Archive for the 'BrightRoll' Category

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.

A few of my favorite things…

Published July 16, 2007 in BrightRoll, Video Advertising and Internet Monetization. 1 Comment

Online monetization is a broad subject and there are many paths to reaping great returns. As the founder of an ad network, a publisher and domainer, I have used nearly every online advertising tool and platform out there. Here are a few of my “favorite things”;

Contextual Advertising - Google Adsense, Yahoo Publisher Network, Pulse 360, Quigo
CPA Networks - Azoogle
Banner Networks - Advertising.com, ValueClick
Video Advertising - BrightRoll (disclosure - I am the CEO)
Domain Parking - Sedo, Domain Sponsor
Affiliate Marketing - Commission Junction
eBook / Software Sales - ClickBank

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