Jeep Rolls With CPE Pricing Method For Video Ads

Jeep Cherokee ad

ScanScout has created a cost-per-engagement (CPE) method for measuring standard pre-roll video ads and signed Jeep through Universal McCann as the first brand to use the pricing metric for the medium, according to Jason Krebs, executive vice president for the technology vendor.

Engagement pricing is not new to the ad industry, but companies don't typically use the metric to measure engagement with pre-roll ads. Universal McCann repurposed a Jeep TV spot and put it online, adding interactive social elements to the video. ScanScout only charges the advertiser when the viewer engages with the creative.

Universal McCann signed on with ScanScout because it continues the search for a better method to measure branding, according to Guy Schueller, senior vice president and group digital director at Universal McCann, spearheading the Jeep campaign.

"It's a huge step to let consumers decide when to engage with the video, and then pay based on that," Schueller says. "Chrysler is really pushing online video and digital. The new Jeep product is important and video demonstrates the features."

Parks Associates forecasts U.S. online video ad revenue will exceed $1.3B in 2010.

Schueller says at times "we're still looking at click-through and back-end performance on the Web site, and that's where branding falls short. It's not necessarily a direct-response metric." It's more about raising and finding a new way to measure awareness of a product.

Universal McCann also plans to look at search-query volume, buzz and time spent with the ad unit as metrics to monitor success. Schueller "would love to buy everything on an engagement level." Online advertising provides the opportunity, but not all companies are willing to switch to a CPE model. "It would help digital's cause, but we're not there yet," he says.

The CPE model could eventually work for television, considering the latest set-top box technology, he says.

ScanScout defines engagement when the viewers either mouse over the ad for at least three seconds or click on the ad. The interactive features allow people to click through to another site or expand the video. The ads deliver the sight, sound and motion, and the metrics are exported into the advertiser's preferred dashboard.

The technology monitors video views, analyzes streams for visual cues and translates the audio file through a semantic engine to monitor the content and follow the metadata surrounding the video. The ads can run across between 700 and 1,000 Web sites that have their own video player.

In addition to ScanScout, the video for the Jeep campaign began rolling out this week. Earlier this month the ad ran on AOL, Facebook, MSN, Yahoo, YouTube, and USA Today. 

2 comments about "Jeep Rolls With CPE Pricing Method For Video Ads".
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  1. Jaffer Ali from PulseTV, July 29, 2010 at 9:11 a.m.

    One can only marvel at the uber thinking that spawned this solution. A business model that centers around engaging with something that people are trying to avoid; advertising. What is likely to happen is the metric will by necessity become more and more expensive per engagement because less and people will engage. As soon as the non-engagement becomes overwhelmingly obvious, the price of delivering the few engagements must increase.

  2. The digital Hobo from TheDigitalHobo.com, July 30, 2010 at 2:30 p.m.

    Do you have to crap on every article that wasn't written by you or an Einstein?

    Do you guys cut-and-paste your responses? We get it. People are equipped to, and try to, avoid ads.

    Yes, as engagement rates go down, the price per engagement will go up. But you seem to be ignoring the actually benefit of performance pricing.

    At a $25 CPE (just for the hell of it), thats a BARGAIN to reach an interested customer for a $25,000 product.

    They practically get the branding opportunity for free.

    But since any advertising that isn't requested directly by a user is bad advertising, I assume you don't see it that way.

    Is it ideal? Maybe not. But if its good enough for the parties involved, whats the harm?

    And lastly, they are talking about interactive pre-roll. There's no reason to be writing off the idea of well targeted, engaging advertising delivered in stream.

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