• by Naj Kidwai , March 11, 2009

By now, we've all seen the grim forecasts for the online advertising industry in 2009. But just because times are tough and spending is down, it doesn't mean that innovation has to stop. In fact, economic downturns often spur great innovation and creativity.

Wikipedia, LinkedIn and MySpace are great examples of companies that thrived coming out of the dot-com crash earlier this decade. Today, innovation is needed in the online video market. Current ad products like pre-roll and overlay are being rejected by consumers who don't want to be interrupted by brand messages that prevent them from watching the video content they want to see.

Rather than interrupting their intended audience, brands need to reach consumers as they engage with the video content that is important to them. They can do this by combining user profile targeting data (e.g. geographic, behavioral) with technology capabilities that encourage consumers to interact with the brand during a time when they are most likely to purchase.

Think about advertising in the offline world. Aren't the most effective forms of advertising when brands put the right information in a prospective customer's hands at the right time? For example, if you are able to listen to a CD that interests you at a music store, you are closely engaging with the artist during a time when your purchase intent is at its highest point. Why not take a similar approach in the online world?

The secret ingredient that advertisers and marketers are looking for in 2009 is a personalized brand experience. We're moving into a new era where consumers no longer want to be served a static ad online. Rather, they are looking for personalization, interactivity and relevance. They want to feel they're an integral part of the brand's identity, have a choice in the type of content they consume and help dictate how they consume it. In this context, the content IS the ad. Video technology has evolved and now enables advertisers to dynamically assemble content so that an online video ad experience puts more creative control in the consumers' hands based on the types of content that interest them.

The concept of personalized video enables advertisers to go beyond the production of just one generic advertisement, which targets a mass audience. Today, it is possible for brands to create hundreds, thousands, or more of these video ads -- each of which is made specifically to resonate with individuals. Technically, the video material is segmented and tagged based on various categories, possible storylines are defined, and then the appropriate video clips are edited together in real time using storyboard technology. So the right story is built "live" out of clips that will resonate with that individual. When the ad is personalized and uniquely targeted at an individual level, brands will be that much closer to driving more sales conversions and increasing the ROI of their campaigns.

If personalization didn't work 10 years ago, why is now the right time for innovation? Understandably, advertisers of all sizes are slashing budgets and prioritizing projects during these trying economic times. However, the current options among online ad products have not been embraced by consumers, and as a result, brands have been left with a monetization model that is broken. An economic downturn presents a great opportunity for advertisers and their agencies to invest in new technologies and experiment with new products that drive differentiation and stimulate business growth during the next economic upswing.

Now is the right time because ad-serving technology and targeting capabilities have drastically improved over the past few years, and the innovative technology to exploit all of that carefully gathered viewer information via video has arrived. While pre-roll and overlays continue to turn consumers off, personalized video campaigns, which deliver customized video experiences and better engage the individual viewer, typically deliver much better conversion rates for the brand along with a much higher ROI.

Video has changed: now it's personal!