Posts for 'Advertising'

Daisy Whitney and I are pleased to present the 52nd edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for March 5, 2010.

First up this week I discuss my post from this past Monday, "ABC.com is Now Achieving 'DVR Economics' for Its Programs," in which I described how ABC is now generating roughly the same revenue per program per viewer in online as it is when its programs are watched in DVR playback mode. Albert Cheng, EVP of Digital Media at Disney-ABC had explained to me last week that ABC recently concluded that since online and DVR are both "catch-up" opportunities, it was more appropriate to compare them to each other than to on-air.

Key to this logic is that ABC maintains a release window for its programs, with them being posted on the site 4-6 hours after broadcast. As a result, people who really want to see the program when it's first available still watch on-air (and may in fact re-watch online or via DVR). As long as there's an audience for broadcast, and online doesn't cannibalize it, the logic makes sense to me. Albert also explained that there's further upside in online through increasing the ad load, which is something ABC has experimented with.

Daisy picks up on that point, noting that CBS's Anthony Soohoo told her in an interview for Beet.tv that CBS is considering moving to a full ad load online because the online and on-air experience are converging, which suggests to them that viewers would tolerate more ads. We dig into the interplay between online and DVR usage, which I think is increasingly going to be a key focus for networks in how they choose to monetize online viewing.

Wrapping up, we review what some of the social media "listening" sites that are tracking the Oscar predictions are saying. Daisy appears officially addicted to following the online chatter.

Click here to listen to the podcast (14 minutes, 41 seconds)

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Last week while I was in LA I had a chance to sit down for an extended chat with Albert Cheng, EVP of Digital Media for Disney-ABC Television. Aside from general catch-up, I wanted to dig into a comment I'd heard Albert make at the recent NATPE conference - that full-length programs on ABC.com are now achieving "DVR economics."

The comment caught my attention because, as I've written a number of times, I've been concerned that the broadcast networks' streaming initiatives (and Hulu specifically) could be undermining their traditional business models. The main reason for this is that the ad load in streaming programs is a small fraction vs. what it is in on-air. If all online viewing is incremental to on-air that wouldn't matter. But despite certain research that suggests online doesn't cannibalize on-air, for some viewers who have long since transitioned to time-shifted consumption, it surely does. More importantly, as convergence devices that link broadband to TVs gain penetration, the choice for viewers of how to watch a particular program - via online or via on-air - gets even more pronounced, putting further pressure on on-air.

Albert explained that ABC has been closely following the economics of programs' different viewing methods and recently concluded that it was more appropriate to compare online's economics to DVR's economics than to on-air's. Their reasoning is that because online is a "catch-up" medium it should be weighed against other comparable opportunities, not against on-air. Importantly, ABC "windows" the online release of its programs by 4-6 hours, so that hard-core fans who have to watch immediately will skew to on-air, rather than waiting. (Of course the question arises - in our increasingly on-demand, time-shifted world, how sizable is the "must-see" audience for all but the most popular programs like "Lost?" But that's a question for another day.)

When looked at this way, ABC believes online delivery compares favorably to DVR. No surprise, Albert would not disclose ABC's revenues or research, but he did give me a wink-and-a-nod when I shared my estimate that the on-air revenue per program per viewer is in the $.50-$.75 range (of course specific programs and specific episodes are above and below this range). To be clear, this only means the revenue generated is in this range. Because of bathroom breaks, channel flipping, viewers chit-chatting, etc. obviously not all of the ads are actually viewed.

Estimating the revenue per program per viewer range for DVR playback, given its attendant ad-skipping, is more complicated. Ad-skipping is surely high, but it's unclear exactly how high. For example, last Nov, the NY Times reported Nielsen research that somewhat remarkably showed that 46% of viewers age 18-49 still watched a program's commercials when in DVR playback mode. A different story is told by TiVo, which released data last Sept saying that for the programs that won the top Emmy awards, somewhere between 55-83% of the audience viewing these programs in DVR mode skipped the ads.

