MediaMind Technologies has partnered with Impossible Software to offer in-stream video ads from TV ads. The partnership enables MediaMind to extend its video capabilities with real-time in-stream and in-banner video offerings. Marketers can update and distribute creative video messages based on any combination of time of day, geographic, behavioral or demographic data. Ads are dynamically optimized and personalized with prices, store locations and marketing messages. For instance, BMW might serve up an ad in an online video based on a television commercial to a consumer in Los Angeles. In the ad it might suggest several dealerships based on location. Advertisers can also modify video ads with dynamic 3D product placements within the clip. Not having dynamic video requires hours of manual labor, putting a strain on agencies to convert TV ads into online video quickly. Similar to in-game video ads, advertisers can have the dynamic video ads placed into billboards in a street scene in a music video or a television screen hanging on the wall in a restaurant, for example. The offering provides advertisers the ability to target dynamic video ads for in-stream video placement to consumers similar to still display ads on a Web page. It relies on MediaMind's Smart Versioning creative optimization tool and Realtime Video Server from Impossible Software, Hamburg, Germany. Through the combined tools advertisers create customized video ads that include text, images, sound and video at runtime. Boaz Ram, senior manager for product planning at MediaMind, said without the combined technologies using video to target consumers with in-stream ads would not be possible. "Companies would need 10,000 versions of the same ad to get as many versions required to precisely serve-up the best ads at the perfect time," he said. Video advertising is growing faster than all other online ad formats, and this year eMarketer estimates online video will surpass rich media in terms of ad spending. U.S. online video advertising spend will grow 52.1% to $2.16 billion, up from $1.42 billion last year, when the video ad market grew 39.6%, according to the research firm.
Lyle Fong, founder and CEO of social marketing firm Lithium, said he was stepping down on Monday. Taking his place is Rob Tarkoff -- most recently senior vice president/GM of Digital Enterprise Solutions at Adobe Systems. Fong will now assume the role of chief strategist and continue to serve on the board of directors. The company's communities boast more than 20 million registered users for brands such as The Home Depot, Sephora, Best Buy, and Verizon. "Lithium has experienced record growth in one of the fastest-growing categories in enterprise software," said Fong. As technology continues to fuel changing consumer experiences, the company expects smart brands to seek out expertise to help them scale and "operationalize" their social engagement. "The social software market is on the verge of unprecedented growth," Tarkoff said. It has not been all smooth sailing for Lithium, however. Last year, it agreed to buy brand-tracking startup Scout Labs for a reported $20 million. Three months later, in a lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court, Scout Labs backer Minor Ventures accused Lithium of intentional misrepresentation, fraud and fraudulent concealment. At Adobe, Tarkoff oversaw the Web content management and digital asset management solutions gained through Adobe's acquisition of Day Software. He was also responsible for Adobe's worldwide enterprise solution partnerships, including system integration partners and strategic ISVs. Previously, Tarkoff held several executive positions at EMC Corp., including senior vice president/GM of the EMC Captiva software division, and senior vice president of business development and channels for the EMC Software Group.
To humorously drive home the taste appeal of its new FiberPlus Caramel Pecan Crunch cereal variety, a new TV spot from Kellogg's has women engaging in a taste test pitting the cereal against luscious cupcakes. In what would appear to be an indirect spoof of General Mills's effective "Cardboard, no. Delicious, yes" commercials for its Fiber One cereals and other products, FiberPlus brand reps went to The Perfect Circle Cupcakery (Orange, Calif.) to have customers compare the taste of the new FiberPlus flavor against the bakery's famed chocolate lava cupcake. Taste testers' consensus? Great cereal, but the cupcake wins. The 60-second spot concludes with the messaging: "Not the best tasting cupcake ... the best tasting fiber. Kellogg's FiberPlus: Taste the Plus." Kellogg's and agency Leo Burnett are being mum about the spot, which represents a somewhat edgier direction than FiberPlus's previous campaign (also from Leo Burnett), featuring comedian Kieron Elliott as a "genie" who pops into homes to grant breakfast eaters' wish for a "deliciously nutritious fiber cereal." Kellogg launched FiberPlus cereal in July 2010, after the success of its FiberPlus Antioxidant Bars. General Mills's Fiber One cereal launched in 1985. The latest extension, Fiber One 80 Calories cereal, was launched in late June.
