Just ask Facebook -- monetizing mobile phone content with advertising isn’t an easy proposition. Smartphone screens are small, limiting the variety of ad formats publishers can sell, and consumers tend to have less patience for ads on their phones as well. Now that people are consuming nearly as much Web content on their phones and tablets as they do on their computers, someone needs to crack the mobile advertising code. YouTube, Google’s online video behemoth, thinks it may have the answer -- at least where mobile video is concerned. On Wednesday, the video-sharing giant began offering its TrueView in-stream ad format -- which allows consumers to skip in-stream pre-roll ads and only charges advertisers for the ones that consumers actually watch -- to mobile devices. Until now, the ads that played before mobile videos on the mobile YouTube site and in YouTube-powered apps like Vevo were traditional pre-rolls, meaning they could not be skipped. Starting today, all TrueView in-stream campaigns run on the AdWords For Video platform will be mobile-enabled. Since the YouTube app for iOS 6 will no longer come pre-loaded on Apple devices (Note: Google was never able to sell ads on these apps at all), Apple users will have to download a new YouTube app being developed (and monetized) by Google. Because mobile users are often on the go and pressed for time, Google execs believe that TrueView ads could be a perfect fit. They are already very popular on computers. Skippable TrueView ads debuted on YouTube in late 2010; today, Google says that 65 percent of all ads that play before YouTube videos on computers are skippable, and that between 15 and 45 percent of YouTube viewers choose to watch them.
Microsoft is rolling out a series of new ad units to support the more than $8.4 billion that marketers spend quarterly on online media ads. The units, ranging in size and function, will assist marketers with multichannel advertising strategies across PC, tablet, Xbox, Skype and mobile. VPAID ads, for example, are user-initiated ads highlighting video storytelling. Unlike pre-roll video ads, people can interact directly with videos instead of just watching them. Mindmap, exclusive to the MSN home page, creates a digital circular-style ad of up to 30 products. The Magnetic Canvas ad creates a 3D effect when users hover over the ad. The Swell ad expands, but doesn't interfere with the content being read. Polymorphic Ads allow advertisers to scale creative assets across multiple devices and ad sizes, freeing up production time and budgets. Eventually, these ads will run across MSN, Windows 8 apps, Xbox and mobile. About 56% of those on the Internet visit MSN's pages monthly, and 76 million of them don't visit AOL or Yahoo, according to comScore. The data research firm also shows that consumers stay on Microsoft sites longer. The forthcoming launch of Windows 8 will lead Microsoft into a new era of computing and advertising, according to Keith Lorizio, vice president of U.S. sales and marketing at Microsoft Advertising. He explains in a blog post that Microsoft Advertising created the units based on six Display IAB Rising Stars ads, including the Filmstrip. Disney, General Motors and T-Mobile chose MSN to run ad campaigns this year.
Connected TV advertising proponents will appreciate this bit of research: Connected TV consumers prefer ad-supported content to paid, ad-free content. A new survey pushes the idea that connected TVs will be a major opportunity for TV advertisers, per research done by Frank N. Magid Associates, commissioned by digital advertising company YuMe. Connected TVs are growing, and 30% of Internet-connected households have some form of connected TV, the survey notes. Some 60% prefer 15-second to 30-second ads over a monthly subscription or the pay-per-view model for short-form video. Forty-four percent feel the same way when it comes to streaming TV shows. Data also shows that nearly 90% of connected TV users notice ads on the digital platform, with the majority of pre-roll ads -- 57% -- noticed by users. Nearly 70% of connected TV users are likely to interact with a relevant ad, and nearly 20% purchased the product mentioned in the ad. Connected TV users streamed movies the most -- at 31%, with TV shows from the Internet at 29%. Next came some short-form content (26%), streamed a bit more frequently than they viewed TV shows on networks (24%). Mike Vorhaus, president of Magid Advisors at Frank N. Magid Associates, stated: "Advertisers and major brands will appreciate the rich findings for what is arguably the most explosive platform for video distribution and video advertising over the next several years." The survey came from 736 connected TV owners and users in May and June of 2012.
