Posts from the ‘video advertising’ Category
Mark Cuban has a pretty interesting post (2 actually) on how to measure web video advertising.
Dianne Mermigas of the Hollywood Reporter has a terrific article discussing the impact Google and metric driven web advertising will have on the still much larger TV advertising business. (Hat tip: Heavy founder Dave Carson).
Boiled down to its essence, the article makes a few elementary — but big — points.
Mermigas’s broad thesis is that “Internet-related practices and values are fast becoming common place, and altering old media’s business models and expectations. The rapid adoption of digital broadband media applications is bringing us to the tipping point. You don’t hear much, if anything, about advertising resisting the change, especially when the giant likes of Google and Yahoo! are tripping over each other to quantify and qualify every legal and ethical detail about the individual users they are delivering. ”
As traditional media practices and business models morph, expect changes to many tried and true media conventions.
First, the age old ritual of TV’s “up front” ad buy, in which media buyers and sellers converge on Madison Ave. to negotiate the following TV season’s ad buy en masse, is short for this world. In its stead will be something along the lines of Google’s auction system, which attributes value not to a piece of content and its ratings but to the actual connection of relevant viewers to marketers.
Second, unlocking the value of this more direct and accountable connection will allow ad-based programming to replace the notion of paid access to content.
Finally, Mermigas predicts that advertisers and programmers alike ultimately will dissolve the dichotomy between the different platforms and evolve a set of formats across platforms.
“The nagging dichotomy between advertising form, function and price on traditional TV and on the Internet is in the process of rendering a new hybrid standard to extend across all media platforms. But this year, it is much more than an “either-or” ad spending proposition. It is about reinventing the effective and innovative ways advertisers and target customers interface in a global marketplace on fire with interactivity. Even if traditional media’s structural and psychological transformation don’t occur fast enough, advertisers now appear willing to break from convention to follow targeted consumers into customized, niche spaces. That’s the difference a year has made.”
My morning reading today surfaced two interesting announcements regarding ad measurement.
First, MediaPost's OnLine Minute announces that NetRatings finally is extending its web measurement to online video, and will develop a way to measure combined viewership for video consumed both on TV and on the Internet.
"NetRatings says it will beef up existing Nielsen/NetRatings products and patented technologies in order to properly measure digital media usage and work with Nielsen Media Research to develop integrated measurement services for Internet and television convergence."
Second, the next volley has been fired in the battle between programmers and advertisers over how to handle the increasingly substantial problem of time-shifted TV viewing. MediaDaily News claims it has gotten its hands on a Nielsen report which documents that–surprise, surprise–"the impact of time-shifted viewing will be profound on the broadcast networks." You may recall that a few weeks ago the major broadcast networks conceded that they would not charge advertisers for ads that are viewed on a time-shifted basis. Now, though, the broadcasters are working with Nielsen on a plan to measure commercials viewed both live and time-shifted. We'll see where this goes, but you can bet that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg of the time-shifted advertising problem.
In my view, the mass adoption of time-shifted TV viewing will ultimately be viewed as one of the more important developments in the media industry, up there with the emergence of broadband as a key platform for TV and video content.
"Next generation" advertising has been an area of keen interest for me over the last few years, and one way or another has had something to do with pretty much every investment I've made in the Digital Media sector.
Most of the activity in this sector has focused on large national advertisers.
Recently, however, it seems like a bunch of startups are starting to go after the more elusive, but gigantic, market for local advertising. Most would agree that there is lots of opportunity for whoever figures out how to crack the local advertising nut, and take a chunk of the billions of dollars spent every year on Yellow Pages, local broadcast and local cable advertising.
A bunch of early efforts in this vein were failures, but my hunch is that this time around there are going to be some pretty big winners. Spotrunner (quick and cheap ads for local cable), Jingle Networks (ad supported Directory Assistance) and MerchantCircle all are early stage companies doing some pretty interesting stuff with local advertisers.
I think I am willing to take a bet or two here. Stay tuned to see what happens…
And, more importantly, let me know if you are doing something interesting with local advertising on the digital platform, and/or if you know of interesting projects/people/research I should know about. Feel free to comment or send me an email at mhirshland@polarisventures.com.
Thanks!
This year's "upfronts" for TV advertising have been a watershed not just because of the networks' emphatic embrace of the digital platforms.
Equally important, I believe, is the industry's acceptance that TiVo usage, and more specifically the fact viewers watching TV recorded on a DVR invariably skip most ads, is an important turning point.
In short, this is the year when the DVR ad skipping phenomenon has actually been recognized by programmers and advertisers alike.
The major news on this front is that Disney/ABC has agreed to negotiate advertising packages for "live only," in other words, only charging advertisers for viewers who watch the programming live, not charging for DVR viewers who, presumably skip all ads and therefore are worthless from an advertiser's perspective.
Here is an excerpt from an AdAge article breaking the news:
"Disney Cos.' ABC issued a statement today confirming the network was prepared to negotiate with agencies using the existing ratings metric of "live only," meaning it will only charge marketers for viewers who watch programs when they are aired (and not for viewers who watch later using a digital video recorder). ABC formally steps down from its stance to negotiate using 'live-plus' ratings.The issue of what metric to base this year's upfront negotiations on has held up deals. Media agencies were united in their stand that they would only pay for live viewers, while the broadcast networks wanted to charge for those viewers who watched programs either later that same day (live plus same day) or later that week (live plus seven days). But late last week, ABC began to soften its stance, offering to negotiate with buyers on 'live plus same day.'"
In the '90's venture guys were afraid to back startups that would compete with Microsoft.
Today's Microsoft is Google.
For those of us who invest in consumer internet ventures, the "why couldn't Google do this and crush you?" question is a pretty common refrain.
I recently (like, this morning) had a very close encounter with the Google factor.
Over the past couple of months I've spent some time with a very talented entrepreneur who is building a self serve network for video ads, or, in other words, an "adsense for video" product.
I have to say I found the proposition pretty intriguing, though at the end of the day (last Friday, actually) we decided to pass on the opportunity. The Google question was one of a few factors that pushed me over the edge.
And what do I read in TechCrunch this morning? Sure enough, Google has come out with a PPC video ad product or, in other words, adsense for video.
WHEW!
TechCrunch has a good description/discussion on Google's move, and lots of comments worth crusing through. Michael Arrington and the bulk of the comments don't think Google's move was a good one.
Personally, I am predicting that, over time, this is going to prove to be a pretty successful play. The biggest question I have is not whether Google's PPC video ads will work for advertisers and generate revenue — they will — but rather what content will prove most fertile for this genre of ads. It is not clear to me that run of the mill text content will prove to be a good medium for a video ad product; however, as the web itself goes multimedia, it only stands to reason that ads will to. Google might be early, but I for one think they are on to something.
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