Archive for the 'BrightRoll' Category

Sand Hill Road Lessons - Techcrunch Guest Post

Published February 28, 2010 in Tod Sacerdoti, BrightRoll and Entrepreneurship. 1 Comment

Today I wrote a guest post for TechCrunch called “Don’t “Pull A Patzer” And Other Lessons Learned On Our Trip Down Sand Hill Road.”

Here is the link: TechCrunch

The part of the article that seems to be generating the most amount of interest is the section titled the “Patzer Problem.” Essentially, this is the entrepreneur vs. VC problem of deciding when to sell a company, and highlights my surprise that VCs would actually say that they believe Mint.com’s sale was a mistake. I consider the company to be a huge success and this issue worth talking about.

In the comments, I note that…

I deeply share the concern “about any VC who says to you that any deal which puts tens of millions of dollars in a young founder’s pocket is something to avoid,” and that is why I wanted to shed light on the practice. I understand this phenomenon first hand, having been at Plaxo, a company that exited at $180M+ in equity value but had VCs saying it had failed behind closed doors.

My perspective is on this issue is that VCs are actually acting counter to their goals. They should tout these 3 year, $180M+ exits, and share the story with any budding entrepreneur who will listen — what better example is there of the incredible fruits of starting a successful company?

Furthermore, this exit in particular was at close to 40x revenue! It’s not like the company was a guaranteed success. Any rationale person would consider this a home run and I say congrats to Patzer and the entire Mint.com team.

POV - Point of Video

Published February 10, 2010 in Tod Sacerdoti, Ad Networks, BrightRoll and Video Advertising. 3 Comments
POV: Point of Video

BrightRoll vs. Hulu — Why it Matters

Published February 3, 2010 in Tod Sacerdoti, BrightRoll and Video Advertising. 1 Comment

My company, BrightRoll, recently announced that we are larger than Hulu in video viewership as measured by Quantcast. This is an important milestone for the company and for the online video advertising business.

Here is the raw data:

Here is why this is important:

1. We Only Serve Video Ads. Hulu Serves Video Content And Ads. Yes, we are comparing apples and oranges — if you compared our reach to the reach of Hulu’s ads, there would be a much larger difference between our two networks. Agencies and advertisers often forget that the reach of a site is irrelevant, the only metric that matters to them is the reach of the site’s available ad inventory. As the gap between our network and Hulu continues to grow, it will become more and more clear that the most efficient way to reach targeted video audiences at scale are through video advertising networks.

2. TV Everywhere? More like Video Ads Everywhere. Although there has been a lot of press recently about TV Everywhere, the reality is that online video advertising will be far larger than online television. Why? Because online video advertising is being used by premium publishers to monetize all free content — including broadcast video, short form video, games, radio, social apps — and many of those publishers have much more reach outside of their video content area than within it. Plus, many premium publishers don’t have huge production costs outside of their broadcast content, so advertisers are flocking to more cost efficient placements.

3. By The End of 2010, The Majority of the Top Ten Video Properties Will Be Networks. As I recently predicted in MediaPost, this is beginning of what will be a long trend of networks and aggregators surpassing the largest video properties in total reach. By the end of 2010, the majority of the top 10 video properties (as measured by Quantcast, comScore or your preferred third party) will be video companies that don’t produce any meaningful amount of video content. This means the top 10 properties will be dominated by video ad networks (BrightRoll), video-sharing sites (YouTube), video syndicators (Grab Networks) and vertical video sites (Break.com). Yes, some of these players produce some content, but the vast majority of the views on their properties are generated from content they did not produce.

We look forward to continuing to lead the industry and driving innovations across our platform, pricing, targeting and research initiatives. If you share our passion about video advertising, please reach out or join our team.

Is this good for your brand? (Part Two)

Published April 15, 2009 in Ad Networks, BrightRoll and Video Advertising. 2 Comments

In 2007, I posed the question “Is buying video advertising in social media a good idea?” as a way to highlight publisher behavior that was hurting the video advertising industry.

