Commentary

The New Landscape Of Video

While the Oscars were on, 37 million watched the annual extravaganza. The Super Bowl was also well attended this year, but these truly broadcast moments that capture a nation's and a world's attention are fewer and farther between. Things have changed in the new world of viewership and there are opportunities in this shift of screens for marketing. 

The comScore report  "The State of Online Video" reflects the fact that: 89 million people in the U.S. are going to watch 1.2 billion videos ....Today. That number is almost so large we just nod, and keep going.

Stop and consider how much opportunity this is. Online video advertisement has grown with this shift in eyeballs to over a billion dollars. Digital marketers are looking at other ways to measure  impact in order to increase that number. Online video's massive growth is easy to measure -- but pricing isn't. The primary way video advertising is bought and sold today is cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM). This doesn't always register how much of an impression is being made, so  TubeMogul proposed and Google endorsed a new metric -- cost per view (CPV) -- to the IAB Digital Video Committee for review.  

Viewer intention to watch an ad is a good indicator that the brand message is being delivered and consumed. Metrics for YouTube's TrueView in-stream ads - which let viewers choose whether to watch an ad, and only charge an advertiser if a viewer completes the ad -- show 20%-70% choosing to watch an ad.  "If advertisers knew that they were buying viewers that were actually paying attention, I believe you would see budgets increase," Paul Kontonis, VP-brand content at Digitas said, adding that, "Standardized 'cost per view' metrics and pricing get us much closer to that goal." Allowing people the choice to watch increases the value we are placing on them. 

The comScore report makes some great observations, noting that from 2006 to 2010 video viewership increased more than 600% while ad spend increased by 344%. That means that the value of videos actually declined over that time, from 0.7 cents per video in 2006 to less than 0.4 cents in 2010.

An important reason online video ad revenues lag behind in return is that there just aren't that many ads shown per video. According to comScore, just 5.3 % of all viewing time for entertainment sites,  is spent watching ads, compared to a whopping 20% to 30 % of time spent watching them on TV. For longer-form sites like Hulu the number is 1.6% . This does speak to an opportunity to increase the amount of advertising or marketing that can be incorporated into video content.

Video marketing gives seamless integration, receptivity and has a low threshold to resistance.

When people are asked about viewing ads online, their responses are overwhelmingly more positive than when they are watching ads on TV. Not only did The State of Online Video show this, so did   Nielsen last year with these statistics

 

-Online Video Ads have 65% general recall:  TV Ads, 46% 

-Online Video Ads have 50% brand recall; TV Ads, 28%

-Online Video Ads message recall 39%: TV Ads,  21%

-Online Video Ad likeability 26% : TV Ads,14% 

Could it also be that the way we interact with our computers are very different from how we interact with our TV -- more intimately? So as you craft marketing using video, think of the actual body language people have in watching your product online.

(Question: Did you lean forward just then?)

Watching something online calls forth our attention. We are right there, and here the marketer can make a direct case to the person watching this video. Here is the opportunity to really engross them, and herein lies the challenge. 

Frank Cooper, PepsiCo Americas' chief consumer engagement officer, said a few years back that

"Consumers' lives, needs and values have evolved but brand marketing has essentially stayed the same. The current brand marketing model is failing in its basic mission of adding value to people's lives."

Television allows brands into the living room, while video ads are welcomed into people's personal view through preference.  This is where the true value lies.

2 comments about "The New Landscape Of Video".
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  1. Jonathan Mirow from BroadbandVideo, Inc., March 16, 2011 at 6:35 p.m.

    All excellent points - advertisers simple MUST get away from the CPM model when considering online video. If I run an ad for "fish" on the nightly news, maybe 2% or 3% of my audience will be interested in "fish". If I run an ad for "fish" in an immersive, interactive online broadcast called "FishLovers.TV" - well, I think you get my point. Do you want a small percentage of a large number who may or may not be engaged - or 100% of a smaller number who are rabid fans. Makes nothing but sense to me.

  2. Chris Stinson from Non-Given, March 17, 2011 at 8:14 a.m.

    "Television allows brands into the living room, while video ads are welcomed into people's personal view through preference. This is where the true value lies."

    Too many television ads is why people buy DVD's, DVR and Tivo content - speed up and pass by. Too many internet ads will drive people away from the original content site - to anywhere else (in the world).

    The advertisitng golden egg was killed when 15% of the viewers content becames ads (plus all the placed products in the content).

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