The Evolution of Online Video – Cross-Platform Expansion and Monetization Growth”
The money is about to follow the eyeballs. After years of talk about the potential of online video, Levinsohn will tell us how 2010 looks like a big year in the next step of its evolution. As consumers continue to increase video consumption online – and across multiple devices – the shift of dollars will be inevitable. He expects a pronounced shift in 2010 as the economic climate improves, measurements provide better consumer insights, and advertisers follow consumers. Levinsohn will argue that digital media has changed the traditional business of advertising. But what do marketers need to know in order to embrace this new opportunity and capture the true potential of online video? View Presentation Slides
9:45 AM
Editing the Mix: Media Buyers Try to Find Video’s ROI
Video is a medium, not a strategy. You still need a plan. Media planners and buyers face an enormous range of possibilities for leveraging digital video online, from pre-roll spots to viral distribution, branded entertainment projects to video-powered product destination sites. The bandwidth is here. The viewers are here. The distribution is here. But how are brands and agencies aligning these opportunities with their own marketing goals? When does a product or campaign merit a viral strategy and when is a massive branded media project a better fit? And how are the buyers thinking about that video asset within a larger digital media plan involving search, display, database and offline efforts?
10:30 AM
Hulu – A TV Killer…Or Killer App?
Is hulu killing the TV business or giving it new life? What is the digital future of TV? Do digital apps make the economics of TV better or worse and can the economics of TV survive? Does “TV Everywhere” really mean that TV goes nowhere? A Wall St. analyst surveys the economic challenges facing TV as it migrates to the digital new platforms. View Presentation Slides Download Article: Hulu: Killer App or TV Killer?(pdf)
11:00 AM
Coffee BreakLocation: Olympic Ballroom Foyer
11:15 AM
Battle of the Network Superstars: Getting to “TV Everywhere” From Here
The major networks are here, and now cable MSOs and individual brands are about to make their move to the Web. TV has arrived online, but many of the key players appear to be pursuing different, often confusing strategies. Does hulu own the online TV experience or individual network destinations? Cable companies like Comcast (Fancast) and Time Warner, ESPN and MTV are bringing more of their assets to the table, but how accessible will they be and to whom? If the Web is to become a lucrative and consumer friendly DVR for the TV experience, then someone better find the remote. Simply putting the same content on three screens is not necessarily a “three-screen strategy.” How are these diverse distribution, production and branding strategies panning out for both advertisers and for consumers?
12:00 PM
The Art of Being Discovered: Is Viral Video a Strategy?
The meteoric rise of the social networks has permanently altered almost all aspects of content discovery, and it must affect think about the real meaning behind a viral video impression. At the same time video content has become an increasingly visible part of many search results pages and “universal search” is now an expected part of the user experience. But what sort of brand strategy is it to plant video into this haphazard distribution system. A video could easily become a viral hit without moving the needle on any positive brand metric. When videos like Cadbury’s Eyebrow Dance get millions of hits, this is a beautiful thing for PR and bragging rights. But do they sell the goods? This panel looks at the art and science of viral video and whether these online smash hits work for the brand. What metrics apply here and how is success really defined in a viral approach?
Keynote Panel: Case Study Roundtable: IKEA’s “Easy to Assemble”
Now in its second season, "Easy to Assemble" is one of the most successful branded media projects ever to appear online. Creator Illeana Douglas plays herself, deciding to leave the Hollywood acting life to work at a Burbank IKEA store, where she is pursued by her celebrity buddies. Illeana and her co-creators join us to discuss how they manage to marry comedy with brand messaging, negotiate the needs of entertainment and sponsorship, to build a model for branded entertainment online.
2:30 PM
What Are We Measuring? Can Video Metrics Fall Into Focus?
As more video viewing seems to be veering to the fat part of the tail and focusing on familiar TV properties, aligning online metrics with traditional measures seems all the more important. Or is it? Does this medium really need GRPs. Or do old reach and frequency metrics just diminish and undervalue the unique properties of interactive experiences? Viewing the same TV show on the desktop and in the living room are discrete experiences. How can converged metrics really account for the misconverged experiences fragmentation creates?
3:15 PM
Coffee BreakLocation: Olympic Ballroom Foyer
3:30 PM
Clicking Beyond the Clip: Leveraging Interactivity
It’s not TV, Internet pundits like to say about the Web. Somewhere between a lean-in and lean back experience, this medium should do more than repurpose offline content, offline ideas and offline expectations. Where is the interactivity in and around digital video? How are far-sighted marketers and content producers not using video as an end in itself but as a piece of a larger strategy to engage the user in unique entertainment experience like user-modified video, alternative reality gaming, or simply more direct marketing relationships that lead directly to a sale? It is time to get beyond the clip and into the click.
4:15 PM
The Final Webisode: Is the Digital Studio System Already Over?
In the two short years OMMA Video has met, we have seen a wave of video start ups and “platform agnostic digital studio” efforts rise and fall. In just the last year, companies like 60frames, ManiaTV, HBOLabs, Disney’s Stage 9, shrink, sell off or just shutter altogether. Joost, Veoh and other video aggregators had radically redefined themselves. And yet the short “TV-alternative content” these companies brokered still attracts eyeballs. Digital video models haven’t failed entirely but clearly there have been some dramatic losers and apparent survivors. What is the way forward? Our panel of survivors, refugees and investors put the relentless rush of digital history on pause to reflect on the business models that will and won’t work for online video.
