Posts for 'Advertising'

Please save the date for the 3rd annual VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit on Tues., June 4th in NYC.

Once again, the Video Ad Summit will be a high-impact day of learning and networking for executives at brands, agencies, video content providers, technology companies and others in the online video ecosystem. Last year over 350 industry executives attended, with 40+ speakers.

The volume of video coming online these days is unprecedented. Consumers have more content choices and more devices to watch them on than ever - helping drive viewership to record levels. And the reality is that the vast majority of today's online video is free and ad-supported, making it essential that the advertising model continue to develop and mature.

The good news is that there's tons of innovation happening, which is helping accelerate advertisers' online video spending. But huge challenges still remain. And that's where the Video Ad Summit comes in. Through a fast-paced program of thought-leader keynotes, panel discussions, fireside chats, case studies, presentations and demoes, attendees can expect to take away actionable insights and develop new relationships.

If your business's success is tied to the ever-growing influence of online video and online video advertising specifically, the Video Ad Summit will once again be a must-attend event.

Premier sponsors of the Video Ad Summit include Adap.tv, Adobe and TubeMogul, along with Headline sponsors Altitude Digital, Collective, LiveRail and Videology.  Additional sponsorship opportunities are still available. Please contact me to learn more.

Early bird, discounted registration will be available shortly.

upLynk, which provides a single HD adaptive streaming format, has extended its technology solution to also incorporate native video ad insertion. Whereas traditional video ad insertion requires logic in the video player upLynk moves it all to the server. By integrating the ads with the content this way, upLynk is able to deliver a single continuous adaptive stream to the player. By reducing the player's workload, viewers get a smoother, buffer-free video experience. This in turn builds viewer loyalty and view times, which are critical to ad monetization.

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I'm pleased to present the 168th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. Today we start by discussing Akamai's new Ad Integration Services, which enables cloud-based video ad insertion, in partnership with mDialog.

This approach has multiple benefits including improving the user experience which extends view times. Colin notes that recent data from Conviva, for example, shows that a 1% increase in buffering results in 8 minutes of lost viewing time, which in turn means a loss of 2 ad breaks. Conviva estimates in 2012 this adds up to $2.2 billion in lost ad revenue globally, and by 2017, it could be $20 billion. Clearly improving the viewer experience has a significant payoff.

We then transition to talking about improvements in video discovery. Colin shares takeaways from his interview this week with Jeremy Toeman, CEO of Dijit (Next Guide), which recently acquired Miso. And I share observations on the new web version of Fanhattan, which launched in beta yesterday.

Listen in to learn more!

Click here to listen to the podcast (19 minutes, 50 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

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

In an interview at NATPE, Chase Norlin, CEO of AlphaBird, shared details of how the company helps content providers acquire and monetize audiences. Chase explains that whereas most ad tech companies are focused on the buy side of the advertising equation, AlphaBird is solely focused on the publisher side. Through a series of 5 acquisitions, AlphaBird has built a suite of solutions that span video, search and display (it's most recent acquisition, of Australia's Volt Media, was announced last week).

Chase details the company's thesis that the web is moving from text to rich media to video. However, the biggest challenge that video providers have today is in building their audiences, and then monetizing them. This reflects Chase's belief that video is still in the early days, and he anticipates lots of consolidation down the road. Advertisers will continue to be drawn to online video as it provides an unprecedented level of targeting and ROI.

Watch the interview

In a bid to re-architect and improve upon how online video ads are inserted, this morning Akamai is announcing Ad Integration Services. With Ad Integration Services, online video ads are dynamically inserted in the cloud and delivered using Akamai's Sola Sphere delivery network, eliminating the typical client-side process of the video player calling for the ads.

As Kurt Michel, director of product marketing for media solutions, explained to me last week, the traditional process often diminishes the user experience. That's because the content itself and the ad are competing for last-mile bandwidth as the video player transitions from the former to the latter.  This contention can lead to delays, which in turn leads to viewer abandonment (if you've ever waited for an ad to play you know about this).

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At NATPE, Greg Smith, GM of VideoHub, a unit of Tremor Video, shared observations on the online video advertising market and how VideoHub is differentiating itself. Some of the highlights of what Greg is seeing:

- Segmentation among ad buyers - some that want a full-service model, like the one Tremor Video offers, and some that want a lower-cost, self-service model like what VideoHub offers

- Strong interest in real-time bidding and ongoing desire by publishers and advertisers to figure out how to value inventory

- An explosion in online original video programming that will be monetized through advertising

And more.

