The ‘Platforms’ Category
Online video advertising has been growing at a breakneck pace the last few years. Despite all the money media buyers have been pouring into the video space, the complaint remains the same: there just isn't enough premium video ad inventory.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau, plans to address that issue and related matters at its Digital Video conference in New York on Tuesday, while Publicis Groupe's Digitas has released a study that attempts to map out what kind of content is more inhabitable for lucrative brand-building ad efforts.
"Agencies often complain of a dearth of premium inventory for online video, but we're starting to see pure web and multi-line publishers, such as TV networks and studios, responding and producing video content for advertisers," said Seneca Mudd, director, Industry Initiatives for the IAB and head of the trade organ's Digital Video Committee . "This kind of marriage between brands and content does harken back to the early days of TV advertising, so it does feel a bit familiar.
"Separately, this is the kind of thing that drives viewer engagement -- after all, if someone clicks on a video, they're directly expressing interest in the content," Mudd continued. "As such, video is a particularly sticky form of content, and the proof is that time spent is high and makes users more connected to the media brand. Lastly, unlike TV, video is naturally social, and that extends the life of the ad."
It's a good argument for the value of online video. But ultimately, "premium dollars" will only follow "premium content." And figuring out what "premium content" means is something traditional media companies are still trying to figure out. For NBC Universal Spanish-language network Telemundo, the answer they have come up entails creating web programming that is at once related to existing hit series, and yet still qualifies as an "online-only original" show.
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As college basketball fans finish filling out their NCAA March Madness brackets for "Selection Sunday" on March 11, Yahoo is unveiling a cross platform campaign for Mercedes Benz that also represents a test of its ability to use its connected TV app and social TV property IntoNow and as an a vehicle for blue chip sponsorships.
How well this campaign does for Yahoo will certainly influence its approach to content and advertising programs for the London Summer Olympics. And it will also demonstrate to advertisers what Yahoo can and can't do with the enormous scale it has on the web -- as well how well the company can scale its relatively new extensions on tablets, social and on connected TV.
"This is not a cross platform program in that we're connected with CBS and Turner," which are the respective broadcast and cable TV outlets for March Madness programming, said Patrick Albano, Yahoo's VP, Sales for Social, Mobile & Product Innovation, in an interview. "This is about showcasing our original coverage of the event and connecting advertisers with our audience on all screens."
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A little more than a year after raising $10 million from Comcast Interactive Capital among others, independent-focused movie streaming provider SnagFilms has raised an addition $7 million, AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka reported.
Unlike Netflix, which continues to resist the notion of ad support to its monthly subscription-based model, SnagFilms has spent the last several months exploring ways of expanding its plans to build revenue beyond the limited sponsorships it has done with backers like Goldman Sachs.
As ATD’s Kafka noted, SnagFilms began its money-making efforts by relying on embeds of its independent documentaries from bloggers and other outside websites. Those outside partners were able to run SnagFilms’ videos for free in return for letting the company sell ads against them.
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As MediaBank awaits regulatory approval of its merger with rival media buying software provider Donovan Data Systems, the company's AdBuyer DSP unit will underpin a new system designed to more completely integrate it with its ad agency clients' trading desks.
MediaBank has begun marketing a "white label" solution that it says will serve to complement existing agency trading desks serve to power the real-time bidding processes of smaller ad shops that can't afford to operate one on their own, the company told Mediapost's Joe Mandese.
For the most part, both MediaBank and Donovan have been trying to expand the methods of online media buying and selling to traditional media through their mutual software offerings. AdBuyer was acquired by MediaBank last April, with the promise of making the DSP available to clients through its MediaBank O|X and A|V media management systems and broadening AdBuyer’s cross-channel capabilities across all major media, not just the web.
While most TV media buying is still done through old-fashioned approaches, the rise of agency trading desks at the global ad holding companies over the past two years seems to be finally ready to move beyond online to embracing some form of audience buying for all media formats. So the plan is to roll out the white label solution and allow agencies to customize the open-system software to their current trading desk operations.
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Last week, LG and YuMe announced a new partnership which will bring YuMe's video advertising solution for Internet Connected TVs to LG’s Smart TV platform. Toyota is the platform's first customer. Read the release. And, read more in The NY Times.
Adexchanger.com: What inspired LG’s decision to get into the ad platform business?
MD: Before this year, we realized that our connected device strategy was starting to become a platform. In the early days of our device strategy, we made a few content partnerships that were very strong. We put them into the device and made them a part of the actual product. The market evolution into a platform happened over the course of those first couple of years.
This year, we launched an application environment and knew we needed an economic business model for the developers who are on the platform.
