Posts for 'Research'

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

New research from The Diffusion Group forecasts that the number of "pay-TV refugees" - U.S. homes subscribing to broadband, but not to pay-TV services - will increase 58%, from 10.9 million in 2012 to 17.2 million in 2017. Pay-TV refugees consist of both "cord-cutters" (homes that once subscribed to pay-TV, but no longer do) and "cord-nevers" (homes that have never subscribed to pay-TV). The percentage of broadband subscribers who are pay-TV refugees will increase from 12.5% in 2012 to 17.2% in 2017.

Although it forecasts the number of cord-cutters to increase over the next 5 years, TDG's founding partner and director of research Michael Greeson believes the pay-TV industry's main concern should be with cord-nevers which will more than double during that period. Of the 17.2 million pay-TV refugees in 2017, TDG forecasts 40% or 6.9 million of them to be cord-nevers, up from 29%, or 3.2 million, in 2012.

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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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comScore released its October Video Metrix rankings late last week and the good news for YouTube was that with a little over 13 billion videos delivered, its market share nudged up to 35% from September's 33.3%. As I wrote a few weeks ago, that was a record low share for the perennial online video leader, and was actually down from 53.1% just 2 months prior.

However, as the chart below shows, it's the third straight month of share below 40% and may well represent the "new normal" for YouTube's place in the industry. One interesting explanation for the drop in share is the comScore's numbers don't account for mobile (smartphone and tablet) viewing. If proportionately more of YouTube's viewing has shifted to mobile, then the declines in its online share would reflect that.

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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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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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I've been devoting a lot of ink to AOL recently because its success has made it the poster child for the power of online video syndication and monetization. In yesterday's Q3 '12 earnings report, AOL delivered the most resounding evidence yet of syndication's value - CEO Tim Armstrong said AOL's video ad revenue jumped from $10 million 2 years ago to a projected $100 million in 2012, with more growth ahead in 2013. The results are mainly due to video syndication, powered by AOL's acquisition of 5Min in 2010.

Simply put, AOL is capitalizing on the concept of the "syndicated video economy" that I first began discussing 4 1/2 years ago. On the call, Armstrong described how AOL's large video syndication library (which has grown from 30K videos to 450K today) feeds both its owned and operated properties and its network of 30K publishers. All of these sites are hungry for video for 2 important reasons: they meet users' increasingly video-oriented expectations and their adjacent ad inventory is monetized at far better rates than traditional display.

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I'm pleased to present the 154th edition of the VideoNuze-TDG podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon, senior analyst at The Diffusion Group. This week finds Colin in Copenhagen, in the middle of the Nordic region which is seeing a lot of OTT activity from Netflix, HBO Nordic and others. Colin provides an update on what he's learned.

In addition, we discuss YouTube's declining market share, which in September stood at 33.2%, down from 53.1% as recently as July. I delved deeply into all of the year-over-year data this past Monday. Colin adds another dimension to the analysis, saying that this reflects a shift away from viewing short clips, toward longer-form viewing.  

Click here to listen to the podcast (20 minutes, 8 seconds)

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

Yesterday comScore released its September 2012 Video Metrix data which showed YouTube accounted for approximately 13.1 billion videos viewed out of the monthly total of 39.4 billion. At 33.2%, that's the lowest market share YouTube has had since Aug. '10 when I started tracking this data. As recently as July '12, YouTube had a 53.1% share (with 19.6 billion videos viewed), though as I pointed out previously, in August, its share dropped unexpectedly to 36.5%.

In addition, the 13.1 billion YouTube videos viewed in September is the lowest in the 13 months since comScore changed its reporting methodology and is nearly 30% lower than the 18.6 billion videos viewed a year ago in Sept. '11 and almost 650 million lower than its Aug '11 total of 13.8 billion videos. (YouTube's record high was 21.9 billion in Dec. '11). See chart below for more.

