Posts for 'Advertising'

Don't delay - early-bird discounted registration for the VideoNuze 2013 Online Video Advertising Summit on Tues, June 4th in NYC ends in just over a week. Sign up now to save on the standard rate. For startups/students, remember there's a special $195 ticket to make the event more affordable. Contact me for the discount code. As an added incentive, all early bird registrants will be eligible to win a Samsung 40-inch Smart TV, presented by VideoHub.

For anyone who needs to better understand online video advertising, this 3rd annual Video Ad Summit will be a must-attend event, jam-packed with learning and networking. We currently have over 35 speakers from leading companies such as YouTube, GroupM, CBS Interactive, Nielsen, NBCU, Digitas, Viacom, LG, Scripps, Time, AOL and many others.

In over a dozen sessions we'll dive deeply into topics such as whether the traditional day-part programming model is dead, the art and science of targeting, the impact of the recent NewFronts, how private video exchanges work, what's ahead for programmatic video ad buying, strategies for monetizing on-demand video, architecting a successful cross-media strategy, plus lots more. I am confident you'll walk away with valuable insights and data.

I'm extremely grateful to all 18 industry-leading companies that are supporting this year's Video Ad Summit: Premier Partners Adap.TV, Adobe, Akamai, TubeMogul, ValueClick and YuMe; Headline Partners Altitude Digital, AOL, BlackArrow, Collective, Innovid, LiveRail, VideoHub and Videology, plus Branding Partners EXPO, Extreme Reach, Mixpo and Real Media. All of them will have representatives at the event and it will be a great opportunity to engage with them.

Save now on early bird registration!

I'm pleased to present the 178th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. This was NewFronts week, when a slew of content providers presented their slate of programs and initiatives to advertisers. Having attended a couple of the presentations, I was impressed by the turnout, energy and interest, especially since this was only the second year for these types of presentations.

Advertisers have clearly moved online video beyond the experimental stage and are taking a strong interest. Colin and I agree that this is mainly due to viewers' strong adoption of online video viewing. This should only increase as viewers are presented with an exploding array of content choices. We talk more about the role that mobile and apps are playing in all of this too, and why established media needs to be aggressive in this shifting landscape.

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Videology’s Q1 2013 infographic offers up fresh detail about what types of advertisers are embracing the medium, how their ads are performing, and how shifts in the use of devices are impacting the online video environment.
 
Based on 1.8 billion impressions delivered on Videology’s platform during Q1, the data shows that desktops continue to dominate despite the impressive rise of mobile devices. Ads seen on desktop accounted for 92% of online video ads people watched in Q1, with connected TVs accounting for 5% and mobile devices, 3%. Although ads seen on mobile devices increased 27% year-over-year in Q1, that surge was leapfrogged by the number of ads seen on the desktop, which grew 84%.

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YouTube has been the undisputed 800-pound gorilla of the online video market since the beginning of time. And it's key message to advertisers at last night's "Brandcast" NewFront event was to emphatically remind them of its massive size and its reach into the youth market, factors it believes should drive advertisers' attention and spending.

Whereas last year's Brandcast was all about the 100 new channels that YouTube was funding/launching, this year's event was more of a return to its roots: it's ability to give native digital talent the platform to reach and grow huge audiences. Because a lot of this talent resonates first and foremost with younger digital natives (in Nielsen parlance "Generation C"), YouTube says it's in a unique position to deliver these audiences.  YouTube cited Nielsen data that it reaches more 18-34-year-olds than any cable network.

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Looking past the thumping music and flashing lights that pervaded AOL's NewFront presentation yesterday, the big theme from the company's new slate of original productions was far quieter: it wants to be the online home for authentic programming from thoughtful creators.

Going this less mainstream route means AOL isn't trying to out-TV TV - like for example Netflix is trying to do with "House of Cards" and its other new shows (how many times have you heard Netflix executives compare their efforts to HBO's?!). Though it is collaborating with some well-known talent such as Sarah Jessica Parker, Gwyneth Paltrow and Hank Azaria, AOL's new programs are mainly built around online and offline personalities who have unique perspectives on the world.

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Getting a branded video to go hugely viral is like catching lightning in a bottle - it's hard to predict and very rare. But a viral video's huge branding benefits through free, or so-called "earned media" impressions, makes it extremely appealing.

Now Visible Measures, which has been tracking video viewership across devices for years, and Publicis Groupe's VivaKi and Starcom MediaVest have developed a planning tool called CONTAGION that uses data to help brands and agencies actually plan for how viral a branded video campaign could be. CONTAGION is launching today for use by Publicis Groupe agencies for a year before becoming available to the broader market.

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Advertisers and agencies are funneling more money into online video advertising, and they’re taking more money from TV and online display ad budgets to make it happen, according to the latest “2013 Video: State of the Industry” report from Adap.tv and Digiday.
 