We knew we needed consumers to be able to pay developers for the apps, which we implemented a few months ago. And, if it's a free app, we still wanted to have an economic model attached to it -and that's an ad network. We are finally able to announce that we're bringing our ad network into the play.
So you decided to go with YuMe? Why choose YuMe?
YuMe is a great choice for us for a couple of reasons. They are extremely strong in the delivery of video online, in an integrated system which knows which video to play to which person, and when to stop - and when to have it available. It's user‑focused that way, but it's also advertiser‑focused because it can meet their goals.
The second thing that is critical is that they bring their own ad sales network, so we didn't have to worry about ad inventory being sold into this world‑class system.
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OneScreen recently announced that it has been selected to develop the Wall Street Journal's presence on several major device platforms including Yahoo, Samsung, Sony, Vizio, Boxee, and others. Read the release.
TVexchanger.com: Can you explain at a high-level how apps are relevant to Television today - in particular, in how it relates to your deal with the Wall Street Journal?
AP: Viewers can now access a breadth of video-centric apps and services using Internet-connected TVs, DVD players, and set-top boxes, offering a new level of convenience and choice in accessing “over-the-top” content. Like with the personal computers and mobile devices, this presents a new method of video content consumption for end-users, and more importantly, it adds a new monetization opportunity for businesses.
What we have done with WSJ is a reflection of this. OneScreen has integrated WSJ Live into Samsung 2011 Smart TVs, Sony Internet TV, VIZIO Internet Apps HDTVs, Boxee, the Yahoo! Connected TV platform, and others. Viewers can now access video content from WSJ inside these connected devices, and WSJ has access to new premium video inventory for their audience that they can sell to advertisers. Large advertisers like Aetna, AT&T, Citi Simplicity, Cognizant, FedEx, and Fidelity, participated in the launch, proving that advertisers are equally anxious for the connected TV opportunity.
OTT apps and services, such as WSJ Live, will offer viewers greater access to content, while democratizing distribution. This new app gives WSJ the ability to distribute videos directly into the living room, the same place that CNBC, Bloomberg, and Fox Business do, giving WSJ greater reach to the audience and advertisers. Noteworthy is the fact that WSJ is not a traditional “television” brand. We expect to see other media companies not accustomed to television distribution, such as newspapers, major magazine publishers, and even brands like CPG companies, to use this medium as a viable way to reach a larger audience than ever before. This is a key milestone for the industry because a large organization like Dow Jones can now reach viewers directly on the platforms that they choose, without a channel on the cable dial.
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Peter Low is President and CEO of Ensequence.
What problem is Ensequence solving?
We make television content more engaging and powerful across all screens. We help programmers increase revenue by increasing tune in, viewership and time spent on channel. The result is ratings and CPM lifts spurred by the greater levels of engagement and accountability interactivity offers. For service providers, we increase local ad CPM revenue by enabling service providers to charge a premium for interactivity. We also help programmers and service providers offer content on connected devices that syncs to content on TV, offering a truly connected two-screen experience.
How has your go-to-market strategy shifted since the company's inception? Any surprises along the way?
Some of our biggest surprises were around the amount of integration with existing broadcast and ad sales infrastructure that has been required at the service provider and programmers’ operation centers to get interactive TV off the ground. We certainly hoped the market would move much faster than it has.
There appear several target markets for Ensequence. How do you break it out? Which is most important from a revenue perspective?
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Tyson Roberts is CEO of Lucid Commerce, a direct marketing agency and platform company. The company recently announced it has raised $8 million in Series C financing led by Rho Ventures.
AdExchanger.com: Since starting in 2005, how has the company changed to become what it is today? Any pivots?
TR: We pivot. The only thing that hasn't changed is the BHAG. To bring performance to TV advertisers through the application of precision targeting and measurement. Quite simply, our goal has always been to replicate the value that Avenue A produced for online advertisers and apply it to the much larger TV space. The organizational change we've seen is a byproduct of trying to figure out the best way to produce that value in a totally different environment and culture. It would have been easy if the answer was an ad-server.
What problem is Lucid Commerce solving?
Television moves consumers like no other advertising medium I've seen. It is no mystery why $65B goes there year after year. That said, how the media is targeted and measured is bordering on senseless.
Targeting: Most of television advertising today is still targeted on age and gender. This is deeply deficient.
Measurement: The television has defied real measurement for a long time. Impressions, rating points, awareness and perception as measured by survey, are all most marketers have upon which to value their campaigns. This has to end. In the age of advertising accountability marketers are demanding a way to measure the true and complete business impact of their TV investments. We have developed that method. Using our proprietary MarketScale platform we are able to produce very precise measurements of the value that TV media is producing.
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