My last article article focused on the challenge presented by the collapse of the long-established conventions for programming and promoting linear television in the new “television” viewing environment: increasingly un-tethered to the TV set and unbounded by time. This challenge is lent urgency by the fact that the online search-and-discovery experience has not kept pace with consumer interests. In spite of the superabundance of viewing options that online makes available, finding “something to watch” is still frustrating and often painful, so consumer awareness, adoption, usage and monetization of online video all suffer. The New Television “Programmer” What is required is a new paradigm for the network programmer's role. The classic “time slot” approach to creating a network program lineup is antiquated in the online on-demand ecosystem. There is no “coming up next” or “live at 11” in VOD. “Programming” was historically limited to filling out the channel line-up based on finite channel capacity. Preferred placement meant a lower channel assignment in the lineup. But the channel lineup concept has already become unworkable with over 1,000 channels and the endless scrolling through screen after screen of an electronic program guide. With the advent of an IP-based video system, the operator has effectively limitless “channel capacity.” The channel lineup is rendered meaningless and the legacy time/channel vectored grid is incapable of handling all of the current viewing options. The idea of preferred product placement is lost. Both video and network programmers have limited experience and poor models to borrow from VOD when it comes to promoting video in an “online” environment. The current search and browse modes for VOD are cumbersome, time-consuming, and effectively support only a limited library of video assets, offering severely limited promotional capabilities. Programming is essentially a preview roll and a searchable list of the small number of titles available. It does not have to be this way. IP video content has all the attributes and functionality of every other kind of online content: play lists; most viewed; save it (bookmarks); tag it, comment on it; etc. However, the full promotional capabilities of device-based and social-networking features have not been fused in a unifying content promotion and selection experience to drive awareness, usage, and adoption in the online video space. We have strived to maintain the editorial/advertising divide in the online space, but we now need to incorporate PROMOTION into the experience: the effective selling, or merchandizing of content. By merchandizing we don’t mean erecting a pay wall, we mean the marketing of a piece of content the way an album, or a book or a movie (used to be) marketed and sold. It does not matter if it’s premium or free content. In order to differentiate it from all the other millions of titles out there, it needs to be sold. It can’t just exist in a back catalogue library. The Web has strived for both an egalitarian treatment of all websites and content as being equal, as well as a sometimes creepily personalized experience: “We think you might be interested in this.” But online viewers are discriminating. They don’t always want to know what you (disembodied Web presence) think I might like based on my past online behavior (invasion of privacy). They want to know: What's good? What are my friends watching? What are other people like me watching? What preferences do I get as a valued customer? Where are the deals? Why should I watch this? Amaze me. The near-infinite number of video titles now available to be viewed on any number of devices requires a new paradigm that goes beyond the “look and feel” and cuts across devices to the FUSION of marketing, promotion and merchandizing of content. The editorial and publishing teams for video will become the network programming and promotions groups of the future. The network promotion department needs to be well trained and ideally experienced online. They need to leverage ALL of the tools available to drive awareness, adoption, and use of content and how to move product off the shelves. The Video programmer of the future exercises the following skills IN REAL TIME: Technologist Data Miner Social Demographer Pop-Trends Spotter Editor Designer Barker Futurist The programmer of the future learns from online merchants who know how to sell products, applying the following principles to the merchandizing of content: Pick the right product: Know the audience. Leverage research. Focus the Choices: Too much choice is paralyzing. Placement: Put the right product in the right place. Don’t put it “where we have the space.” Think POP displays. Time: Pick the right time to promote the right product. Don’t promote or even offer the same product all the time. Take advantage of the seasonal calendar. Price: Deals, Deals, Deals. Create packages and bundles for premium content. Quantity: Create sense of scarcity. “For a limited time only.” Set Up: Sound and motion attract attention. Maintenance: Refresh the product and the display. Keep it neat. Urgency: “Watch it now.” Generate word-of-mouth: Add the social component. Content providers often do not like the term content applied to their product. OK, so treat it like the product that it is. Get busy and move it off the shelves. What remains important is the value of brand, customer ownership, customer service, and better packaging, marketing, promotion, and merchandizing of content than anyone else. You do this by creating proprietary algorithms (topic for another post) that synthesize all of these elements, and by moving product off the shelves. Otherwise, viewers will vote with their mouse, discovering something else, somewhere else.
