'Net Features : video ads

Video Advertisers Want to be Stuck in the Middle

Allison Howen — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:00:00 GMT

A new study from Adobe reveals that video ad consumption is beginning to imitate that of traditional television commercials.

This is because mid-roll ads, which have the most similar placement to that of a television commercial (directly within the middle of a video), are dramatically outperforming both pre-roll (advertisements before a video) and post-roll (advertisements after a video) ads. This is good news, or course, for media companies because it could open the door to greater revenue potential.

“Market research shows that over the next five years the number of people watching video content online could grow as much as 50 percent, and a significant number of them will be doing so on connected devices like tablets, IPTVs and smartphones,” says Jeremy Helfand, vice president of monetization at Adobe. “For professional content owners and media companies exploring TV-like ad experiences online, the latest data demonstrates the strong potential for extending traditional broadcast advertising dollars to digital video.”

According to the study, mid-roll video format remains the most engaging placement for online video ads, and easily outperforms completion rates of both pre-roll and post-roll ads. Currently, mid-roll ads average an 87-percent completion rate, which surpasses pre-roll ad engagement by nearly 30 percent.

Other statistics reveal that mobile devices receive the highest engagement of any other channel, at 94 percent, which suggests that mobile viewers are more engaged and open to watching ads on the go in exchange for their desired content. Aditionally, 76 percent of viewers are more likely to consume ads within professional content, which is higher than the average completion rate of 63 percent for user-generated content (UGC).

Furthermore, live online events also recieve higher ad engagement compared to video-on demand (VOD), averaging an 85-percent completion rate for video ads, which is 23 percent higher then ads within VOD content.

Record 7 Billion Videos Viewed in July

Allison Howen — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 01:00:00 GMT

Online video continues to grow, with 180 million U.S. Internet users watching video in the month of July according to the latest report from ComScore.

The study averaged the watched video content at 18.5 hours per viewer, and showed that the total U.S. Internet audience set a record by watching 6.9 billion videos.

Google Sites ranked as the top online video content property in July with 158.1 million unique visitors, thanks in large part to YouTube. Second place went to VEVO with 62.1 million, and Facebook came in third with 51.4 million viewers.

Additionally, Americans viewed more than 5.3 billion video ads in July. Hulu produced the highest number of video ad impressions with 963 million, followed by Adap.tv with 674 million and Tremor Video with 639 million.

Other findings showed that 86 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video in July, the average online content video lasted 5.3 minutes and video ads counted for more than 12 percent of the viewed videos.

Video Growing; Dominated by Google

Administrator — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:12:00 GMT

comScore released data this week which reveals that the growth of video continues unabated but the direction its growing might not please very many.

The comScore Video Metrix service showed that 178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in June for an average of 16.8 hours per viewer – quite amazing. Perhaps more impressive however is that the total U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 6.2 billion viewing sessions during the course of June, an all-time high.

The top video property for the month of June was Google Sites (whose primary video property is YouTube). Google Sites generated the highest number of viewing sessions (2.3 billion) and highest time spent per viewer (324 minutes, or 5.4 hours).

Google Sites essentially are just blowing everybody out of the water – nearly tripling the minutes spent per viewers, and more than doubling the total unique viewers when compared to the nearest competitor. Google Sites are also responsible for driving more than five times the number of viewing sessions of Vevo and nearly 10 times that of Yahoo!.

comScore also analyzed the top video properties by video ads viewed. While Hulu is responsible for the greatest number of video ads, its percentage of reach over the total U.S. population is lacking, leading credence to the notion that pure-play video advertising networks such as Tremor, Adap.tv, RightRoll, Specific Media, Undertone, and SpotXChange have an honest chance of sticking around in the competitive landscape.

Video Rankings - August 2010

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 01:00:00 GMT

Comscore released some interesting data from its Video Metric service which shows that 178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in August for an average of 14.3 hours per viewer. According to Comscore, the total U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 5.2 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month.

YouTube of course drives the majority of the video viewing, with 146.3 million unique viewers, but what may surprise you is that Facebook passed Yahoo and made its way into the second position. Yahoo! Sites still receive more "minutes per viewer" but it does signal a trend that more video is being consumed on social networks.

Other important findings from Comscore include:

- Top video ad networks (in terms of their potential reach of the total U.S. population) were Break Media at 46.4 percent, BrightRoll Video Network at 45.0 percent, and ScanScout Network at 44.5 percent.