Today, I pose the question “Is buying video advertising from a video syndicator a good idea?”  The answer is, it depends.  But, again, bad actors are hurting the video ad business. Broadcast videos sites such as Hulu and CBS have done a phenomenol job of maintaining high quality users expereinces when their videos are in syndication.  Hulu distributes their player to MSN, Fancast and other sites, and maintains a universal user experience.  CBS, through the audience network, controls video content, placement and advertising, to insure consistency.

The problems for brands become more evident when we are talking about the content licensors such as Roo, NewsMarket, JamboTV, a slew of others or any of the video ad networks that offer video syndication.  In an attempt to compete with the broadcasters (or each other), these publishers syndicate their players far and wide, with little attention paid to user experience, site or site placement.  As a result, video advertising campaigns can end up on low quality sites or, worse, not even be seen by the consumer.

This problem is most evident when brands unknowingly buy fake pre-roll, either from a video syndicator or a video ad network. Fake pre-roll occurs when an advertiser buys pre-roll video inventory, but gets a placement where the video player autostarts a video ad in display inventory, usually with the sound off and often below the fold.

Examples of fake pre-roll are abundant (see screenshots below).  In 15 minutes one day I found examples of Mars, State Farm, Nicorette, Van de Kamps, Starburst and Starkist running in low quality, fake preroll placements.  On day two Hellmans, Jello, Tide, Oil of Olay and Bounty.  Sites such as Luvcube.com, Sweetiessweeps.com, Hairpedia.com and Pajiba.com provide clear examples of fake pre-roll with video syndication from Jambo and video ads from many “leading” video ad networks.  This gaming of video advertiser’s budgets is hurting all of us for the following reasons:

  • These advertisements won’t perform for the advertiser, which hurts budgets moving online and the perceived efficacy of online video advertising
  • These placements are priced at banner rates (or lower), which drives down rates for the entire category and falsely gives agencies the belief of a market rate
  • Advertisers run the risk of being placed next to inappropriate content, which could result in an advertiser or agency pulling out of video altogether

The problem of fake preroll can either be solved by agencies (by paying more attention to the placements they are buying, comparing ad performance among players and demanding URL by URL reporting) or by the players in the industry (by not taking advantage of unknowing buyers, “gaming” the medium and returning to focus on selling a high quality product).Personally, I am much more a fan of self-regulation. 

vandekamps_autostart.jpg     starkist_autostart.jpg     luvcube_belowfold.jpg     target_autostart.jpg vlasic_belowfold.jpg  
 
 

How To Spot “Fake Pre-Roll”

Published July 24, 2008 in Tod Sacerdoti, Ad Networks, BrightRoll, Video Advertising and Internet Monetization. 3 Comments

Yesterday I wrote a post on AdAge on “How to Spot Fake Pre-Roll,” as we have noticed a trend of online publishers and networks packaging low quality ad units as pre-roll. The article goes into detail about what to look out for and what questions you should ask to verify your pre-roll buys.

Here are the highlights:

Pre-Roll Quality Categories
1. Gold Standard: Traditional Pre-Roll, as defined above
2. High Quality: Video ads that play in the middle of long form content (such as an ad between segments of House on Hulu.com)
3. Medium Quality: Video ads that auto-start with sound in a publisher’s video section; no user initiation
4. Low Quality: Video ads that auto-start with sound on a publisher’s home page; no user initiation or attention
5. Questionable Quality: Video ads that auto-start without sound in display inventory (typically by an ad network without video technology)
6. Borderline Fraudulent: Video ads that auto-start without sound on a publisher’s video player which can be embedded by users anywhere

Key Queries to insure 100% Pre-Roll:
1. Will my video ads ever be played in the middle of content, as opposed to before content?
2. Will my video ads ever be served into an environment where video is not the main content on the page?
3. Will my video ads ever be auto-started, i.e. started without a user initiation?
4. Will my video ads ever be started with the sound off?
5. Will my video ads ever be served into display inventory?
6. Will my video ads be served into any syndicated content? (Syndication almost always means a reduction in quality.)
7. Can you provide me with a list of every URL my ads will appear on?