Like the hunger for knowledge and the passion to make faster and better widgets, the engineer in Google Co-founder Larry Page will lead the cash-rich company on a path to devouring technology. Some technology will come from companies like Motorola -- sitting on the fence with a treasure trove of mobile patents at its feet, but not much foresight in what to do with them -- or from more unexpected sources. Mobile will drive search, online ad growth and consumer purchases at least for the next five to 10 years. This trend first emerged for me in the early 2000s during a discussion with Avnet Executive Chairman Roy Vallee. At the time, he alluded to mobile pushing the electronics parts industry -- such as semiconductors and programmable logic -- into better days. And while Macquarie Securities Analyst Ben Schachter believes Google's intentions to acquire Motorola Mobility are a largely 'defensive" move, the necessity should "benefit" the entire Android ecosystem. In a research note, he explains how the deal should enable Android development and distribution momentum to continue for a "reasonable price." The key point that Schachter highlights questions whether or not Google will build hardware, despite the company's statement to the contrary. Schachter reminds us that the general consensus is that "Google does not intend to stay in the hardware business." Google could revitalize Motorola. The NPD Group estimates that Google's Android operating system (OS) dominates U.S. smartphone market share, accounting for 52% of units sold in the second quarter of 2011. Motorola's overall mobile phone market share declined 3 percentage points, from 12% in Q2 2010 to 9% in Q2 2011. The company's share of the smartphone market also declined from 15% to 12%. Motorola's year-over-year unit share of Android OS sales fell from 44% in Q2 2010 to 22% in Q2 2011. Motorola gave it up to Samsung and LG, which both experienced substantial gains, according to The NPD Group. In my opinion, Google in the long run will see the benefits earned and learned by Apple and not resist. While Google will continue to drive ad sales -- paid search to display ads -- through content delivery, in the long term the content delivery will likely come from Google devices. Some of that content geared for mobile could come from Hulu. Reports have surfaced that initial bids for Hulu are due Wednesday, and that Google remains among the suitors expected to submit proposals in the range of $500 million to $2 billion, along with Yahoo and Amazon. On Monday, comScore released data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that Google Sites ranked as the top online video content property in July with 158.1 million unique viewers, followed by VEVO with 62.1 million; Facebook with 51.4 million; Microsoft with 49.5 million; and Viacom Digital with 47.3 million. Total viewing sessions reached nearly 6.9 billion, with Google sites exceeding 3 billion to account for more than 40% of all viewing sessions online. The average viewer watched 18.5 hours of online video content during the course of the month, with Google sites at 5.9 hours and Hulu at 3.4 hours. For Google, acquiring Hulu is not a far reach, considering that the company continues to prime its video site, YouTube, to deliver content on mobile devices supported by a variety of advertising.
I've long been bullish on YouTube, viewing it as the best advertising platform ever known to mankind (despite the giddiness that some have for Facebook and Twitter). A Walled Garden? Some critics have suggested that YouTube is just the latest iteration of AOL or Facebook, a walled garden that locks in audience and ad dollars. That's unfair. YouTube has always been very open: from the famous Paypal-inspired embed code to how it has evolved into a platform for other properties. In fact, in my experience, YouTube has been more open than the challengers who are trying to stay in the same universe as the incumbent. Game, set, match In a previous column, I outlined four things that YouTube could do to make more money for itself and producers. Front and center was the following: 4. Add comScore and Nielsen tracking at the producer level. This, my friends, is the nuclear option that will change everything. YouTube has already opened up its platform to content partners. It can go one step further and outline individual producer metrics on comScore or Nielsen. This is not fundamentally different from how: · an ad rep firm like Gorilla Nation or Glam Media can get a website it represents to assign them their traffic, or · you see sub-domain traffic on large portals. In other words, if comScore and Nielsen could display what a content producer's reach is on YouTube, then it would open up a whole new stream of RFPs from the larger ad agencies and marketers. This, we believe, is a holy grail for both producers and YouTube. Last week, YouTube and comScore announced a beta program with a few dozen content owners which did just that. Sure, I was a bit disappointed that my company wasn't included in the initial beta test, but as a content producer, video entrepreneur and digital media executive, it was easy to get excited about the big picture (our data will appear as of next month). Understanding How Audiences are Measured Online While miles ahead of television, radio or print audience measurement, online audience measurement has always been the ire of publishers. Techniques include: a) Absolute, site-specific services/tools such as - Server log files - Analytics products such as Google Analytics (formerly known as Urchin, until Google acquired it) - Quantcast (when their javascript code is added to a site) b) Relative techniques such as - Alexa - Compete (a subsidiary of TNS, which itself is part of Kantar, WPP's market research unit) - Quantcast (when their tag isn't added and they approximate one's traffic) - Panel-based services such as comScore and Nielsen, who over time have added actual traffic behavior from their panel. The long and short version is that nothing is entirely accurate. Understanding How Marketers and Ad Agencies Buy Media Media buyers rely largely on the comScore and Nielsen's of the world to make ad decisions. They will either - cross-reference a property's stated internal traffic with comScore or Nielsen's data, or - use comScore and Nielsen's data to pull up a list of relevant websites to advertise on. Previously, if someone wanted to reach the video gamer audience, it would see that IGN.com (my former employer) ranks very high in terms of the male 18-24 audience. Today, with the new partnership, they will see that Machinima boasts a high concentration of gamers on its YouTube channel, even though its own-and-operated property is a mere corporate landing page. You can see how this partnership finally "opens" up YouTube in a big way. In fact, while "demand outstripped supply" in the broader video market, each YouTube impression was not necessarily as valuable as it should have been due to a lack of data and reporting. This changes that. With content being a long-term endeavor and slow to really scale, YouTube has always been one-part meritocracy rewarding influence and personalities, one-part "ongoing experiment" where content quality was secondary. It also makes the actual content more valuable: now that audience measurement becomes less opaque, then what people are watching becomes the next big thing that will concern advertisers. One Quantum Leap for Online Video This won't be error-free, and it won't be perfect, but it's a game-changer. Over time, I don't know if this will be more a case of - "That's one small step for YouTube, one giant leap for individual content producers" Or - "That's one small step for content producers, one giant leap for YouTube" All I know is that this is a quantum leap for online video, period, as YouTube/comScore just a) empowered content producers and b) gave media buyers the data needed for YouTube to become the must-buy in video campaigns. To see what else YouTube could do to further dominate online video, read my previous column for 1 through 3.