- The duration of the average online content video was 4.8 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.

- Video ads accounted for 10.7 percent of all videos viewed and 1.0 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.

Online Video Soaring as Users Come to Accept Advertising

Mike Phillips — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:20:00 GMT

According to research from Frank N. Magid Associates, conducted on behalf of Metacafe, consumers still prefer short-form video online. The study shows that short, "professional" videos account for 8 of the 10 most popular video genres. That includes music videos, television show clips and movie previews. And in a telling symptom of the Internet age, one in four respondents claim that these short professional videos are more entertaining than full-length television shows.

Some other findings include:

55% of online video viewers find online video ads just as, if not more, acceptable than TV ads, up 3% year-over-year.
The coveted viewers ages 18 to 24 accounted for the greatest increase in weekly online video viewership.
85% of males and 68% of females watch online video weekly -- a 15% and 27% increase over 2009, respectively.

There are a few important takeaways here. First, keep your videos relatively short -- if you have a lot of content to publish, consider breaking it up into smaller parts so viewers will watch everything. Second, try to make your videos as professional (and entertaining) as possible -- grainy videos and unsteady camera work is fine for a quick blooper, but not good for branding purposes. Third, don't be afraid of running ads before, during or after your videos. Consumers have come to accept that the price to pay for free video content is often a brief advertisement here and there.

Ad Formats With Brand Engagement in Mind

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:43:00 GMT

Online video advertising and video monetization network Tremor Media released a series of products which aim to improve video advertisers' ability to drive response and brand engagement.

Six new formats and features have been released, most noteworthy perhaps is the Pre-Roll Plus Overlay which invites users to interact with a clickable overlay that appears over the publishers content immediately following a standard pre-roll.

Additional features and formats include:

- vChoice Select: Allows user to choose which video ad they’d like to see before it’s delivered, enhancing relevance and brand engagement.

- vChoice Rotator: Provides advertisers the ability to rotate multiple brand videos in a single creative unit. Advertisers with multiple video assets can present fewer options as thumbnails within the vChoice menu, and rotate the options each time an impression is served to the same user.

- Data Feed: Dynamically populates brand or location specific data within the ad unit to drive relevance and response. Data can be fed automatically into the unit, or via a user input such as zip code.

- Sequencer: Ensures that the user is served a different creative for every sequential impression delivered.

“Advertisers want to move beyond pre-roll in online video to solutions that support interactivity and engagement. Tremor Media’s new ad formats are a great example of the type of innovation that will allow our advertisers to combine the power of sight sound and motion with interactive functionality for richer engagement. We are pleased to be working with Tremor Media to leverage these formats to develop unique and customized solutions for our clients,” says Adam Kasper, Senior Vice President, Director of Digital for Media Contacts.

Measuring Video Engagement

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:49:00 GMT

An interesting study released today by Yahoo! Inc., Interpret LLC, Havas Digital, Warner Bros. Media Research, and PHD explores how consumers interact with online video, and how marketers can use this information to drive greater engagement with their target audiences online.

The new engagement model identifies three key measurement variables, including completion of the video (a strong indicator of engagement), attention to content (a strong indicator of passion and the potential opportunity to make an ad impression), and actions taken (before, during, or after watching the streaming video).

It should come as no surprise that high engagement videos are what drive consumer behavior. High engagement levels translate into high satisfaction for viewers, high brand recall for advertisers, a greater inclination for consumers to seek product information, and potentially more money for publishers. According to the study:

27 percent of respondents who remembered seeing an ad searched for more information about the product featured after watching high engagement videos, versus only 13 percent for low engagement videos.
28 percent visited the website of an advertised brand or product after viewing a high engagement video, versus only 10 percent for low engagement videos.
High engagement videos account for nearly half (47 percent) of ad recall.

“This propensity for sharing and ad recall translates into improved viral ‘buzz’ for advertisers and their ads – if they take advantage of online video opportunities properly,” said Liz Huszarik, senior vice president, Warner Bros. Media Research.

Perhaps most interesting was that the study showed spikes in online video consumption among men, women, students and full-time employees during the hours of 12 p.m.- 3 p.m., and then again between 9 p.m.- 1 a.m. Regardless of time of day, one-third of people who watch a video share it with friends, family members and colleagues.