Watch the interview

Video ad technology provider Videology has released its Q4 '12 U.S. video infographic, continuing to break down into fine detail which industries are using online video advertising, how/who their campaigns target and performance. The data is based on nearly 2.4 billion video ad impressions Videology served in Q4, and it offers extremely rich insights for anyone looking for a deeper dive into the surging online video ad market.

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FreeWheel has released its full year and Q4 2012 video monetization report, showing that video ad loads and ad completion rates hit their all-time highs since the first report in 2010. From Q4 '11 to Q4 '12, ads per video in long-form content (20+ minutes) were up from 6.92 to 9.4; in mid-form (5-20 minutes) were up from 1.22 to 1.27 and for short-form (under 5 minutes) were up from .54 to .66.

Despite the increase in ad loads, their completion rates were up across the board as well in Q4 '12 vs. a year earlier as well: long-form up from 88% to 93%, mid-form up from 68% to 81% and short-form up from 54% to 68%. (see both charts below) For now at least, consumers continue to show a strong willingness to sit through ads in order to view free, professional content, on which the FreeWheel report is based.

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Online video ad buying continues to shift toward, but also improve upon, conventional TV ad buying, with the latest evidence that Adap.tv is now optimizing audience targeting against data from Nielsen and comScore.

As Toby Gabriner, Adap.tv's president, explained to me, the process starts with an algorithm the company has developed to predict a publisher's audience composition. The algorithm is based on numerous data "signals" (e.g. content type, time of day, browsing behavior, 3rd party profiling, etc.) that are continuously updated. The audience profiles are then used to focus on impressions that should index high against Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) and comScore Validated Campaign Essentials (VCE).

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Anyone working in or around the video ad tech space knows how incredibly crowded and well-funded it is. So, when a couple of weeks ago I noticed that a company I was only mildly familiar with, Altitude Digital, announced it had raised $5 million, I was intrigued. While not a blockbuster-sized round, financings of this size signal that the investors, after having done their customary due diligence, see some "white space" still available to operate in.  To learn more, I recently spoke to Devin Yeager, Altitude's COO, and Joe Salvador, VP of Video Operations.

Denver-based Altitude started up about 4 years ago as a display ad rep firm, but 2 years ago began building its own technology. More recently, Altitude has expanded into video, creating a new division called Visualtising. As a whole, the company is now processing about 12 billion display and video ad impressions per month. Altitude currently has 20 employees and is looking to double in size this year. It was also #54 ranked on Inc. 5000 list last year. Expanding Visualtising is the main purpose of the new financing.

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Video ad tech provider YuMe has introduced a new ad unit for connected TVs dubbed "Click to Ngage." Simon Hayhurst, SVP of Product Management at YuMe, told me yesterday that the new ad unit is meant to give advertisers a way to extend their creativity beyond typical 30-second pre-rolls into more of an immersive "mini-site" type of format.

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Welcome to 2013! If you were mostly checked out over the past 1-2 weeks (or were only paying attention to the fiscal cliff roller coaster), you didn't miss a whole lot in the video world. However, there were 5 items that caught my attention which I briefly describe below:

See the 5 items

I'm pleased to present the 160th edition of the VideoNuze-TDG podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon, senior analyst at The Diffusion Group. This will be our 45th podcast of 2012, and last one for the year.

Following on last week's podcast in which we counted down the top 10 online video stories of 2012, this week we look ahead to the top 4 trends we expect in 2013. We also do a quick "around the horn" on 7 topics that are also of interest.

Click here to listen to the podcast (27 minutes, 25 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

The VideoNuze-TDG podcast is available in iTunes...subscribe today!

Advertisers and content providers continue to grapple with how to optimize ads in online video, and contributing to the dialogue, this morning AOL is releasing research indicating that ads in short-form videos are more effective than ads in long-form. Based on research involving 800 participants, AOL and its research partner Qualvu found that ads in short-form video had a 25% higher brand recall, produced 42% higher purchase intent and were 26% more likely to be liked. Short-form video is defined as less than 10 minutes with long-form 10 minutes or longer.

