• Viewers Discovering Social TV
    Speaking at the OMMA Video conference, Viacom Media Networks' EVP/CRO Colleen Rush identified three categories that draw people in to social TV: the ability to communicate, check comments, and consume content. The "Three C's," as Rush puts it, are the driving force behind social TV. Watching a TV show opens up new channels for communication - both online and with friends in person. Others enjoy checking comments because it adds depth to the content of a TV show.
  • Prediction: Online Ad Revenue to Surpass Television
    At the OMMA Video conference today, moderator Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, Founder/CEO of WatchMojo.com, asked his panelists to predict the future of television and online videos. When asked if online ad revenue will surpass TV ad revenue in 10 years, all but one panelist said they believed it would. Online videos still have a ways to go - TV ad revenue is currently about twice as high as online video ad revenue.
  • At Last, A Central Platform For Searching Branded Videos
    Chris Schreiber, VP-Marketing at Sharethrough, just unveiled a new, much-needed searchable platform for aggregating branded videos. It's called The Creative Network. Sounds like what AdForum.com did for creating a centralized hub for searching and finding TV commercial campaigns, and the agencies that created them, but for online video.
  • The Posting and Praying Thing Is Not Working For People
    Social media may not be the viral activating platform that some marketers, agencies and certain social networks suggest it may be. Posting a branded video in and of itself, without any other strategy to get people to discover, get excited and pass it along, may not generate much if any interest on a brand marketer's social media page. Speaking on OMMA Video's "Feeding the Beast" panel, Touchstorm CEO Alison Provost characterized it this way: "The posting and praying thing is not working for a lot of people." Panel moderator Shira Lazar, host/exec producer of "What's Trending," put it another way: …
  • Hating Viral
    Just so we're clear, the entire ad industry -- or, at least, everyone on the afternoon OMMA panel, "Feeding the Beast: How Advertisers Can Become Prolific Producers of Video" -- is sick of the word "viral," and all its magical connotations. Yeah, "I'm soooo sick of viral," declared Shira Lazar, panel MC and host and executive producer of "What's Trending." (Frankly, we're sick of hearing about how sick everyone is with viral -- but not enough to avoid writing about it, apparently.) But, what should marketers be shooting for, if not the hackneyed V-word? "Evergreen," says Alison Provost, CEO of …
  • Brands Need to Change The Way They Tackle Web Advertising
    Starting off the "Feeding the Beast" panel at OMMA Video, Alison Provost, CEO of Touchstorm, took a shot at brands in regards to the way they handle web. She said, "If brands are left to their own devices, they just can't help but sell." This mindset is problematic because "the consumer knows [the ad] is an interruption; especially in the digital space."
  • Most Branded Videos Are More Like A Mild Cold Than A Genuine Virus
    That's the way Alison Provost, CEO of Touchstorm said on the "Feeding the Beast" panel at OMMA Video. Provost was responding to a discussion about what constitutes a "viral" branded content video. "Only one in 500 videos made by a brand gets more than 500,000 views," Provost said, putting a hard number around the concept of viral. In other words, you have a better chance of catching herpes than you do of catching a viral video (depending on your lifestyle, of course).
  • GRPs - Necessary Evil For Web Heads
    Aaaaannd, we're back to AOL's recent decision to offer TV-style guarantees on audience delivery for its video ads. (Employing a new Nielsen ratings stream, AOL said the deals would be based on GRPs with audience demographics, not simply clicks or impressions.) Ran Harnevo, AOL On Network's SVP of Video, admits he's not a huge fan of GRPs, and hopes they're instinct in ten years. BUT, they're a necessary evil if online networks want a bigger share of TV dollars. "We're doing GRPs," Harnevo said -- end of story... for now. First, the Web needs to eat TV's lunch, and only …
  • AOL's Harnevo: TV Is Not Broken - Yet!
    Ah, those caveats. They'll get you every time, right? During the OMMA Video afternoon conversation between AOL On Network's Ran Harnevo and MediaPost columnist Cathy Taylor, Harnevo characterized the current TV/video marketplace in a pretty honest way. Unlike a lot of digital chest-beaters, he acknowledged that "TV is not broken," but then, after the appropriate dramatic pause, added, "yet!."
  • AOL's "On Network" Strategy
    AOL recently launched its "On Network" initiative, which put its entire video cache under one umbrella -- "curated" into 14 channels -- so marketers could more easily reach nearly 60 million viewers across multiple sites and connected TV devices. What was the strategy behind the move? "Taking what people really liked about TV, and applying it to a much more complicated [area], which is online media," explained Ran Harnevo, On Network's SVP of Video, during an afternoon keynote at OMMA Video.
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