Posts for 'Advertising'

Adapt.tv and Digiday released their latest "Video: State of the Industry" report yesterday, and among the key findings were that 62% of respondents see online video ads as a complement to TV, up from 56% last year, while just 10% see it as a replacement. In addition, 48% of respondents from brands and agencies said that TV and online video ads are planned together, with another 25% saying they will be planned together within the next 12 months.

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Visible Measures is unveiling its "Certified Publisher Program" (CPP) this morning, to help establish standardized MRC-accredited online video campaign metrics for publishers to report to advertisers and agencies. The program, which is free to publishers and advertisers, is meant to enhance consistency and transparency. This in turn reduces the friction of agencies needing to expend resources normalizing self-reported and highly variable publisher results.

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I'm pleased to present the 155th edition of the VideoNuze-TDG podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon, senior analyst at The Diffusion Group, who joins from London. First up this week, we discuss AOL's video success and the larger concept of video syndication. Earlier this week, AOL revealed that its video revenues jumped from $10 million 2 years ago to $100 million in 2012, largely due to syndication. Colin and I dig into why syndication is so compelling and what's ahead.

Next up, Colin shares insights he gained from a presentation at the OTTTv World Summit in London by Marina Kalkanis, Head of the BBC's Programmes OnDemand Core Services team, which is responsible for the media and metadata services supporting BBC online. Marina's team oversaw BBC's online simulcast and on demand streaming of the London Olympics.

Colin was impressed by the scale of the BBC's Olympics operation and how video was consumed online and on mobile devices. One key takeaway - BBC found online/mobile complimenting linear TV, similar to NBC's experience in the U.S.

Click here to listen to the podcast (20 minutes, 11 seconds)

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Interactive video ad tech provider Jivox is announcing this morning that its platform can now deliver mobile ads on the iPad Mini and iPhone 5, without any additional work by publishers or agencies. Jivox uses a single ad tag that detects the type of device, browser and OS so that an appropriately sized ad is adaptively chosen and delivered. In addition, Jivox can detect which devices have higher quality Retina Display and will deliver high resolution ads to those.

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At the VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit in June, we had a great panel on best practices in online video advertising, which included Darren Feher, President and CEO of Conviva, Beth Lawrence, EVP, Ad Sales, The Weather Channel, Ravi Pahilajani, Associate Media Director, Razorfish, Aleck Schleider, VP Product Vertical, Videology and moderated by Larry Thomas of Latergy.

The session video is embedded below:

Advertising on connected TVs is continuing to improve, as Rovi late last week announced a new polling feature in its Rovi Advertising Network. Jeff Siegel, SVP, Global Media Sales, told me that this is one of the top capabilities advertisers have been asking for. Advertisers will typically seek a viewer's opinion on something and as a reward will offer a coupon or other incentive.

Rovi is a key player in the budding connected TV advertising market, as it both powers and sells ads for connected TV manufacturers Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, Panasonic. NPD recently estimated that 27% of TVs shipped in Q1 '12 had Internet connectivity. However that number can be a little deceiving, since not all these buyers will actually connect their TVs. Jeff explained that Rovi breaks the TV market into four buckets: total number of TV sets shipped, the percent of these that are connectable, the percent of these that are actually connected, and finally what they are used for.

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Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group and I are back for the 150th (whoohoo!) edition of the weekly VideoNuze-TDG podcast. This week Colin and I talk about how on-demand viewing - through both DVRs and online - is changing the landscape for TV networks and advertisers.

First up, Colin shares some eye-opening numbers from the start of this year's TV season, as reported by the NY Times. Certain shows like NBC's "Revolution" and "The New Normal" plus CBS's "Hawaii Five-o" gained a whopping 40% more viewers due to DVR-based viewing in the 3 days following their premieres. This new viewing dynamic, particularly among the coveted 18-49 cohort, underscores the new reality of on-demand's importance in assessing a show's potential. Premiere night alone is no longer determinative (if it ever was!).

On-demand viewing is also a conundrum for advertisers and agencies when creating media plans. And that's why this week's announcement by Nielsen of its Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings solution is a big step forward in monetizing audiences across screens. Online has emerged alongside DVRs as a legitimate viewing alternative, and advertisers need to harness its potential. Colin and I discuss how Cross-Platform helps create a "common currency" measurement with TV, which will appeal to TV ad buyers, while helping content providers better value their online ad inventory. It's a complicated topic, but as Colin notes, the shift from "broadcaster-centric to consumer-centric" is causing huge ripple effects in the ecosystem.