BrightRoll Fills Void Left By TV Networks

Published December 12, 2007 in Tod Sacerdoti, Ad Networks, BrightRoll and Video Advertising. 0 Comments

The television industry delivered another blow to the advertising community yesterday when NBC announced that they would be “giving advertisers cash back for prime time ratings shortfalls from last season.” Along with the writer’s strike, this represents the perfect storm - television inventory is lower quality AND now in lower quantity.

This is a horrendous outcome for all parties involved. Clients miss key marketing opportunities in the most important marketing period of the year, agencies miss their targets which is a disservice to their clients and tv networks miss out on significant revenue opportunities.

Additionally, this problem is only going to get worse. The writer’s strike has negatively impacted television content quality and ratings, but the real hit in both categories has yet to come. Many shows have strung along previously filmed content but are about to reach the end of that rope. If money is flowing back to agencies this quarter, expect a large chunk to be searching for a new home in Q1.

Fortunately, not all media channels are struggling. At BrightRoll, our video inventory is growing in both quality and quantity. We have significant Q4 and Q1 inventory available for broadcast buyers who have budgets previously allocated to under performing television placements.

Although we expect advertising dollars to follow their audience online regardless - sometimes it takes a shock to the system to accelerate the adoption.

BrightRoll Serves 1 Billionth Video Advertisement

Published October 24, 2007 in Ad Networks, BrightRoll, Video Advertising and Internet Monetization. 1 Comment

Two days after announcing our financing, we just released news of our billionth ad served which was the HP Gwen Stefani campaign. We are extremely excited about this milestone and believe it demonstrates the scale that is occurring in our business and the overall video advertising market. I have included the release below and it is also available on Yahoo.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 24 /PRNewswire/ — BrightRoll, Inc., the world’s
largest video advertising network, announced today that it has served its
one billionth advertisement less than six months since hitting the
half-a-billion mark. BrightRoll helps leading agencies, representing brands
such as Wal-Mart, Hewlett-Packard and Sony Pictures, launch and scale video
campaigns across the industry’s leading publishers. Since the company
launched in July 2006, BrightRoll has expanded its reach to provide
execution capabilities across over half of the top 100 online media
properties in the United States. The one-billionth video advertisement was
served on September 27, 2007 for Zenith Optimedia, Hewlett-Packard’s
advertising agency.

The campaign, for Hewlett-Packard printers, features Gwen Stefani
elaborating on her creativity and the creative process. BrightRoll helped
Zenith Optimedia execute the Hewlett-Packard campaign across a portfolio of
stellar publishers such as CBS, Clear Channel Radio, CNN and ESPN.

“BrightRoll has been a huge asset to the online video planning and
buying process for Zenith Optimedia and Hewlett-Packard,” said Miranda
Molen, media supervisor at Zenith Optimedia. “They streamlined the creative
production process, improved media efficiency and provided strategic
metrics analysis. Put simply, their knowledge of the digital video
landscape and ability to execute campaigns is unrivaled.”

“Video advertising is an important new category of online marketing and
we are excited to work with national brands and premier publishers to
unleash the incredible opportunities it represents,” said Tod Sacerdoti,
CEO, Brightroll. “BrightRoll’s growth is further evidence that scalable and
trusted solutions exist in the marketplace today and that online video
advertising has officially arrived.”

BrightRoll executes video campaigns on hundreds of publisher sites,
including more than 50% of the top 100 online media properties in the
United States. The average BrightRoll video campaign reaches over 50
million unique users over a six week period. A video advertising innovator,
BrightRoll is built entirely on proprietary video ad serving, targeting and
optimization technology.

About BrightRoll

BrightRoll is the world’s largest and most trusted video advertising
network, having served more than 1 billion advertisements in 12 months.
BrightRoll helps major brands and agencies execute “smart video ad
campaigns” across the industry’s leading publishers, including over half of
the top 100 online media properties in the United States. BrightRoll’s
proprietary campaign execution, inventory management and advertising
delivery technology provide brands and agencies with the reach, frequency
and scalability needed to achieve their campaign goals. BrightRoll is a
privately held, venture- backed company and holds its headquarters in San
Francisco, CA. BrightRoll offers its service at http://www.brightroll.com.