Video Advertising & Affiliate Network AffiliatePly

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Recent research from Doubleclick confirmed that rich media ad formats that contain video "overwhelmingly" outperform other types of creative media ad and converts better than banners in terms of click through rate (CTR) and engagement. That’s almost enough to make you break out the video camera – am I right?

PLYmedia, a company providing contextual overlays on top of online video has launched AffiliatePLY, a performance based affiliate network that uses video instead of banners. The platform is unique in that it is a CPA (cost per action – leads and sales, not impressions) network.

The action based video affiliate network provides publishers and advertisers with what is perhaps the first legitimate opportunity to converge viewer interest with profitable content. According to statistics from Forrester, online video ads greatly increase click through rates as users are attracted to more interactive content. Advertisers, empowered by video's influence, upload their video ads to the network, attracting online publishers searching for new content and media of interest to embed their videos onto their website.

AffiliatePLY further enables advertisers to fully optimize the video screen by adding layers of engaging information such as URL links to the landing page and interactive content, leading to profitable viewer activity. PLYmedia’s overlaying technologies stimulate user interaction and increase CTR (click-through rates) with viral videos, news feeds, and tutorials used as promotional information.

“AffiliatePLY’s model will trigger overwhelming revenues, confirming recent research revealing online video to be the most effective platform to attract audiences. PLYmedia’s understanding of the inner workings of online video and user behavior has served as the catalyst that led us to explore and to create this novel network,” explains Avishay Raviv, AffiliatePLY Manager.

Video Out of Control (In a Good Way) in the U.K.

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:19:00 GMT

ComScore's Video Metric Service released data indicating that the total number of videos viewed online in the U.K. in April 2009 grew 47 percent versus year ago to 4.7 billion videos.

The report also found that 21.8 million U.K. Internet users viewed a total of 971 million online display ads on multimedia sites during the month, based on data from comScore Ad Metrix, a recently introduced service in the U.K. providing competitive intelligence on online display advertising.

So what are the top U.K. online video properties based on videos viewed? YouTube of course dominated, and experienced a 58% growth in views. Other pure play properties include Megavideo.com, dailymotion.com and Facebook.com.

"With nearly five billion videos viewed in the U.K. in April, online video is a powerful and growing vehicle for online advertising placement,” said Mike Read, SVP and managing director, comScore Europe. “The online video market currently relies heavily on display ads for monetization, and in the coming months and years we can expect that video ads will play an even more prominent role. Despite the market’s overwhelming size and audience at this phase of the growth curve, it is also clear that we’re still in the early stages of advertising optimization and effectiveness in this increasingly important entertainment channel.”

TurnHere Affiliate Program – Video Ads for Web Publishers

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:43:00 GMT

It’s not often that we highlight specific affiliate programs, but when that program carries with it the potential to impact a very broad swath of the Web population it deserves some attention.

Web video production and advertising solution TurnHere has been providing videos ads to small businesses through its sales channel partner program since its inception, counting CitySearch, YellowPages and Idearc/Superpages as clients. According to Greg Sterling at ScreenWerk, the company is expanding that offer through an affiliate program.

Affiliate publishers promote TurnHere’s video advertising services on their sites through a co-branded affiliate page (see an example here from BedandBreakfast.com). TurnHere provides all the “collateral” and back-end support, including production of the 60-second video spots. TurnHere also delivers the ad and plugs it in to all the distribution channels (e.g., YouTube, etc) that the company typically uses.

There have been a few challenges with video in the past. Publishers have never been able to successfully monetize and the cost has been far outside the reach of most advertisers. Fortunately, TurnHere is offering a price discount to advertising signing up before June 30th ($499 (down from $899). As the presence of video continues to increase, solutions like TurnHere are going to take center stage.

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Monetize Mogulus With Adap.tv Plugin

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:30:00 GMT

Live-broadcast platform Mogulus announced the addition of a plug-in from Adap.tv, expanding the range of options customers have in monetizing their streaming video webcasts.

By expanding its already robust Internet video ecosystem to include Adap.tv’s capabilities as an integrator of advertising, Mogulus gives its PRO services customers a richer choice of features and functions to use in deriving advertising-based revenue from their streaming video programs. Mogulus is the only online video platform that combines live, 24/7 linear and on-demand broadcast video.