The Q1 2013 report, surveying 759 advertising and digital media professionals, shows 72% of video buyers increased spending for online video ads over the preceding 12 months, spending an average of 53% more on the category. That’s more than double the average 20% spending increase recorded over the previous 12-month period. The spending increases are a sign of momentum with the report saying, "Those for whom online video is a marketing staple are ‘doubling down’ on the medium."

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Video ad tech providers FreeWheel and Mixpo have collaborated with Discovery Communications to deliver the first VPAID 2.0-enabled video ad campaign across desktop and mobile. The interactive in-stream ads are running on Discovery's Animal Planet online and mobile properties.

VPAID 2.0 is an IAB standard that defines a common interface between video players and ad units, enabling in-stream interactivity. It obviates the need for advertisers to create custom code in order for an interactive campaign to work across multiple video players. As a result, interactive campaigns can be deployed across desktop and mobile far quicker and more cost-effectively, while using common ad serving/decisioning. (Mixpo created a short video explaining all this). 

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Forrester has updated its forecast for the real-time bidding (RTB) segment of the online video advertising market, calling for a 71% increase in 2013 spending to $686M and another 66% increase in 2014 to $1.14 billion (see chart below). Forrester sees the increase in RTB spending accounting for 44% of the overall growth in online video advertising between 2012 and 2014. The forecast is part of a commissioned report for SpotXchange, available here.

Forrester points to 4 drivers of RTB's rapid growth: more diverse pricing mechanisms that will increase RTB's appeal, especially for premium publishers; greater acceptance of RTB for mid-flight optimization; media buyers' desire to compliment traditional reach and frequency campaigns with targeted, engagement-oriented RTB campaigns; and automated RTB buying (and programmatic in general) that will reduce friction in the complicated online video market.

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A new survey of local TV stations by video marketing platform provider Mixpo has found that between 58%-70% of local TV stations' online tune-in campaign budgets (depending on market size) are allocated to online video ads. Fully 85% of local stations intend to use online video advertising for tune-in campaigns in 2013.

Keeping this in perspective though, online advertising still only represents 14%-24% of local stations' tune-in ad spending, with stalwarts radio and cable still leading. However, online advertising already has strong buy-in from stations, with between 86%-100% reporting that they'll use it in 2013. And online advertising is poised to get a greater share of stations' ad budgets, as between 36%-57% of stations said they intend to increase online ad budgets. Video advertising would be a clear beneficiary of such moves.

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Teads.tv, a French ad tech provider, has an interesting solution to the scarcity of premium video ad inventory: enable premium text-based web pages to carry video ads as well. In-page video ads and rich media units have been around for a while for a similar purpose, but Teads.tv's "InRead" unit is a different approach that I believe nicely balances advertiser concerns about viewability and performance with publisher/user concerns about experience.

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Early bird discounted registration is now open for the VideoNuze 2013 Online Video Advertising Summit on Tuesday, June 4th in NYC. This will be the 3rd VideoNuze Ad Summit; last year, 350+ executives from around the video ecosystem of content providers, agencies, brands, technology companies and others attended.

I'm especially delighted to announce that 13 industry-leading companies are on board as sponsors. These include Premier Partners Adap.TV, Akamai, Auditude (Adobe), TubeMogul, ValueClick and YuMe; Headline Partners Altitude Digital, BlackArrow, Collective, Innovid, LiveRail and Videology, plus Branding Partner EXPO. All of these companies play critical roles in the dynamic online video advertising world and I am incredibly grateful that they've decided to be a part of the Ad Summit.

This year's Ad Summit will occur just after the Digital Content NewFronts and during the traditional TV upfronts. It's a time of year when advertisers and media buyers are scrutinizing their choices and deciding how best to reach their target audiences with tens of billions of dollars of spending. These decisions are more complicated than ever as audiences are fragmenting, content choices proliferating, and viewing devices multiplying. The opportunities to reach and engage audiences are more numerous than ever.

And this is why I believe the Ad Summit is so valuable. It's an immersive day of learning and networking with industry leaders from around the ecosystem. Through a series of presentations, panels, fireside chats and demo's, attendees gain strategic insights, useful data and practical lessons. For anyone who needs to understand the online video ad business and the broader tectonic shifts underway in video, it's a must-attend event.  I'll be sharing more about our amazing group of speakers and sessions in the coming weeks.

I hope to see you on June 4th!

U.K. based online video ad technology provider Videoplaza is unveiling Karbon 2, the next generation of its sell side ad management platform today. In addition, the company is launching Karbon Data Alliance, a network of data partners that enable Videoplaza content publisher customers to better analyze their audiences and create targeted monetizable segments. Karbon Data Alliance includes data management partners Nugg.Ad, Meetrics, Enreach, Eyota, Bluekai and others TBD.