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Despite the massive proliferation of video-enabled devices, a new survey released this morning by Verizon finds that 89% of "borderless" consumers and 90% of "non-borderless" consumers still prefer watching TV programs on their TVs. The survey is part of a new research initiative called the Verizon FiOS Innovation Index: Borderless Lifestyle Survey and is based on approximately 2,300 adult respondents.

According to Verizon, "borderless consumers" are defined as owning a computer, a smartphone or tablet, have an Internet-enabled device with them at all times, are interested in technology and connectivity upgrades and the benefits of a connected home. Verizon believes that fully 40% of Americans are now borderless consumers, with those 18-34 comprising the largest number.

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Here's a pretty eye-opening update of how pay-TV operators' VOD movies options are faring compared with OTT services like Netflix, Redbox, Amazon and others: just 22% of pay-TV subscribers order at least 1 VOD movie per month, whereas half of them use an OTT service. The data is according to a new study by Digitalsmiths of 2,000 pay-TV subscribers in North America over age 18 and speaks to the business opportunity in on-demand movies that pay-TV operators have left open for OTT competitors.

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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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Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group and I are back for the 149th edition of the VideoNuze-TDG Report podcast. This week Colin kicks things off discussing zeebox's entry into the U.S. market, plus its new partnerships with Comcast, NBCU and HBO. Colin has used zeebox in the U.K. (where it has over 1.5 million users) and has been very impressed. zeebox falls into the general category of "second screen apps" but Colin notes its current focus on live TV was likely the hook for its new partners. With a sizable segment of viewers having shifted their viewing to on-demand, an app that helps drive some back to live would have lots of positives for TV networks.

We then shift to discuss new research released by NPD Group this week that 45% of consumers reported the TV as the main screen for viewing online video, up from 33% a year ago. Those identifying the PC as the main screen dropped from 48% to 31%. As I explain, this is noteworthy because it shows how online video is in fact moving to the living room, becoming a more mainstream behavior. As online video finds itself on more of an even footing with traditional TV, it raises the stakes for cord-cutting and shaving, along with shifting ad dollars from TV to online video.

Listen in to learn more!

Click here to listen to the podcast (20 minutes, 31 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

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

comScore released its August '12 data on online video usage last week , making it a full 12 months since it changed its reporting methodology. Looking over the data, there are a few things worth pointing out.

First is that AOL has had a very strong year, increasing its videos delivered from 408 million in Sept. '11 to 725 million in Aug. '12, a 78% jump (see chart below). That's the best growth rate of any of the top 10 sites from Sept. '11. It's also the second consecutive month that AOL was in second place to YouTube, the industry's perennial leader. AOL has put a huge emphasis on video, launching the AOL On Network last April, along with a slate of original programming.

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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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Research firm GfK released data from its third annual Over-the-Top TV report late last week, finding, among other things, that consumption by Netflix subscribers age 13-54 is roughly 2,000 minutes per month, about the same as it found in its '11 study. That amount is in the same general ballpark as the 2,388 minutes/sub/mo that BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield calculated for June, 2012, and in line with the 2,000 minutes/sub/mo that I calculated during Q4 '11.

The survey of 1,051 persons age 13-54 and conducted in June, 2012, found the average Netflix subscriber watches 5.1 TV shows and 3.4 movies per week. The survey revealed that 39% of this age group are Netflix subscribers (up from 35% in '11), with 47% having ever been a Netflix subscriber.

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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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NBC was justifiably crowing late yesterday that the London Olympics was the most-watched TV event in U.S. history with 219.4 million viewers, but a more profound long-term takeaway from this year's games is that digital distribution of most of the competitions did not seem to hurt tape-delayed on-air viewing at all.

That was not a foregone conclusion, and given the billions in broadcast rights fees it paid, NBC made a sizable bet that with most competitions live-streamed and available on-demand, audiences would still tune in during ad-rich, prime-time hours, despite already knowing (or having seen) the results. The impact of digital distribution could have gone wrong, driving lower prime-time ratings, creating disgruntled advertisers and embarrassing NBC Sports executives. The fact that it didn't buttresses the argument that for sports in particular, digital delivery is a compliment, not a substitute, for on-air.

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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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