to VideoAmp’s CEO Ross McCray and its chief business officer, Jay Prasad, to learn more about company differentiators and how it succeeded with the financing.

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Beachfront Media has launched RISE, a full-service OTT platform for independent video creators to deliver their apps to connected TVs and mobile devices. Beachfront’s CEO and founder Frank Sinton told me that RISE is meant primarily for popular video creators who are becoming their own brands to reach audiences seamlessly across multiple devices.

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Reminder that there’s just 1 week left to take advantage of discounted early bird tickets for the SHIFT // 2015 Programmatic Video & TV Advertising Summit on Tuesday, December 1st in NYC. Early bird registrants save $100 on regular tickets and will be entered to win a 50-inch Sharp Roku TV, generously provided by Roku. Further discounts are available on 5-packs and 10-packs. And, startups and students can register for the reduced $195 ticket (contact me for the code).

There are now over 40 industry leaders scheduled to speak at SHIFT from ABC, Altitude Digital, Assembly, Bloomberg Digital, comScore, Fox, Havas Media, Hill Holliday, Horizon Media, Magna Global, MediaVest, Meredith, Operative, Razorfish, Roku, SpotX, The Weather Company, TubeMogul, Viacom, Videology VivaKi and Xaxis, with others to be announced shortly. We’re privileged to have Donna Speciale, President of Turner Broadcasting Ad Sales, as our keynote guest, discussing the company’s data and audience-based buying initiatives.

I hope you’ll join us for this must-attend day of learning and networking!

Learn more and register now!

More evidence this morning of how online video and TV are continuing to converge: SpotX and clypd have announced a new joint solution for content providers to manage all video and linear TV ad inventory whether it’s sold directly or programmatically. The goal is to optimize the value of all inventory and audiences with dynamic, targeted ads across all screens. The joint solution is currently available.

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YouTube Red was announced last week and became available yesterday. After taking it for a spin on my iPad (note, access for subscribers is included in the YouTube app), I’m pretty convinced that the current offering is unlikely to gain any significant traction. To be fair, there are more benefits coming to YouTube Red in the near future, but even with those, the service is unlikely to appeal to more than a small number of YouTube users.

YouTube promoted the primary feature of YouTube Red as ad-free viewing. For sure, watching YouTube without ads is an improved experience, but as I wrote last week, because YouTube’s skippable TrueView ads are already so viewer-friendly, the marginal improvement from not having to click “Skip Ad” doesn’t end up feeling like a big breakthrough, especially for viewers used to YouTube being free.

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I’m excited to share that Donna Speciale, President of Turner Broadcasting Ad Sales, will be our keynote guest at the SHIFT // 2015 Programmatic Video & TV Ad Summit on Tuesday, December 1st in NYC.

Donna will be interviewed on the topic of “How TV Networks Can Capitalize on Programmatic.” Since TV networks have the most valuable ad inventory, programmatic represents a unique opportunity, especially as consumption of TV programs goes multi-screen. TV networks must balance programmatic innovation with the benefits of the traditional direct sales model. Turner has been aggressively building out its data capabilities to drive further value from its premium content.

Donna’s session will be one of the highlights of a jam-packed day of sessions meant to demystify programmatic video & TV and accelerate its adoption. Over 30 industry leaders, all with direct experience with programmatic video & TV, are set to speak, representing companies including ABC, Altitude Digital, AMC Networks, Assembly, Bloomberg Digital, comScore, Havas Media, Hill Holliday, Horizon Media, Magna Global, MediaVest, Meredith, Operative, Razorfish, Roku, SpotX, The Weather Company, Viacom, Videology, VivaKi, Xaxis and others.

Remember - all early bird registrants will be entered to win a 50-inch Sharp Roku TV (value $450), generously provided by Roku. In addition, early bird registrants also save $100 off the regular rates. Further discounts are available on 5-packs and 10-packs. And, startups and students can register for the reduced $195 ticket (contact me for the code).

I hope you’ll join us for this must-attend day of learning and networking!

Learn more and register now!

AOL has released its 2015 U.S. State of the Video Industry report, finding, among other things, that 91% of media buyers surveyed said they’re now buying some of their online video ads programmatically, up from 53% in 2012. AOL found that 68% of advertisers have either brought programmatic video buying in-house or plan to next year. They’re doing so primarily to achieve greater buying efficiencies and because they’re skeptical of their agencies’ programmatic expertise.

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Magid has released new research commissioned by Watchwith finding that in-program native video ads have higher levels of unaided ad recall and improved brand metrics vs. traditional TV ads.

Watchwith recently unveiled the in-program native ad format which is an interactive overlay placed on a TV program streamed to a desktop, mobile device or connected TV. The ads can be contextually relevant to the underlying program itself using frame-by-frame metadata. Watchwith is positioning these ads as creating new, high-value inventory for TV networks to monetize their streamed TV programs.

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Looking to help publishers tap into high-CPM video advertising, 33Across has launched Real Video outstream and interstitial 15 and 30-second ad units, which can be run against text, image and other non-video inventory (see examples here). The units are sold programmatically and are 100% autoplay and viewable because they appear fully in view for a minimum of 5 seconds before a user is able to close and skip them.

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The program and initial group of speakers for the Dec. 1st SHIFT // 2015 Programmatic Video & TV Ad Summit in NYC are now available on the SHIFT web site. The program includes 14 sessions that cover all angles of programmatic video & TV. The goal is to help attendees understand what’s driving programmatic video & TV’s rapid growth, benefit from the insights/lessons industry leaders have with programmatic video & TV and learn about the key remaining challenges.

Overall, SHIFT is focused on accelerating the growth and success of programmatic video & TV, to help everyone in the ecosystem. Our initial group of speakers come from leading advertisers, agencies, content providers/publishers and technology providers, including ABC, Altitude Digital, Bloomberg Digital, comScore, Havas Media, Hill Holliday, Horizon Media, MediaVest, Operative, Razorfish, Roku, SpotX, The Weather Company, Videology and Xaxis, with many others to be announced shortly.

There’s a ton of excitement around programmatic and the big impact it’s poised to have on video and TV advertising. Just yesterday I posted on eMarketer’s new forecast that 65%, or $7.4 billion, of online video ad spending will be transacted programmatically by 2017. But to reach that point, there needs to be a much clearer understanding of programmatic’s benefits and how to implement it. My goal is for SHIFT to meaningfully contribute to all of this.

Reminder that all early bird registrants will be entered to win a 50-inch Sharp Roku TV (value $450), generously provided by Roku. In addition, early bird registrants also save $100 off the regular rates. Further discounts are available on 5-packs and 10-packs. And, startups and students can register for the reduced $195 ticket (contact me for the code).

Learn more and register now!

Eyeview has integrated its video ad platform with WideOrbit’s WO Programmatic TV, so that Eyeview clients can programmatically buy and then measure and optimize ads on local broadcast TV. WO Programmatic TV, which is WideOrbit’s  supply-side platform, includes broadcasters covering 115 U.S. media markets, including 18 of the top 25, and 59% of U.S. households.

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