Google's YouTube plans to give viewers the option to skip video ads they don't want to view on their mobile device -- and advertisers another reason to consider multichannel campaigns. The TrueView in-stream video ad format does not require advertisers to pay for the impression if the viewer skips the ad on mobile devices within the first five seconds. For smartphones, that can make sense. The limited ad formats available to publishers on smaller screens can make it a difficult sell to brands without an incentive. The ad format, introduced in late 2010 for the desktop, requires 20 seconds of viewing on the desktop before brands pay. Phil Farhi, group product manager, admits that YouTube just began testing TrueView on mobile, but early indications suggest people engage with these ads in the same way they do on the desktop. The ads are managed through AdWords for Video. The launch of TrueView comes after YouTube introduced Promoted Video ads, tied to suggested videos based on a viewer's search, In-Stream ads and 15-second pre-rolls for mobile last year. YouTube delivered 1.5 billion ads in July -- up from 1.4 billion in June and May -- and 1.3 billion in April, according to comScore. Overall, the research firm's online video viewing report reveals the number of video ads viewed in July fell to 9.6 billion from 11 billion, sequentially, the lowest amount of ads viewed since April. Analysts believe that summer travel schedules contributed to the slide. Juniper Research estimates that the mobile market -- search and discovery -- will reach $15 billion by 2017. YouTube also has been testing mutiscreen campaigns and found that brand recall improves when ads run across TV, PC, phone and tablet. In a study run by Nielsen, the findings from late 2011, Google found that when consumers were exposed to TV ads alone, 50% correctly attributed the ad to Volvo. For groups that saw the ad across all screens -- TV, PC, smartphone and tablet -- the brand recall jumped dramatically to 74%.
Some 18 percent of consumers worldwide are accessing online video through their TV sets on a daily basis, while 25 percent access online video content several times a week, according to a new study from NPD Group. “The Connected TV Study: Features, Content and Usage” report, which surveyed 14,000 consumers across 14 countries, looks at how consumers view online video content, how often, what devices are used for viewing online video content, and how frequently they watch online video from over-the-top providers like Netflix and Hulu, in different countries. The study says the rise in online video watching on TVs has to do with more sources deploying online video content through televisions. Sure, people are buying Internet-enabled televisions, but they are also connecting with online video content via video game consoles and set-top boxes from pay-TV providers that have broadband-enabled services. Online video consumption on TVs varies by country. For example, in urban parts of China, nearly 40 percent of users watch online video on their televisions. In Mexico, the number is 30 percent. What are they watching mostly? NPD says films are the most popular online video on TVs, overtaking TV content. The study also finds, not surprisingly, that tablets and smartphones are seeing greater usage for online video, although overall usage is still less than that of laptops and desktop computers, with 52 percent watching video on laptops and 73 percent watching on desktop PCs. In terms of online video consumption in different countries by device, China -- particularly urban China -- stands out, consuming more online video content than every other country across every device.
Lindt & Sprungli USA is introducing a second ad for Lindor truffles starring Lindt’s global brand ambassador, world tennis champion Roger Federer. The 30-second spot debuted Aug. 23 on YouTube (the video link is also featured on the brand’s Facebook page), and will begin airing on ABC, CBS, NBC and cable/syndicates on the morning of Sept. 3. The first tongue-in-cheek ad (“Airport,” from 2010) conveyed the irresistibility of Lindor truffles (and Federer) by showing female airport security guards confiscating his bag filled with the chocolates and threatening to strip-search the tennis star just for the fun of it. The new 30-second spot, “Lost” -- also from Gotham Inc. -- picks up the story where “Airport” left off. This time, two female airline customer service reps refuse to admit that a clearly ID-ed, “lost” bag full of the truffles is Federer’s (apparently planning to keep the goodies for themselves). In conjunction with the new creative, Lindt and Federer are hosting a “Perfect Match” sweepstakes on the brand’s Facebook page. Through Sept. 9, fans can enter to win a grand prize trip to the Sony Ericsson Open in March, Federer-autographed items, and a variety of Lindor products. Lindt is also releasing a limited-edition Roger Federer Lindor Tennis Tube, filled with the truffles, available while supplies last at the Lindt Chocolate Shops in New York City’s Rolex Building and the Peninsula Hotel (suggested retail: $22).
