Commentary
Where Does Digital Video Advertising Go From Here?
- by Jack Cohen-Martin , December 6, 2012
As with most things digital, online video views are rising month over month. It's the classic hockey stick growth curve. In August 2012, 188 million U.S. Internet users watched 37.7 billion online content videos, according to comScore. This growth is driven by the fact that we are living in a multi-device, multiplatform world where consumers are watching video on phones, video game consoles with integrated video offerings, tablets, laptops, etc.
Yet there still exists several licensing and distribution challenges that will need to be figured out by traditional content providers -- for example, Hollywood, television studios and cable/television networks -- in order to be truly able to deliver the video content that consumers want to watch, when and where they want to watch it.
As a direct result of this growing consumer demand for digital video, the video advertising ecosystem is also growing and thriving. So while growth in the space is good for all of us, it is by no means a panacea. There’s a lot we can do to improve the gaps in the video advertising value chain.
What's this gap in the system I’m speaking of?
First let’s look at the dilemma faced by any number of ad agencies. On the one hand, they control much of the video advertising creative, like the TV ads created for a national TV campaign targeted to a wide national audience. On the other hand, agencies also have client CMOs who want and expect the granular targeting that online video advertising promises. Yet, in reality, how can you expect that agencies can somehow create and deliver 50 or 60 custom (i.e: targeted) variations of an ad to deliver geo, contextually, demographically targeted video ads to multiple video ad network or content partners?
On top of that, while the campaign is running, you need to keep track of all the multiple variations, distinguish between them and create aggregated reports.
Yet, this gap can be bridged. There exists any number of agencies and ad tech vendors working to solve this problem. Imagine the day when an agency or a technology partner can take a single national TV spot creative, then automatically generate and distribute multiple online video ads -- variations that are targeted across demographic, geo, contextual, etc. And, these ads will also be viewable cross-platform and accessible on multiple devices.
Let’s imagine the day when we can take a television spot for a new SUV model and deliver it digitally so that consumers see video creative that is married with a local call to action within the ad -- the location of the closest dealer, a 30-day offer on 0% financing, you name it, the possibilities are endless.
Let’s not stop there. Let’s also consider the multiplatform opportunities that this can create as well. With the rise in mobile video advertising consumption, customizing your video ads for the mobile medium will allow even further targeting and better results.
A highly targeted mobile video ad containing a special offer, coupon, voucher or clickable directions to a local location all integrated with the brand's recognizable TV creative.
That's where we think the next evolution of online video advertising is headed. What about you? What do you think the next evolution in online video will be?
Behavioral Based Social Media System for the Cable TV Market
Cable has long history of failing to develop 1-1 target marketing. Canoe Ventures (MSO venture) was touted as the Holy Grail of targeted advertising and was less than a success.
http://www.businessinsider.com/jason-kilar-here-are-my-thoughts-on-hulu-and-the-future-of-tv-2011-2
Excerpt from above link on February, 2011 Business Insider
Identifies advertising market being missed by Cable TV operators
“Advertisers have weighed in heavily on the future of TV, with both their thoughts and their considerable wallets. Advertisers are increasingly expecting to present their advertising messages to just their desired audience…and not to anyone else. For over 60 years, video advertising could only be bought via a TV show’s projected audience, which served as a blunt proxy for a certain target audience. The result has been many wasted impressions and an often irrelevant experience for consumers. In the near future, advertisers will demand the ability to target their messages to people rather than targeting their messages to TV shows as proxies for people.”
The obvious alternative, with the least cost to implement is an independent Cloud CRM solution designed to cross index cable subscriber households with their corresponding social network interests. The current regulatory and privacy issues experienced by cable TV operators gathering unauthorized data from set-top boxes could be minimized, by validating subscriber and even eliminated by essentially having an opt-in plan (provided conveniently by the social media). Access along with profile and interests of households would be controlled by the subscriber’s social media platform of choice. Facebook has high consumer acceptance and could be used for household profiles, product interests, social interests, and viewing entertainment interests. There would be incentives to the subscribers to opt-in including notification and reminder of viewing favorites, Groupon type ads, and specific ads matching interests with infomercial type group discounts and urgency to buy.
The current design of target marketing advertising ventures is fundamentally flawed. They focus on demographics, and fail to identify the individual behavioral current and future household interests.
Project would involve developing a bidirectional Cloud interface program using a CRM application between the social media and MSO subscriber records and communicating behavioral marketing - business advertising, discounts, specific videos/groups, family albums – providing subscriber awareness of TV programming -- movies, products, etc. similar to Amazon and Groupon. This would make subscriber stickier and substantially reduce turnover.
To paraphrase a comment I made in the CED 1999 publication about the Internet, cable TV operators need to become the new best friends with the over 1 Billion members of social media.
We're one of those adtech companies that is making it possible to generate 50 or 60 custom variations of an ad and we're working with great ad server partners to make this a reality, perhaps the norm, in 2013. Pilots have already taken place -- it's not vaporware.
But consider an even longer view... where video ad is as malleable as display, including retargeting. Impossible? Nope - coming sooner than you think.
We are already doing this for clients using our audience platform. We use key words drawn from the advertisers creative build to bring in "live" best of the web feed to add more value. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukx-LBVH2vY&feature=youtu.be is our early beta. For instance, in the example given for an SUV ad campaign we can run geo-located feed letting the viewer know where the cheapest vehicle is by location proximity, book a test drive, read recent reviews etc. Like wise for a movie trailer you can read reviews, check session times and book etc etc.
There will be much more to come.
This is just the beginning.
It isn't rocket science.