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RSSFirst, there is an undeniable flight to quality. The credit crisis is forcing clients to put pressure on agencies to justify every dollar. We are seeing a clear shift in budgets away from weakly branded, high-risk, and "test" placements. Nobody gets fired for buying a branded publisher, and this pressure-cooker environment is clearly favoring strong brands. Weaker publishers are scrambling to find ad fill, and will likely be reducing rates as the market worsens.
Second, branded properties are increasing inventory faster than expected. We have been blown away by the volume of highly branded, broadcast-quality content that has hit the Web over the past three months. As publishers brace themselves for any impact from the credit crisis, a logical reaction is to add more video content. This reaction becomes somewhat self-fulfilling, as more content means more inventory, and more inventory will result in a reallocation of ad dollars as rates fall due to oversupply.
Third, content syndication is shifting dollars in many directions. Many content owners have created elaborate content syndication strategies that enable them to retain the right to sell ads against their content, no matter where it lives. The intention behind this strategy was to avoid sales channel conflict, but it appears to be causing unintended consequences. Now, instead of a large publisher having the right to sell all the inventory on its site, the syndicators are also selling the inventory. However, the syndicators struggle to sell this high-volume, yet hard-to-define inventory and need third parties to help fill remaining space. As a result, we have a plethora of parties representing the same publisher inventory site, which results in a further shift in ad dollars.
Publishers and ad networks with strong brands, well-thought-out content strategies and strategies to add value to their clients will continue to thrive in this new, impacted economy. In fact, they should actually benefit from the credit crisis as dollars move away from weaker brands or players who have been aggressive in arbitraging their advertising. As with all downturns, the best players will gain market share and end up stronger than ever.
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Those among us positioned to stay in online video know the secret to securing revenue streams upfront, and have effectively secured the deals that their survival requires.
The advertising value proposition is rooted on four pillars:
* high quality entertainment * recognized name talent * partnership with strong brands * episodic content syndication
http://richreader.blogspot.com/
In your article you mentioned being blown away by the volume of highly branded content that has hit the web in the last three months. If the volume does continue to increase to the point of oversupply, one solution to saturation could be online grassroots marketing to drive intended audiences to specific content. Check out what Feed Company is already doing. www.feedcompany.com
As another player in a similar space, it's obvious to all that the trickle down effect or "water-fall" effect from the recent economy downturn effects every one and everything--including online video advertising.
Bigger brands will continue to utilize great solutions out there like your company--but what about the smaller companies that need a competitive advantage? As the founder of Hot Pluto, we will always remain the advocate for the smaller guy/gal out there.
True advertisers can design their campaigns around their budget but will they get the best bang for the video ad bucks? Hot Pluto was created to give ALL size companies video advertising solutions that are affordable and non-intrusive.
I think many of us will be working together in this space one day as I believe you can't have your video ad in enough places on the WEB. Nows the time to join together and provide multiple economical friendly solutions to all size companies!
Brett Hill- CEO www.hotpluto.com