Mogulus is participating in Adap.TV’s Player Partner Program to add to the set of media-management services and video-publishing tools available to help customers monetize their video feeds.

"Integrating Adap.tv's One Source 2.0 platform as a plug-in to our Mogulus Pro service is a key milestone in enabling Mogulus Pro customers to monetize their live streaming content with pre-roll and overlay inventory from their own internal servers and third-party networks," said Mogulus co-founder and CEO Max Haot. “Since monetization is such a key part of the value we deliver to our customers, we’re very pleased to partner with Adap.tv.”

Attention, Not Impressions - VideoEgg AttentionRank

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 08 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Rich media ad network VideoEgg announced a new approach to ad delivery with AttentionRank, which identifies when and where users are most receptive to a brand's message.

VideoEgg is essentially evaluating media not on an impression basis but on its ability to capture attention. Analyzing engagement with an ad (users voluntarily opt into the AdFrames advertising), the time spent with the brand message, and secondary user actions such as click-through rates, AttentionRank enables VideoEgg to understand where to place brand messages to capture user attention and how to effectively price those ads as a result of that increased engagement.

The company is touting substantial increases in time spent with ad content across three major brand categories; 18% increase in time spent for a packaged foods advertiser, 13.2% increase in time spent for an automative advertiser and a 12.3% increase in time sepnt for an apparel advertiser.

White-Label Jivox Video Ad Platform

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:45:00 GMT

Online video advertising service Jivox has made available a tool for publisher partners interested in white-labeling the service to create and manage advertisers' campaigns on the Jivox platform.

The Jivox Publisher Portal enables publishers' sales and ad operations teams to access and manage their advertiser accounts, enter insertion orders, set campaign pricing, track campaigns and traffic video ads all from a central console. Extensive analytics enable publishers to see real-time critical metrics related to ad performance and ad inventory and to report back to their advertisers.

"We built our new publisher portal so that our white-label publisher partners have a live status of all their advertisers' campaigns and can manage them the way they currently do business," said Diaz Nesamoney, founder and CEO of Jivox. "From pricing and payments to trafficking and reporting, the new Jivox Publisher Portal puts our partners in complete control."

Colorado media publisher Lehman Communications (http://www.lehmanfyi.com/) is the first to adopt the new online video advertising tool. "Jivox has helped us expand our offerings to new and existing customers. The ability to offer video and slide show web ads with audio has been well received by sales reps and advertisers alike. Jivox is extremely customer focused. Our questions are answered immediately and our learning curve was relatively short, due to their attention to our feedback and fast response time," said Terry Emler, ad director at Lehman Communications.

MySpace & Visible Measures

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:13:00 GMT

One of the challenges with video -- in addition to creating and distributing it -- is measuring it effectively. Fortunately, there are companies out there that help advertisers and publishers know a little bit more about the effectiveness of that content.

Video measurement provider Visible Measures has entered into an agreement to become the online video measurement platform for social portal MySpace. The company provides brand advertisers and agencies with a view across all campaign components including syndicated content, social and paid video placements.

MySpace will be able to leverage Visible Measures to collected audience behavior data on the millions of video streams that are served every month and provide advertising clients and content providers visibility into campaign performance and content effectiveness.

“MySpace is a global leader and a premier video-sharing destination that is relied upon by many leading brand advertisers,” said Brian Shin, founder and CEO of Visible Measures. “As we look to help MySpace capitalize on their unique value proposition, we are excited to expand our relationship with them and enable their content providers and advertisers to be even more successful on MySpace.”

The Sun Sets on Video Ad Units

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:13:00 GMT

Google will be sunsetting (ending) the video advertising units feature, which allowed publishers to show YouTube content and ads on pages for a share of the revenue. The program will end at the end of April 2009.

This change won't affect the availability of other video-related ads options. Video ads may appear in your AdSense for content ad units if you've opted into image ads, and AdSense for video is still accepting applications from eligible publishers who produce video content.

Once video units are retired at the end of April, any remaining Leaderboard or Skyscraper video units on your pages will direct users to YouTube.com, while other video unit sizes will automatically be changed to standard embedded YouTube players. These standard video players will display top YouTube videos, but you won't generate earnings from them once this change occurs. If you have fewer than three ad units on your page, you may prefer to replace your video unit with a regular ad unit.

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