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Late last week, VINDICO, the big online video ad serving company, launched a new product called Adtricity, which is meant to standardize quality rankings for both video advertisers and content publishers. Matt Timothy, VINDICO's president, explained to me his belief that in order for online video advertising to continue scaling, both the buy and the sell sides of the ecosystem need stronger measurement of both viewability and verification.

Matt cites the explosion of ad networks that VINDICO works with, numbering 128 in 2012 (up from 50 in 2010) as a key reason for Adtricity's development. Because networks can be under pressure to deliver on their commitments, this can lead to ad placements that aren't quite what the advertiser thought it was getting, though they still contribute to delivery goals. Matt thinks of Adtricity as turning a "flood light" on the market, which will help all sides achieve better quality.

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Native advertising, which refers to branded content or ad messages that are cohesively integrated directly into web sites, are getting lots of attention these days as an alternative to pre-roll video advertising. A study released by Sharethrough and Nielsen today is putting some brand lift performance numbers behind the debate.

Using Nielsen's Online Brand Effect tool to measure viewer response, the native advertising technology specialist found that five campaigns it studied produced higher brand lift from native advertising exposure than from pre-roll video impressions. In a campaign for the soft drink brand Jarritos, exposure to native ad content elevated favorable brand perceptions by 82%, compared with 2.1% lift among those who saw pre-roll ads. In another for a CPG brand, native ads drove a 42.2% brand lift vs. none for pre-roll ads. (see infographic below)

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I'm pleased to present the 170th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. First up today, Colin does a little trash talking of Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes. At a Deutsche Bank conference earlier this week, Bewkes said “We don’t think the multichannel bundle is becoming less of a good deal, we think it’s getting to be a better deal and we think it’s getting to be a better deal in the opinion of consumers,” Colin thinks this statement is complete baloney and cites specific research refuting Bewkes' assertions (more detail here).

We then shift gears to talk about online and mobile video advertising. It was a busy week on that front (more of what VideoNuze wrote is here). One that really caught my eye and I wrote about was from Extreme Reach. The company announced an innovative cross-media reporting suite that maps actual TV and online video ad impressions along with conversions. To my knowledge it's the first time such reporting has been possible, enabling buyers to have unprecedented insight into campaign ROI.

Listen in to learn more!

Click here to listen to the podcast (19 minutes, 47 seconds)

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The VideoNuze podcast is also available in iTunes...subscribe today!

Another milestone today in advertisers' ongoing quest for clearer insights into how their TV and online video ads perform together: Extreme Reach, a company that until now has mainly focused on distributing TV ad creative to local TV stations, is announcing a suite of cross-media reports that integrate performance metrics from actual TV and online video campaigns. As a result, agencies and advertisers are able to optimize spending in each media and can understand how different permutations of spending and creative drive different results.

As viewers fragment their behavior over connected and mobile devices, the ability to measure ad performance across screens is becoming an increasingly urgent problem for advertisers. Because metrics for online video campaigns are silo'd from TV ad reporting, it is virtually impossible for media buyers to truly understand how the two sets of campaigns worked together.

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TubeMogul announced today that it will be offering real-time buying for mobile video ads on smartphones and tablets across public and private exchanges that generated over 94 million daily streams in February. TubeMogul believes this is the greatest reach of mobile video streams assembled to date, enabling buyers to centrally tap into the exploding world of mobile video usage. Top sites are routinely citing mobile usage as now accounting for between 25-50% of their video streams.

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Innovid has raised an $11 million series C round from existing investors Sequioa Capital, Genesis Partners and T-Ventures, along with new investor Vintage Investment Partners. With the new round, the company has raised $27.6 million to date. Innovid CEO and co-founder Zvika Netter told me the company experienced a very strong Q3 and Q4 in 2012, contributing to 450% year-over-year growth. The new financing will help the company expand its ad platform beyond online, mobile and tablet to also reach connected TVs, game consoles, VOD and broadcast.

Innovid's technology platform allows advertisers to integrate interactive elements into their pre-roll video ads, increasingly the likelihood of engagement and improving ROI. As Innovid's iRoll gallery shows, these can include social sharing, links to mini-sites, special offers/commerce, supplementary content, etc. Interactivity is added to the ads easily through the iRoll Studio. Innovid also offers ad serving and advanced analytics that track exactly how users engage with the interactive elements.

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With more people accessing web content through smartphones and tablets, advertisers want to make sure rich media ads, including video, play nicely across all types of screens. But a survey released today by Jivox shows ad agencies are frustrated with producing rich media ads for an increasingly complex device universe.

Jivox’s Q1 survey of more than 100 ad agencies (e.g. BBDO, Digitas, Mindshare, Starcom, Razorfish, MediaVest and others), released this morning, found 88% of respondents are “somewhat” or “very” stressed about authoring rich media ads that often include video elements. Another 15% don’t even try.

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