POV: Point of Video
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Archive for the 'Video Advertising' Category
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.
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.
Yesterday, BrightRoll announced the release of an exciting new product - HD video ad units that scale across 65% of the BrightRoll publisher network. This first to market offering - near full screen ads in high definition - represent a quantum leap in both video quality and ad effectiveness for online video advertisers. Here is the press release.
We continue to be focused building online video advertising solutions that are more impactful (bigger and higher quality), more effective (higher engagement and click through rate) and highly scalable (reaches over 65% of the BrightRoll network).
We are excited that this new ad unit delivers on all fronts and is a true innovation in the video ad category. In addition, the response to this new ad unit has been overwhelmingly positive. We have already signed up multiple advertisers in the entertainment and technology verticals, and we are expecting HD ads to represent at least 10% of our business this calendar year.
It is clear that innovations involving high quality and HD video, which impact file size and therefore streaming costs, will likely not come from the high volume video sites which typically drive video innovation. This is because most high volume video sites have yet to generate a profit and streaming higher quality or HD video files simply accelerates an upside down business model.
On the contrary, our business model is based on delivering an increasing amount of value for our advertising clients on every ad we serve, so our incentive is to deliver the best quality experience that is technically possible. This is the most recent step in our efforts to add additional value to the online video advertising process for advertisers and agencies, and we are looking forward to additional announcements coming soon.
Here is screenshot of the ad unit:
Here is some of the press on the announcement:
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:
- The overused Web 2.0 use of the missing “e” – i.e., Flickr, Socializr and, now, PreRollr.
- 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
- That the ad unit is monetizing content that the publisher doesn’t own (namely content from YouTube, DailyMotion, etc.)
- 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.
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.
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
CommentRoll