Listen in to learn more!

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There's been a lot written about how challenging it has become for brand advertisers to reach audiences effectively given the splintering of attention across screens. No longer is it sufficient to simply buy TV ads and expect to reach all targets; online and mobile must be added as complimentary channels.

This isn't easy, but as a new report released yesterday by Collective, "The Multi-Screen Advertising Playbook," shows, it is possible. Sharing results from a series of its clients' multi-platform campaigns, Collective provides specific details on how online campaigns augment TV buys to achieve marketing objectives.

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Yesterday Nielsen made its Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings commercially available, following trials by GroupM, ESPN, Facebook, Hulu and Unilever. Cross-Platform provides, for the first time, "unduplicated and incremental reach, frequency and GRP measures for TV and Internet advertising." Cross-Platform brings together Nielsen's Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) with its longstanding national TV panel.

The Cross-Platform launch follows Nielsen's announcement two weeks ago that 15 leading video and digital ad platforms have integrated OCR, plus last week's news that the CW Network will use OCR to measure its online viewership and offer demographic guarantees for online advertisers for the 2012-2013 TV season. As I explained last week, Cross-Platform is so critical to online video advertising because it helps align the ecosystem with media buying expectations of the multi-billion dollar TV advertising industry.

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In a bid to evolve online video advertising beyond the world of standard pre, mid and post-rolls, yesterday Sharethrough announced Sharethrough Sponsored Videos a "native" video ad format, meant to incorporate brand videos more seamlessly into publishers' web pages.

As Sharethrough explains them, native ads have three commonalities: they're integrated with the publisher's look and feel; they are choice-based, rather than interruptive; and they're meant to be standalone content experiences. The goals are better user engagement, improved user experiences, and higher brand lift, as compared with traditional video ad placements.

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Innovid is announcing this morning that its iRoll interactive video ad format is now also available for delivery in mobile to smartphones and tablets. This means that the same iRoll ad can be used online and in mobile, from the same ad server providing unified cross-platform analytics. Innovid's CEO Zvika Netter told me he believes this is a first for in-stream video ads. Innovid is also announcing that BrightRoll has become the first network to adopt the mobile iRoll and that several multi-screen campaigns are already live.

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Continuing its push to bring more efficiency to the world of online video ad buying, yesterday, Adap.tv introduced "Unified Planner," a media planning solution for agencies and advertisers to optimize campaign performance. The idea is for buyers to have access to multiple data sources, and then easily buy recommended inventory, optimize the ongoing campaign and measure results.

According to Adap.tv, Unified Planner allows buyers to create online video media plans including goals such as recommended sites for targeting desired audiences, expected reach and frequency for the sites, estimated performance, and costs. Inventory is sourced from direct buys and online marketplaces. Once the plan is created, Unified Planner allows changes to be made with visibility into campaign impact.  Buying is done through spot, RTB, upfront commitment or direct buys through automated RFPs.

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Consumers' ongoing adoption of multiple devices has made it harder than ever for advertisers to figure out how to make their spending on video advertising as effective as possible. To help clarify things, yesterday YuMe and IPG Media Lab released a new study yesterday (download here) which shows that while the role of screen size matters, other factors including ad clutter, creative content and context actually matter more in determining ad effectiveness.

In the study, 147 participants were exposed to ads on linear TV, connected TV, PC and mobile devices with ad load and frequency typical of what is found when viewing content on these devices. Four different types of content were shown, depending on participants' interests.  Participants' ad recall, excitement and attention were each measured, through a mix of follow-up surveys and biometric tools.

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After a week off for R&R, I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 146th edition of the VideoNuze-TDG Report podcast. Colin is at the IBC conference in Amsterdam this week, so his audio isn't quite as good as usual. There, he attended a fascinating presentation by a Unilever executive on how the company is adapting its advertising to the realities of a multi-screen world. Colin shares his reactions, particularly to how Unilever is creating its own online content in order to engage its audience in ways not possible with traditional TV advertising.

