Quest for the Standard
Earlier this year, a joint venture, called The Pool, was led by Publicis companies Starcom MediaVest Group and VivaKi, and including Hulu, Microsoft and Yahoo, to test and establish standards for new advertising models among the ad elite.
The Pool wants to narrow the current vast selection for video to one golden standard, which they will present in February 2010. Last week, two executives, Curt Hecht, president of VivaKi Nerve Center, and Tracey Scheppach, video innovation director at Starcom USA, presented the audience at IAB’s Digital Video conference the timeline for their testing. They’ve reduced their initial like of 30 possible online video ad units to two, which they will be testing (against the pre-roll format) until October of this year.
While they didn’t go into much more detail, it’s certainly an interesting prospect – one online video format that achieves the most engagement from consumers while achieving what’s most appealing to media buyers. Could such a thing exist?
IAB has taken their own group of advisors, calling The Re-Imagining Interactive Advertising Task Force (what a name!), which includes more than 20 publishers and agencies like CBS Interactive, Digitas, Google, Razorfish and Universal McCann. For the first time, this group will help to recommend changes to IAB’s annual review of ad standards. This is part of the IAB’s ongoing push to create better guidelines for advertisers. It seems that lack of standardization in online advertising is everyone’s problem, but these efforts are a big incentive to brands who are hesitant to invest in the space.
Meanwhile, media companies are doing their best to get creative about selling video ads. NBC has started pitching variations of their usual ad units, offering a “push back” roll-over unit under the video window and longer single pre-roll ads.
Whatever the end results from these two groups are, there’s sure to be a dramatic shift for content owners. Perhaps content owners can save money by repurposing the “old standard,” pre-roll ads, into refreshed and retargeted personalized video? It’s worth testing the waters.
Tags: Creative, IAB, Publicis, Standards
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Online Video Growing Strong
The success of online video ads is largely dependent on both the quality of the content and the ability for advertisers to target it at the right audiences. People online have short attention spans these days, and it takes good creative and targeting to really captivate the viewer.
Magna Global, a division of Interpublic Group of Companies Inc’s Mediabrands and a leading Madison Avenue forecaster, released new research predicting strong growth in online video advertising.
According to the report from Magna’s global director of forecasting, Brian Wieser, online video will grow by 32%, increasing to $699 million in 2009 (compared to $531 million in 2008) and $1 billion by 2011. The projections seem promising, but are smaller than Wieser’s previously estimated 45% increase to $805 million this year, from a report last summer. Still, while Magna also says that online video spend is still remarkably small compared to traditional TV, we’ve seen recent reports that show impressive growth in online video.
Compared to other online ad formats, Magna says video is growing the fastest, outpacing search, social media, mobile, gaming and other emerging media platforms. Wieser says online video’s rise is from the ability to “reach their consumers in a more targeted and cost-effective manner” compared to traditional media. It’s also due to the fact that there is just more premium online video advertising being created.
So, what does this mean for the digital advertisers?
Invest more online ad budget in video.
No advertiser should be left behind, especially with IAB’s recent video ad guidelines. There is less confusion about formats, and it’s more than clear that online video is the clear choice.
See more details on Magna’s report in MediaWeek, MediaPost, PaidContent and Contentinople.
Tags: IAB, Online, Video
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Online Video Digitizes the Radio Star…. The IAB Makes Sure We Monetize It
Online video is gaining momentum in a big way these days.
This week, the IAB released new digital video player-ad interface definition guidelines. The latest in a series of online video advertising guidelines and formats meant to drive traction in the video advertising space and provide consistency across ad models. This goes a long way in developing a greater level of comfort with brand advertisers. The IAB’s support demonstrates that digital video is a safe and measurable space for a brand’s voice.
According to the IAB site, “This is only part of the IAB’s ongoing effort to improve marketplace understanding of the role of digital video in the marketing and media ecosystem.” The new guideline focuses on standardizing the digital marketplace to facilitate the buying and selling of video advertising with in-stream and integrated ad models. By creating standards for content publishers and video advertisers to seamlessly integrate advertising into video content, the IAB is making it easier for publishers to work with advertisers to generate healthy revenues.
The IAB’s active stance on the promotion and commerce of the digital video space reinforces the growth potential market. At a time in the economy when brands are scaling back budgets, online video remains a considerably cheaper buy that heavily engages the brand with the niche demographic they’re aiming to reach.
In a recent eMarketer blog post, Senior Analyst David Hallerman said, “Digital marketing offers compelling benefits, especially for cash-conscious companies. Marketers can more readily measure the results of Internet advertising than with most traditional media. This produces more-efficient advertising and higher ROI, which in turn pushes traditional media to compete with lower pricing.”
As the Internet continues to grow to be the preferred destination for consumers to watch video content on sites like YouTube and Hulu, advertisers should jump on the opportunity to reach this valuable online audience.
Tags: Advertising, eMarketer, IAB, Online, Video
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