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Below is the full video of last week's VideoSchmooze session, "Cracking the Code on Multiplatform Success," which included Peter Dolchin (VP, Viacom Media Networks), Jason Forbes (EVP, zeebox), Ran Harnevo (SVP, AOL On Network), Chris Smith (VP, Collective), with Olivier Manuel (Principal, Accretive) moderating.

The group covered a lot of ground, sharing insights on what their companies are doing with multi-platform and how they view multi-platform unfolding. Among the specific topics they discussed included:

- What is the definition of a "TV" in the online video age?

- What do marketers want - unified measurement for media buying, or separation by platform? And what do incumbent linear networks and upstart online-only programmers want?

- What is the difference between "TV Everywhere" and "Video Everywhere?" How are new programmers challenging incumbents to force more audience fragmentation and how is the ad community valuing this programming?

- Can online-only originals be financing solely on ads or do they need a dual revenue stream with subscriptions, like cable?

- Does premium content that was produced for the web get TV-style premium CPMs or will it be considered low-cost web content? How important is targeting matter and what other factors matter?

- Do ad formats need to be different on TV, mobile and online?

- How can business models align with user behaviors, and who's succeeding in doing this today?

- What lessons does mobile, with the dominance of iOS and Android, offer to connected TV space? Will a "connected TV operating system" emerge and if so, who will drive that?

- How does social help the discovery process and combat DVR usage?

And much more!

Watch the session video

YouTube has posted a gallery of the top 20 most-viewed ads of 2012. Topping the list, with almost 21 million views is "Nike Football: My Time Is Now," the 3-minute plus film which debuted for last summer's Eurocup. My personal favorite, with 17.7 million views and in the #3 position, is "The Bark Side," (see below) Volkswagen's 2012 Super Bowl teaser spin on its clever 2011 Super Bowl ad, "The Force" which is now up to 55 million views itself. The top 20 ads have over 200 million views combined.

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Video ad technology provider Videology has released an excellent infographic (after the jump below), jam-packed with useful data about Q3 online video advertising spending and performance. The data is based on 1.3 billion video ad impressions served by Videology in the U.S. from July 1 to Sept. 30. I'm normally not a huge fan of infographics, but this one has highly relevant data, presented clearly and concisely.

A few of the data points that jumped out for me:

- Despite the buzz over mobile and connected devices, 90% of video ads were still served online.

- Almost two-thirds of video ad impressions were placed on sites classified as entertainment-oriented (the third quarter in a row this has been the case). A distant second, with 8.4% of video ad impressions were portal sites.

- Educational Services was the category of video ads with the highest click-through rate while Retail ads had the highest viewing completion rate.

- Just 10.1% of video ad impressions were targeted to the tech-savvy 18-24 demo; the majority (63.9%) were targeted to the 25-54 demos.

See the infographic

A new study released by Jun Group, an opt-in video ad platform, has found that users are twice as likely to interact with a brand upon watching an incentivized video ad as they are after watching a pre-roll. The results are based on 7.7 million incentivized video ad views from Jun Group campaigns between May-August 2012 along with industry data on pre-rolls.

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Adobe has announced the beta release of its full Project Primetime publishing, monetization and analytics platform for video delivered to connected devices. Adobe is also introducing two new Primetime components, MediaWeaver, a dynamic ad insertion service and Primetime Media Player, a cross-platform player tightly integrated with analytics components of Primetime.

Adobe is positioning Primetime as a comprehensive solution for professional content providers eager to move past cobbling together multiple products that often result in sub-optimal user experiences with online and mobile video. Primetime was originally unveiled in February, with the Highlights component that allowed quick clip and metadata creation from live programming.

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Validating the appeal of long-form (over 20 minutes) online video, the completion rate for such content set a new record of 93%, in Q3 '12, according to data released yesterday in FreeWheel's latest Video Monetization Report. FreeWheel specializes in delivering video ads against professional video only, and services most of the major TV networks, so long-form primarily means TV programs.

Completion rates were in the 80%-90% range until Q2 '12 when they nudged up to 91%. The increase in completion rates has occurred despite the fact that the number of ads in long-form have increased from just over 3 back in Q1 '11 to almost 7 in Q3 '12. Viewers clearly love their online access to favorite TV programs and are willing to sit through more ads as a quid pro quo for that access.

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