Aegis Group reported first-half revenue of $947 million, up 15% with a 10% profit gain close to $46 million.Aegis’ first-half organic revenue growth (ORG), a key performance metric that excludes the impact of sales, acquisitions and currency fluctuations, was 8.6%. That’s on the high side, compared to a number of holding company competitors. MDC Partners, for example, reported first-half ORG of just under 7%, while Omnicom posted 5.1% growth for the same period. Publicis and Interpublic reported first-half ORG of 2.8% and 1.7%, respectively.Commenting on the company’s results, CEO Jerry Buhlmann stated that Aegis “continued to deliver its growth strategy, further increasing the revenue contribution from” both the company’s digital operations and from faster-growing geographic regions.The company’s latest half-year financial performance report may be its last as an independent public company. In July, it agreed to be acquired by Tokyo-based ad holding company Dentsu for approximately $5 billion. Aegis shareholders approved the transaction by a wide margin last week. The companies said they expect the transition to close in the fourth quarter. The deal still must gain regulatory approval from a number of countries, where the companies do business, including the U.S. and UK, among others.Aegis reported first-half net new business of $3.2 billion, driven by its January win of the global $3 billion-plus General Motors media assignment. By comparison, the company had net new business of $2 billion in the same period for 2011.By region, Aegis reported robust growth in the Americas, where revenues soared 38% to $214 million with ORG of 19%. The company noted that the GM business is managed by Carat USA. In the Asia-Pacific region, revenues were up 17% to $184 million with ORG of almost 14%. The company cited China and Australia as top performers.Revenues in the Europe Middle East and Africa region were up 5% to $485 million with organic growth of nearly 3%. Standout markets in the region were Russia, the UK and Turkey, per Aegis.
Product managers, listen up: It’s time to start worrying less about having conversations with your customers. There. I said it. Putting your efforts into creating a larger volume of quality content that stands the test of time will give your customer base what they’re really looking for. In production terms, this means the more you have a director saying, “Action!” the more you’ll be getting your message out into the marketplace. Don’t stress out if your social page doesn’t have thousands of followers, or if the ones you do have don’t comment on every post you make. In many cases, customers want to talk about a brand, but they don’t necessarily care to have the brand speak back to them. What consumers need is content that they can react to in the first place. Take the example of the Hot Wheels Custom Motors Cup, a project I directed for Mattel in 2010. 30 months after launch, the videos in that campaign have amassed more than 20 million combined views. The stat of note is not 20 million views, but rather 30 months. Rather than build an experience that was tied to any one campaign, Mattel chose to create an evergreen bit of interactivity that continues to perform strongly in aggregate almost three years after its release. Or take the now-classic Old Spice “Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign, which continues to build views more than two and a half years after its original upload to YouTube. As of the writing of this article, there were more than 20 new comments posted to the original video in the last three days alone, which means this video and the dozens of others related to its campaign continue to draw traffic. Leaving the viewer with this sort of lasting impression (aka: “a brand”) should be the long-term focus of product managers. Where video is concerned, this means a focus on creating more overall content, and positioning it to run for a long time. It’s time to think in years, not hours. Take into consideration a recent bitly article about the best time to post content on various social outlets, which tells us to post on Facebook between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m., and to post on Twitter from 1 to 3 p.m., Monday through Thursday. It also reminds us that the half-life of a Twitter link is about three hours. In this climate of Twitter links being referred to as having a half-life, video producers need to think about distributing for the long run. Videos are expensive to produce, and content that has a longer lifespan stands a better chance of making a lasting impression with current and future customers. (For those of you who like buzzwords, this means better ROI!) Consider launching each video to as many outlets as possible rather than trying to drive traffic to a particular version of a video. When coupled with appropriately written descriptions and keywords, the result can be a wide distribution of content that will build organic search rankings over time. Yes, there are situations where conversation is appropriate. If you need to solve a negative backlash issue, need feedback for product development, or want to build and strengthen a loyal base of online evangelists, then you must converse with your customers. Otherwise, keep your focus on building the quantity of your message over time, and the authority of your brand will build itself.
You’d better get ready: TV media-buying processes, protocols and parameters are coming to the Web. Lately, the trades have been full of stories about the long-awaited convergence between ads on the Web and ads on television. For example, like TV, we’ve seen both Nielsen and comScore launch GRP (gross rating point)-defined measurements and reports for online ad campaigns. We’ve seen the bridging of online and offline media behaviors with the recent launch of Nielsen Online Audience Segments, which enable Web video ad companies like Microsoft, Adap.TV, Collective, Undertone and Videology to target online audiences according to their “look-alike” TV viewing behaviors. And, just like TV, we’ve seen more and more agencies limit their payments to Web video companies only to the verified delivery of “in-demo” audiences they are able to deliver in their campaigns. Multiplatform advertising is finally arriving -- albeit in fits and starts, linked across platforms more like a paper cup and string telephone than the locked-down digital linkage we’ll certainly have within a few years. However, as we bring together campaigns running on different media, we find that technology is not the only thing we need to integrate. We need to knit together some very different and, sometimes contradictory, business practices as well. The online world is all about directly measured ad impressions. TV is about panel projections and buying shows and ratings -- not really impressions the way online folks use them. The online world has embraced and exploited audience-based campaigns to an extraordinary level. The TV world is still having problems getting past fundamental, almost prehistoric sex/age demographic targeting. The online world values campaign and impressions according to return-on-investment. The TV world focuses much more on scarcity. The differences aren't just limited to key buying metrics and approaches. Both online and TV operate under rules that, in many cases, don’t translate well from one platform to the other. Take the overnight daypart in TV. In the days of test patterns, four analog channels and rabbit ears -- when most of TV advertising’s rules were written -- any television programming airing after midnight was typically of very poor quality and frequently served only to help old folks deal with insomnia. Today, in a multi-hundred channel TV world, overnight viewers are more likely to be folks who work “swing shifts” or students watching a History Channel documentary and browsing online news sites at the same time. As TV-centric brand advertisers spend their money online, will they impose the same “no overnight” rules that they impose on their TV ads, under the assumption that anyone online after midnight is either watching porn or playing casuals games? Should they even be imposing the same no overnight rules on TV anymore,either? After all, increasingly, folks are using DRVs to record late-night shows to watch at a more convenient time. Many of the premium channels use the midnight to 6 a.m. hours to post reruns of this week's popular series – assuming, I suspect, such shows will be recorded. It’s hard to change well-established assumptions. Look at how slowly traditional media adapted to the Internet and mobile age. In our 24/7, always-on world of multiple platforms, it will be interesting to see if brands will see the overnight hours as the traditional dead zone, or as an emerging opportunity. What do you think will happen?