In a previous Video Insider post, I wrote that demographic changes in our population perhaps amplified, or were even mistaken for, cord-cutting data. The crux of this was the decline in the 18-49 age audience for broadcasters. This is a critical audience metric that drives the approximately $70 billion television advertising market. Traditionally, this is so because the 18-49 audience is considered to be the heaviest consumers and buyers of goods and services advertised on television. In my earlier post, I suggested that as our population ages and the last of the baby boomers migrate out of this demographic, its overall size is not growing as fast as it did, and in fact the older of this demographic -- who are actually reaching their peak earning and spending years - is actually declining. One adjunct point that I left out of the original post was the question of whether 18-49 demographic actually mattered as much as we count on it to, or whether it was a vestige of some legacy limitation or consideration. Surely as measurement technologies advance and we have better ad targeting capabilities for television, actual content viewing and response to advertising will outweigh the age metric. In another post on this topic in Gigaom, "Bad news for Nielsen: TV ads to be bought more like online ads," Ryan Lawler quotes Michael Hayes, president of Initiative Digital, suggesting that the 18-49 demographic does not matter because what matters is the buying behavior and intent, regardless of age and gender. If we can measure this -- which is the goal with digital ads and IP enabled set top boxes - then the age demographic is irrelevant. I could not agree more with these statements. At the same time, even without getting to the highly measurable state of television advertising with new IP-based solutions, it seems that marketers and media buyers would have other important considerations given what we already know of aging demographics of our population. I don't claim to be a statistician or a sociologist. I am a consumer of data rather than creator or aggregator of it, such as is done by analytics firms like Nielsen and comScore. At the same time, as a marketer, I cannot help but point out another shift in consumer behavior that is noteworthy to marketers. There is some truth in statements like "40 is the new 30," and "50 is the new 40." People are living longer, healthier lives, and older people today live more like their much younger counterparts of before. I suspect very little of this idea has been incorporated into the media buying considerations, given the 18-49 criterion has been static for some time. As IP connectivity continues to mushroom for TV playback devices, such as is happening in spades already, expect to see the media buying landscape shift as well. How quickly this happens will be subject to the big blocks of consumer demand, content services, and device penetration coming into formation. It will not happen overnight, but much faster than one would have predicted a few years ago, given the tectonic shifts already happening in the media industry.