Just to round off, if we say that 60% of the ads in DVR playback are skipped, then DVR economics - and therefore ABC.com's economics - are in the $.20-$.30 range on a per program per viewer basis (i.e. 40% of $.50-$.75). Even on the low side of that range, that's better than my previous estimate of $.15 per program per viewer for Hulu in particular (which in reality was probably a little high anyway).

Further, Albert said that there's plenty of room for improving online's economics. One key focus is increasing the ad load, possibly to as much as double the current 5 ads per program. ABC.com has experimented with this and its research shows that neither the viewer nor the advertiser experience is diminished. As a result, ABC is inclined to increase the ad load to continue improving online economics further, but is somewhat constrained by advertisers' desire to minimize clutter and their own desire to remain consistent with non-ABC sites' ad loads.

Online distribution of full-length programs is still in its relative infancy. Yet as consumers hunger for it, broadcast networks have little choice but to provide it. The key is how to make this new delivery method profitable and also not harmful to the traditional network P&L. The use of windows for example, seems like an effective tactic insofar as there exists an audience intent on watching a program the moment it's shown on-air. Based on last week's conversation with Albert, along with prior ones, it seems like ABC is balancing things well - taking steps to pursue online, but doing so in a well-researched and analytically sound manner.

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Daisy Whitney and I are pleased to present the 50th (woohoo!) edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for February 19, 2010.

This week Daisy first walks us through a piece she's writing for AdAge focused on viral video. In reviewing data on which videos have broken out online, Daisy concludes that invariably they are also supported by related advertising. In other words, viral video isn't accidental any more (if it ever was) - now it must be stoked by paid support. An example Daisy provides is for Evian's "Live Young" babies ad which has been seen online 76 million times. Evian initially promoted the ad with YouTube takeover ads. Daisy also discusses the online performance of Super Bowl ads based on Visible Measures' new Trends application, which shows a big disparity between ads that were viewed heavily online vs. rated highly when seen on TV.

Then we discuss my post, "In Trying to Preserve DVD Sales, Studios are in a Tight Spot," in which I described the lengths to which Hollywood studios are going to squeeze out the last remaining profits from DVD sales. As I explain, while the recession has had a dampening effect on DVD sales, the larger problem is that rather than buying them, increasingly consumers are expecting films to be available for rental or subscription or even for free, with ad support. A number of moves from Disney, Sony and Warner Bros. in the last week underscore the consequences studios face as they try to shore up DVD sales.

Click here to listen to the podcast (14 minutes, 8 seconds)

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Panache has unveiled Ad Flow, a new work flow tool for online video ads intended to streamline the process for publishers adding and approving new video campaigns. I got a short demo of Ad Flow from the Panache team and it looked intuitive and thorough.

According to Panache's EVP Cheryl Kellond, who was formerly a VP of Advertising at Yahoo, ordinarily this process is very manual and is based on home-brewed work flow tools which can result in a lot of emails back and forth among the publisher's team members. The result is that it can take up to 6 weeks and end up costing 25-40% of the value of the campaign with all the personnel time involved. With these delays, Cheryl said Yahoo sometimes had to turn business away because they couldn't process the ads quickly enough.

Though I've never personally been involved in this type of process at a major publisher, I have a glimpse into how complicated it must be from my own experience with VideoNuze's ads. First I receive sponsors' creative which was to have been developed according to published specs. Then I load the ads into my ad system and test them along a number of different dimensions. For one reason or another, frequently there are 1-2 rounds of revisions before they finally go live.

Even for a relatively simple site like VideoNuze which accepts Flash ads, though not video ads, there are a number of things that can cause deviations, resulting in delays for the campaign's start date. Mind you I'm not complaining, I've just come to understand that all of this is part of being in an ad-supported business.

With Ad Flow, the publisher's ad sales, ad product strategy, operations and creative teams can all monitor the step-by-step progress of new campaigns from initially being loaded through testing and to final approval. Rather than using email to monitor progress, everyone gets access to the tool for their specific tasks. Importantly, testing can be in the publisher's video player offline, which has been hard in the past. Ad Flow is another element in online video's foundation which will reduce the friction involved in getting ads live so that more TV ad budgets can be shifted to online video.