Calton Chan joins BrightRoll as Director of Sales

Published August 6, 2007 in BrightRoll. 0 Comments

Everyone here at BrightRoll is extremely excited to have Calton V. Chan joining us as the Director of Sales, East Region. Here is the press release.

I have had the pleasure of getting to know Calton over the past six months at industry events, such as iMedia, and have developed significant respect for his knowledge and relationships in online advertising. We have big expectations for Calton and know he will have a big impact on our business, particularly in New York.

In addition to being a strong sales executive and great person, Calton is known for his wicked tennis serve and his infatuation with a hard to find sushi restaurant in San Francisco called Tekka Sushi. I have not had the pleasure of eating there yet, but I expect to soon. I promise a full report upon consumption.

Video Advertising: PreRollr and Ad Units

Published July 17, 2007 in BrightRoll and Video Advertising. 0 Comments

I was forwarded a TechCrunch article today on the launch of a new video ad network called PreRollr. Upon receipt, I was instantely turned off by:

  1. The overused Web 2.0 use of the missing “e” – i.e., Flickr, Socializr and, now, PreRollr.
  2. The fact that our company (the leading video ad network), BrightRoll, is the owner and user of the correctly spelled domain, Preroller.com and that we have had live products in the market under the brands PostRoller and PreRoller for some time
  3. That the ad unit is monetizing content that the publisher doesn’t own (namely content from YouTube, DailyMotion, etc.)
  4. The reality that TechCrunch continues to cover the launch of any product, regardless of user, customer or revenue traction

That said, the Prerollr product does bring up (again) the issue of ad units and highlights the fact that publishers, particularly smaller publishers, have yet to find highly scalable, revenue generating ad units surrounding video. I am not a believer that an aggressive pre-roll CPC ad unit, such as the PreRollr, will be adopted by users in high volume. Outside of pop-unders, you don’t see many CPC ads overlaid over text and image content, so why would you see it in video?

So what ad units will succeed? My bet is that it will be a lot more like the scalable ad units we have seen be successful throughout the rest of the web. Standards and scalability are essential - the units must be support by both the advertiser and publisher communities.

Video Advertising: Barriers to Growth

Published July 16, 2007 in BrightRoll and Video Advertising. 0 Comments

Catherine Holahan from Business Week wrote “A study by eMarketer predicts the floodgates will open after 2011, when the lines between TV and Web video will be blurred.” I found two parts of this article particular interesting:
1. “Flood gates opening” means the industry is doing $4.0+ billion in annual revenue
2. The barriers to growth are primarily the lack of new (non pre-roll) ad units and cost

I would suggest that flood gates are officially open when the industry does $1B in annual sales, after 3-4 years of near triple digit growth with no end in site. This milestone is not far off and there are many folks that believe this will occur as early as 2008.

However, it is more interesting to discuss what is preventing these flood gates from opening. I agree 100% with the lack of compelling, and scalable, ad units beyond pre-roll and we have spent a fair amount of time working on this problem at BrightRoll. That said, pre-roll is the most successful unit in the market today because it “performs” under the metric of “being seen by the user” and because it scales across large amounts of inventory.

I fundamentally disagree with the cost assertion. In fact, pre-roll cost is comparable, if not cheaper, than similar inventory on television. Furthermore, this CPM comparison doesn’t take into account the fact that television CPMs are vastly under estimated due to Tivo, DVR and the “going to the kitchen” phenomenon that is unmeasured in the Neilsen world.

The other important barriers to growth that were left out of the article are:
1. Advertiser Access to Aggregated Inventory.
2. Standards for 3rd Party Ad Serving on Video Sites
3. Successful Content Filtration Systems on UGC Sites
4. Internet Rights Being Acquired for the Actor’s in Commercials

#1 is probably the most important, as no marketer will allocated significant budget until reach and frequency objectives are met. #2 and #3 are solvable problems and will be addressed by the large players and content providers. #4 is a larger problem than anyone thought, but will be phased out over time.

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