There are legends and there are heroes, and then there are people who have picked up the phone when destiny called, listened intently, and replied with a steely, "Yes, I am the champion of virtue that you seek, and I accept most major credit cards." My preparation, selflessness and resolve in the days leading up to our move to the 'burbs qualifies me for that latter group. While The Missus has been tending to mundanities like packing, hiring the movers, setting up utilities, cooking and cleaning, helping me find my shirt and raising our child, I have fearlessly charged through 26 hours of TV shows frozen for eternity on our soon-to-be-returned DVR. As a result, I was barely able to make it through my usual ration of three newspapers last Sunday. Is the proper recognition for such brave comportment a street named in my honor, or are we in presidential-citation territory here? Either way, I was hoping to complement my moving musings with a survey of what I imagined would be myriad branded video series chronicling the process. I expected to find a solid 15-20 clips/series in which an overburdened family - two working parents, three drooling children, and an incontinent pet - were rescued from moving chaos by a zenboy/spiritgirl who just happened to be brand-affiliated. He/she would walk the family through the four major stages of moving evolution (purging, preparing, packing, dropping box on pinkie toe) and neutralize anyone who wasn't with the program. At clip's end, we'd see the family happy and established in its new home, a domestic scene that could be my own before the decade is out, and the brand all prominent and whatnot. Yet there isn't a single clip out there that approaches this description. We have 8,200 branded series set in workplaces populated by comely white 20-somethings, 8,199 of which ape the Office mockumentary model, but not a one that dramatizes the disruptive life trauma that is a move from one domicile to the next? Videos posted to YouTube by blissfully self-involved oversharers don't count. This is the worst instance of omissive marketing since the stealth rollout of Jalapeno Cheddar Tortilla Combos ("made with stone ground corn"). Any number of brands across a range of product and service categories could benefit from affiliation with such a project. Moving companies themselves are the obvious candidates, as their primary marketing tools appear to be self-submitted Yelp reviews ("on time very polite A++++") and begging random passersby to shower them with Facebook affection. But how about the major-league brands that play a role, sooner or later, in every homeowner's existence? Samsung is so eager to network my house with its audio and video components that I might have to apply for a restraining order. And I've spent so much time in Lowe's over the last few weeks that I've met four of the flooring guy's five kids (such scamps!). With the caveats that I know less than nothing about marketing or content creation and that my primary focus of study in college was gerunds, here's how "Busted Move" - that's the working title, because you can never go wrong with a slightly negative-sounding moniker that plays off the title of a 1980s hit - might go down. We'd open on a family house in a state of major disarray - boxes everywhere, brush fires in the kitchen, screaming kids smeared with war paint, dad cowering in the corner, mom trying to stop her hands from shaking long enough to down her Chardonnay, etc. Then we'd go back to the start: the picture-perfect family meeting with a moving consultant (or Lowe's new-home-fixer-upper guy, or whoever). From there, we'd be treated to scenes from both the actual universe (an attentive, orderly moving process, guided by our serene brand ambassadors) and the alternate one (overexaggerated filth, wanton property destruction and inward-directed fury). It'd be funniest if the alternate version depicted a simultaneous unraveling of the family unit - the moving process exposing schisms that nobody knew were there - but clearly any rough edges would have to be sanded smooth to get brands on board with it. So maybe there's mild, respectful sparring over whether to chuck the circa-1997 La-Z-Boy recliner (branding!)? Something like that. I've clearly thought this through. And honey, I'm keeping my effin' chair. Since this ranks among the greatest ideas in the history of online video, I've taken the liberty of copyrighting it. I'd watch "Busted Move." You'd watch "Busted Move," assuming you recently moved, plan to do so in the indeterminate future or have too much time on your hands. It will claim awards and a place in your heart. Get on it, brand minions.
Inc. Magazine released their annual list of the fastest growing U.S. companies this week, and only two video ad companies made the list. Adap.tv, which comes in at No. 32 on the list, and TubeMogul, which comes in at number 141. Both Adap.tv and TubeMogul focus specifically on RTB and both companies are based in San Francisco.