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Visible Measures, the third-party measurement firm for online video, is taking the wraps off its new "Trends" web-based application this morning. I've been playing around with it for the last couple of days with a courtesy login and not only does it pack a ton of value, it's also really addictive.

Trends offers access to videos in 3 different data sets, or "collections": Social Video (currently 165 online ad campaigns that have gone viral), Film Trailers (currently 115, and growing by 3-4 per week), and all the recent 2010 Super Bowl ads. The results table for a query displays the campaign's thumbnail image and its name, along with its views or "reach" based on Visible Measures' "True Reach" data (either incremental or cumulative) plus the number of comments, ratings and points of distribution. The table also displays each ad's industry categorization, ad agency, brand name and type of creative type (humor, contest, product demo, etc.). Viewing any particular ad is also just one click away.

Users can take advantage of Trends in any number of ways, depending on their particular interest. As one example, I started by choosing the Social Video collection and "Cumulative Reach" for the current time period. I was interested to see just campaigns for beverages, so I chose that category, but allowed all agencies, brands and creative types to be displayed. In an instant I was presented with a table of 20 results on 2 pages, starting with Evian's hilarious "Live Young" campaign featuring the dancing babies that has garnered almost 74 million views to date. After looking it over, I also reviewed the other campaigns in the top 5, from Pepsi, AMP and Anheuser-Busch. Click on the image below if you'd like to see a 4 minute video demo.

In the social and online video-dominated world we now live in, Trends data is invaluable for brand advertisers and their agencies. It allows them to customize their views of the database, compare different campaigns and analyze what worked online and what didn't. Online distribution is now a key part of calculating the ROI on a campaign, so being able to benchmark the performance of past campaigns provides insight not normally available in traditional TV advertising.

For example, say an agency is formulating a plan for its client's new shampoo - Trends lets its creative executives understand whether prior campaigns featuring product demos, humor or celebrities worked best online. A few quick queries will yield data that can be exported to create charts and graphs for everyone on the team to review. Of course past experience can perfectly predict the future, but Trends provides hard data that lets the creative discussion quickly move beyond gut instinct.

The Visible Measures team told me last week that they've been gradually exposing more and more of their data, through top 10 lists with media partners like AdAge, Variety, Mashable and Motor Trend. With Trends, the data is even more accessible. Visible Measure is also making a public beta of Trends available, though just for the Social Video collection. It's free and it's fun - I recommend giving it a try.

What do you think? Post a comment now (now sign-in required).

Note - Visible Measures is a VideoNuze sponsor.

SpotXchange, the performance-based video ad network, took the wraps off its retargeting service this week and shared a case study of a quick service restaurant that used it to achieve dramatically higher conversion results. For those not familiar, retargeting refers to the practice of tracking users' behavior on specific sites and then serving them different ads on these sites (or others) they subsequently visit, depending on what behavior they've exhibited. Re-targeting is common in online display advertising, but as SpotXchange's CEO Michael Shehan explained to me, it's still nascent in online video advertising.

Because of its emotional impact, most video advertising is focused on branding, rather than trying to elicit a direct response, which is of course what search marketing is all about. Retargeting is a tactic to try blending the two benefits. Imagine a user who has poked around at a site promoting trips to the Caribbean, but who didn't click on the "Book Now" link. In subsequent visits to this site or others, video ads promoting Caribbean travel, with messaging like "What are you waiting for" and clear calls to action would help move the user along the buying process. It's still early for video ad retargeting, but to the extent that it can help conversion rates and in turn spur higher CPMs, it will be welcomed in the market.

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Daisy Whitney and I are pleased to present the 49th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for February 12, 2010.

This week Daisy and I dig into the 2009 comScore data that I detailed in my post on Tuesday (slides available for download too). It was a blistering year for online video, with total streams growing from 14.8 billion in Jan '09 to 33.2 billion in Dec '09. All the other relevant metrics also recorded strong growth. I share more details on the numbers and what they mean, focusing particularly on the top 2 sites YouTube and Hulu.

Then Daisy discusses her takeaways from the recent iMedia conference she helped organize. She talks about how brands are trying to break through the clutter, and the role of online video ad networks. Finally, she also discusses recent interviews she conducted with Facebook executives.