Mark Zuckerberg is yet to reveal to his investors his strategy to generate meaningful revenue from mobile traffic. I’m thinking Zuckerberg could be planning something big, and Facebook is fortunate to actually have the #1 guy in America to figure that out: Gokul Rajaram (you can read what Business Insider thinks). If you remember Google when it was just a search engine, and before Google had an “Adsense” product, it’s because Rajaram was yet to be at Google. Upon his arrival, the way Internet was monetized has changed, with “Ads by Google” widgets starting to pop on nearly every page on the Web. Solving Google monetization is one big achievement. Now it’s Facebook’s turn, and rest assured – I’m sure Rajaram is on it. Facebook’s monetization challenge is unique, as it is not necessarily trying to solve its own problem, but rather solve an industry problem: mobile. The mobile screen is small. On a per ad-unit, mobile ads actually make higher RPMs, but you can only display 1-2 ads, versus desktop ads where you can display 20 ads that make less money each. Mathematically speaking, then, the solution need to be some sort of media/invention that generate per real estate substantial higher RPMs than regular mobile ads, to compensate for the smaller number of ads. Could the solution be Facebook Video? I don’t know the answer However, let’s do some “If A=B, and B=C then A=C”: - “Premium “video generate $25-$60 over lower single digit for display ads. - YouTube has been around for almost 10 years. Industries in the past have been more likely to change in a big way every 10 years. - YouTube realized that UGC generates no money and premium makes a lot. For that it created the Partner program and got premium publishers to give it content. Facebook needs some sort of high-CPM media to boost its mobile traffic with $ - Who has an existing premium video business? (Hint: it’s not YouTube. Read next bullet). - Netflix CEO Reed Hastings last week was reported to buy $1 million in Facebook stock. Hastings is also a Facebook board member. Now granted, please note that Netflix is not based on ads, but will we see a revolution coming from some sort of partnership, -- the king of social and the king of premium content? Maybe not Netflix but someone similar (“a Netflix”)? = Facebook + “a Netflix” > Youtube = Facebook + “a Netflix” = making headway to monetize mobile traffic? I think big companies must remember that every 10 years people will give an alternative solution a real chance. Yahoo to Google. MySpace to Facebook. RIM to Apple/Android. I don’t know how a video product would look like on FB. Would it bead-based, subscription based, auto-play, click-to-play? I’m not sure. But can premium video help Facebook’s mobile monetization? I think so. And is it a great target to try and win YouTube’s business? Absolutely.
There's war being waged in the shadows, and for once it doesn't involve CIA operatives funneling arms to quasi-militias in unstable Latin America outposts. No, this war is far more grave and sinister: It's a war for jerkyfied-meat mindshare. Specifically, mine. Wherever I venture on the web, I am met with beef jerky ads. Perhaps this is a commentary on my lower-middlebrow tastes, which range from fantasy sports to explosions, or maybe it has something to do with my grouping in an itch-where-it-scratches demographic. Either way, I cannot dodge the jerky. I'm not frustrated by this so much as I am fascinated. Are e-targeters really that wired in to the online habits of the me-so-hungee crowd? All that's left for me to do, besides purchase these miracle sticks/shards of "beef" and spike my blood pressure into Bill Clinton territory, is concede defeat. So: Fine, Misters Slim Jim and Jack's Links, you win. I will devote the next 47 minutes of my life and several hundred precious pixel-inches to a sober-minded discussion of beef jerkies and the videos that flog them. (Before I do, though, a question: If one were to create a taxonomy of meat-like substances, under what heading would beef jerky be listed? Cured meats, maybe? I don't ask this rhetorically; I'm genuinely curious. Anyone who provides a satisfactory answer to this question will receive a polite thank-you note via email.) Anyway, the Jack's Links clips are less willfully, aggressively obnoxious than the Slim Jim ones, which says less about Jack's Sasquatch-themed excursions into the realm of whimsy than it does about Slim Jim's online oeuvre. In the Jack's video universe, Sasquatch lives and works among a group of generic 20-somethings. He experiences difficulty moderating his reactions to emotional events, like touchdowns and covert spy missions at the gym, and, as a result, tends to rain mayhem upon everyone in his path. Only through the frequent and remorseless consumption of jerky, the clips seem to suggest, can Sasquatch seize some small shred of humanity. Mickey Rourke, take note. Slim Jim's videos are more involved than Jack's one-bit-and-out skits (gaa - almost typed "evolved" there instead. Wouldn't my face have been red!!!!!). Over the last few weeks, the brand has trotted out a smattering of "Slim Jim TV" clips: a chronicle of the athletic highs and lows of the "Slim Jim Bro-lympics," a "That's What Slim Jim's For" song parody and a fake infomercial. They appear to have been filmed on somebody's smart phone and boast the comedic daring of a mutual-fund prospectus. It's that bad. In addition, Slim Jim receives bonus points for debuting the Bro-lympics clip on August 15 - three days after the London Olympics ended, for those counting at home. This leads me to ask: Are we sure these clips are officially authorized? I'd hate to think there's a rogue Slim Jim marketing operative out there sullying the brand's good, salty name. Wow. To conclude, this ranks among the saddest columns I've ever written. Any pretense I had to a man-of-reason self-image has been shot to hell now that I've found myself in the marketing crosshairs of Jack's Links and Slim Jim. I guess I'm a snack-meat kind of guy after all.