According to the Nielsen Cross Platform Report, Americans are spending more time watching video content on traditional TVs, mobile devices and via the Internet than ever. Overall TV viewership increased 22 minutes per month per person over last year, demonstrating moderate growth and remaining the dominant source of video content for all demographics. Even the lowest fifth quintile of TV viewers still averages an hour of TV consumption per day, with the highest quintile tuning in for nearly ten hours per day. Mobile video viewing continues to see marked gains, with the number of Americans watching video on their mobile devices increasing 41% over last year and more than 100% since 2009. Time shifted TV continues to grow, both in the penetration of DVR devices in the home and the time spent. Internet video streaming also saw increases in time spent; this behavior is the highest among a younger and diverse subset of the population. Over the past year, satellite and telephone company-delivered TV subscriptions increased while subscriptions to wired cable decreased slightly. Broadcast-only households remained stagnant. Two thirds of TV homes now have an HDTV, an increase of more than 20% over last year. Slightly less than half have a video game console or a DVR, 45% and 40%, respectively. Television Distribution Sources - Number of Households (in 000's)Market Break Q1 11 Q4 10 Q1 10 Broadcast Only 11,193 11,147 11,170 Wired Cable 62,651 63,393 64,951 Telco 7,654 7,339 6,042 Satellite 34,297 34,273 32,877 Source: Nielsen, Q1 2011. (Based on Quarterly Universe Estimates.) African-Americans watch the most video content, including traditional TV and mobile video, though less timeshifted TV than the general population. Asians have emerged as the hands-down leader in time spent watching video on the Internet, averaging six-plus hours more per month than Whites and nearly four hours more per month than the next closest ethnic group, Hispanics. Asians also watch far less traditional TV than the general population-more than a third less than Whites and half as much as African-Americans. Like Asians, Hispanics watch less traditional TV but more Internet video than the general population, but to a less extreme degree. Video Audience Composition - Monthly Time Spent in Hours: Minutes - Ethnicity & Race WhiteAfrican-AmericanHispanicAsian On Traditional TV 155:33 212:53 135:42 100:25 Watching Timeshifted TV (all TV homes) 11:55 7:37 6:56 8:14 DVR Playback (only in homes with DVRs) 26:59 22:12 24:03 22:47 Watching Video on Internet 3:57 5:52 6:24 10:19 Mobile Subscribers Watching Video on a Mobile Phone 3:37 6:30 4:20 4:20 Source: Nielsen, Q1 2011. (Based on total users of each media.) Satellite, broadcast-only and wired cable delivery of TV content is nearly even among three of the four ethnic groups tracked, with Hispanics being the outliers. They are more likely to get satellite or be broadcast-only than Whites, African-Americans and Asians, and much less likely to get wired cable. Television Distribution Sources by Ethnicity White African-AmericanHispanic Asian Broadcast Only 9% 11% 15% 10% Wired Cable 61% 63% 51% 65% Telco 7% 7% 6% 9% Satellite 31% 27% 35% 27% Source: Nielsen, Q1 2011 Age plays an interesting role in video audience consumption across media, with the age groups 25-34, 35-49 and 50-64 each dominating a specific platform. Traditional TV viewership steadily increases with age, so it comes as no surprise that Adults 50-64 make up the largest segment of the traditional TV audience (25%). The largest segment of the Internet video audience is Adults 35-49 (27%), while the largest segment of the mobile video audience is 25-34 year olds (30%). A Week in the Life: Weekly Time Spent in Hours: Minutes 2-1112-1718-2425-3435-4950-6465+P2+Hispanic 2+African-American 2+ On Traditional TV 26:31 24:21 26:28 30:34 36:23 44:54 49:17 35:37 30:42 47:37 WatchingTimeshifted TV 1:49 1:31 1:30 3:11 3:11 2:48 1:40 2:25 1:34 1:42 Using the Internet on a computer 0:40 1:45 5:31 8:29 8:34 7:20 3:55 5:43 4:10 4:54 Watching Video on Internet 0:07 0:20 0:48 0:57 0:38 0:25 0:12 0:33 0:32 0:30 Mobile Subscribers Watching Video on a Mobile Phone NA 0:20 0:15 0:10 0:05 0:02 <0:01 0:07 0:12 0:13 Source: Nielsen, Q1 2011 (Uniquely based on the Total Population in the US; all 297 million Americans over age 2) The new trend among our TV and Internet homes shows the lightest traditional television users streaming significantly more Internet video via their computers, and the heaviest streamers under-indexing for traditional TV viewership. This behavior is led by those ages 18-34.The group of consumers exhibiting this behavior is significant but small. More than a third of the TV/Internet population is not streaming, whereas less than 1% are not watching TV. Usage:Number of Users 2+ (in 000's) - Monthly Reach Q1 11 Q4 10Q1 10% Diff Yr to Yr Watching TV in the home 288,500 289,284 286,225 0.8% Watching Timeshifted TV (all TV homes) 107,065 105,936 94,599 13.2% Using the Internet on a computer 190,913 191,237 191,301 -0.2% Watching Video on Internet 142,437 141,420 135,855 4.8% Using a Mobile Phone 231,000 230,300 229,495 0.7% Mobile Subscribers Watching Video on a Mobile Phone 28,538 24,708 20,284 41.0% Source: Nielsen, Q1 2011 Hispanic mobile subscribers are the most likely to have a smartphone, while White mobile subscribers are the least. The greater use of smartphones could be linked to Hispanics watching more video on their mobile devices than the general population. Likewise, the availability of Spanish-language channels available on satellite continues to drive the increased number of Hispanics who opt for satellite-delivery of their TV content. Mobile Device Penetration by Ethnicity WhiteAfrican-AmericanHispanicAsian Smartphone 30% 39% 53% 48% Feature phone 70% 61% 47% 52% Source: Nielsen, Q1 2011 Cord Swapping: Debunking the myth that consumers are no longer willing to pay for television content subscriptions, Nielsen found that 91% of TV households still paid for a TV subscription in Q1 2011. Instead, evidence points to a slight reshuffling of the method selected, whether cable, through telephone companies or satellite. For additional information from Nielsen , and access to the PDF report, please visit here.