Shifting gears, we then discuss Amazon's aggressive content licensing blitz that I wrote about earlier this week. Having spent hundreds of millions of dollars licensing premium content over the past 15 months in support of its Prime Instant Videos, I think it's pretty clear that Amazon has emerged as the strongest new competitor to Netflix. Colin agrees, but reminds us that although content parity is critical to competitiveness, user experience matter as well. On this front, we agree Amazon still has a lot of work to do to match Netflix. Listen in to learn more!


Click here to listen to the podcast (23 minutes, 41 seconds)
 

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

Most viewers know that ads are what pay the freight and so they're inevitable. But that doesn't mean they have to like them. At June's VideoNuze Online Video Advertising Summit, TV Guide.com's EVP & GM Christy Tanner presented the company's latest research, drawn from its panel of 10,000 online users, which showed that 66% of respondents "hate" ads during streaming videos (so-called "mid-rolls"). The hate rate for pre-rolls was 35% and for post-rolls, 32%. That possibly led to a 56% jump in paid streaming from Spring 2011 to Spring 2012.

Despite this, recent research from FreeWheel showed that even with higher ad loads and the increasing prevalence of mid-rolls, completion rates for both content and ads were up in Q2.

Christy also noted that 73% of respondents streaming TV shows do so to catch up on missed episodes and 40% for shows discovered mid-season or between seasons, while just 6% do so to cut back on cable. However, the research also showed that 5% cancelled cable. Lots more in Christy's presentation below.

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Nearly 90% of connected TV viewers notice ads when they're watching video, and 66% of them are likely to interact with the ad according to a new study released this morning by video ad management/network YuMe and researcher Frank N. Magid Associates. The study, which included 736 connected TV users, is being called the most extensive research yet done on the burgeoning connected TV sector and underscores emerging advertising opportunities for brands to connect with viewers.

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Visible Measures, which provides video analytics and operates the Viewable Media video ad network, has raised another $21.5 million, led by DAG Ventures and including existing investors. The funds will be used to drive adoption of the company's products.

Visible Measures' CEO Brian Shin said that the company will achieve 300% revenue growth in 2012, for the second year in a row. That strong growth is aided by the April, 2011 launch of Viewable Media, the company's video ad network that is based on its core analytics platform. Viewable Media differentiates itself as performance-based and positions video ads as content that users can choose from on publishers' web pages. The company said that over one hundred brands and agencies have adopted Viewable Media since launch.

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If you catch up on your favorite TV programs by watching them online, then no doubt over the past year you've noticed, as I have, that ad volume has been growing. A new report from ad manager FreeWheel substantiates the trend: the number of video ads in long-form content (20+ minutes) has more than doubled, from just over 3 in Q1 '11 to almost 8 in Q2 '12. But in a very encouraging sign for both content providers and advertisers, an amazing 91% of these ads (including pre, mid and post-roll) are viewed to completion, the highest level FreeWheel has yet measured.

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Tremor Video announced earlier today that in June it served 98.3% of its in-stream video ads in players that were 400 pixels or bigger. Tremor has found that the bigger-sized players drive double the engagement rate and also boost completion rates for ads. Based on its own analytics, Tremor found that for ads appearing in 400-500 pixel players, 62% of viewers watched to completion and for ads appearing in a 500-700 pixel player, completion jumped to 75%.

Tremor believes that as player sizes get bigger the viewing experience becomes more TV-like, therefore inducing users to relax and be more prone to sit through ads. Looking ahead, this bodes well for ads on connected TVs, where the content and ads are seen in full screen. Tremor said that it is advising publishing partners to increase the size of their players in order to deliver improved ad performance.

Related, Hulu must also be finding similar results; back in March it increased the size of its video player by 55% to a beefy 900x500.

At last month's VideoNuze 2012 Online Video Advertising Summit, our closing session was a big picture debate on the future of online video advertising, featuring AOL's Frank Besteiro, NBCU's Peter Naylor, TiVo's Tara Maitra, TubeMogul's Brett Wilson and YouTube's Suzie Reider, which I moderated.

One of the things the group addresses is whether buyers of online video advertising will prefer an impression-based model (akin to traditional TV advertising) or an engagement-based model (akin to search and other forms of online advertising). I believe it's a key question as it goes to the heart of how video advertising will work and the experience viewers will have online. Within this larger question is the omnipresent issue of measurement - when will there be an accepted currency for online video advertising, and what will it be?

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