Click here to listen to the podcast (13 minutes, 55 seconds)

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

The great Super Bowl game last night was once again not matched by the quality of the ads, at least when viewed for how well they leveraged online video. For several years now, I've been arguing that the $2.5-3 million that advertisers spend on their 30 second Super Bowl spots could yield a far higher ROI if they figured out how to extend their experiences through online video. So once again this year I've reviewed all of the Super Bowl ads - not for how funny, creative or gross they were - but for how well they took advantage of the benefits online video offers.

First, some basic stats: of the 58 ads that ran during the game last night (which I viewed this morning at CBSSports.com), 38 of them were tagged with a URL and 20 were not. On a percentage basis that's about equal to last year, when 37 of the 56 ads carried a URL. Of the 38 ads with a URL, only 4 of them explicitly urged the viewer to see more or watch more at their web sites:

• Focus On the Family - The controversial Tim Tebow advocacy ad invites viewers to visit the Focus web site to see the full Tebow story. The site has a long interview with Tebow's parents along with lots of other video. Regardless of your politics, the ad works well as a friendly teaser for viewers to learn more about the organization.
  
• Boost Mobile - Jim McMahon and the hilarious rapping NFL players take it to a new level by actually ending their rap with the line "Go online to find the rest of our jam," then exposing the URL. Further videos at the site continue the fun.
  
• GoDaddy - The web site hosting company was back with its ads featuring Danica Patrick and teasing viewers to "See more now at GoDaddy.com." The scantily-clad GoDaddy girls concept is a little stale now, but for the male-dominated game audience, there's no doubting its appeal.
  
• HomeAway.com - My personal favorite, this vacation home rental company bought back Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo as The Griswolds for "Hotel Hell," a spoof of the famous "Vacation" movie series. The ad is totally focused on getting viewers to see the film at HomeAway.com. Chase is a classic and the videos are very clever.

For more behind the scenes, Dove's new Men Care line features an interview with MVP Drew Brees, who's also shown lathering up in the shower (a blatant pitch to women as well as men). E-Trade was back with its talking babies, but this year with a twist, allowing site visitors to send their own "Baby Mail" emails. The new Honda Accord Crosstour features a well-produced video of the car, though no mention of the video is made in its game ad. And how about the futuristic Vizio ad trumpeting its Internet-connected TVs? It's surely a sign of many more connected device ads to come in future years.

Lastly, a few real misses. First up, what's the deal with Budweiser? It ran 9 ads and not one of them carried a URL. These folks are mistaken in thinking that viewers wouldn't be interested in more about the Clydesdales on the web. Beyond the horses, it would have been cool to learn more about how Bud made the human bridge ad, or did the voice effects in the T-Pain spot. Ditto for Denny's which was promoting its Grand Slam breakfast hard, but didn't do any web tie-ins. The movie ads make me nuts too. They roll the credits so fast at the end of the ad and the text is so small that it's nearly impossible to find a URL to learn more about the movie, even if you wanted to.

The Super Bowl is the biggest event on the sports and advertising calendars, yet as evidenced by this year's performance, most brands and agency creative types still don't fully understand the power of online video. Sure, the post-game galleries drive millions of additional views, but I continue to contend they could be so much more. Oh well, onto Super Bowl XLV.

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It's Super Bowl time again, which means it's time for me to write my annual post wondering whether this will be the year that Super Bowl advertisers really embrace online video and social networking opportunities. Four years ago, I speculated that at some point a Super Bowl ad could go for $10 million apiece, because the online video extensions could drive the ROI so much higher than what a traditional 30 second ad alone delivers. Nonetheless, advertisers and their agencies have been painfully slow to get with the online video program, and I've been ranting about the missed opportunities (see here and here) year after year.

As this NY Times piece describes though, this could finally be a breakthrough year. I like the way that Kathy O'Brien, VP for personal care at Unilever put it, "The Super Bowl is an element of a complete, 360-degree campaign." That's smart thinking. On Monday I'll tally up the score to see how this year's Super Bowl advertisers did with their online video and social networking extensions.

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