• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, February 4, 2014

No one seems to know exactly what will become of online video except that it will be major and profound and change the world.

But from an advertising perspective, is the major advance that online video will engage consumers in an exciting, useful interactive exchange with brands? Or is the magic that its algorithms allow brands to know exactly where to go to find the consumers it needs? 

These are the $64,000 questions, as they said back in the days when that whole previous paragraph would have sounded like total gibberish.

One thing that won’t happen: Nobody is likely to actually sit down and figure it out.

Businesses evolve in stupid ways, so that, to this day, the 10-pack of hot dogs is met by the eight-pack of hot dog buns. It must look like a conspiracy to get consumers to buy too much of one or the other. It’s probably not.

Cecil Adams, author of “The Straight Dope,” doesn’t know either but theorizes: “You get 10 hot dogs and eight buns per package because meat packers like things that come in pounds and bakers hate things that come in tens.” He adds bakers work in a dozens world, in which it is most familiar to divide by two. But he can’t say for sure.

Tell me if you’re smelling the similarities between how TV and online video advertisers view the proper measurements and objectives for advertising.

 I just saw a good charticle about how various factions in the video/TV worlds see the near future of content advertising headed. Written by Ayaz Nanji,  a digital consultant and research writer for a site called MarketingProfs.com, he points readers to recent data from Forrester Consulting done on behalf of Videology.

Nanji notes where two roads diverse. “For example, respondents from media companies and agencies are optimistic about TV viewers' interacting with supplemental content on a second screen, whereas advertisers are skeptical, especially about the likelihood of consumers' engaging with ad-related offerings.”

Go on…

“Another gap is apparent in describing the advantages of online video: Advertisers say they are attracted by the promise of targeting and better communication, whereas their agencies see a greater benefit in the medium's interactivity and improved audience attention rates.”

When the survey asked advertising agencies, media companies and advertisers how content will evolve in the next three years, there was a broad disconnect. Among advertisers, only 59% believe original online content is the wave of the future. Among media companies (76%) and advertisers (80%), there is much more of a belief that new content is the next wave.

That’s not surprising from a survival point of view. More content expands their universe. Likewise, for advertisers, better sharing of the content that already exists makes it easier for advertisers to know the kinds of programs their ads are supporting.

Interesting, but in almost all the stats, no one side is wildly out of sync with the others. But in most cases, off just enough that based on the stats alone, there’s enough grayness they’re off enough to irritate, like a badly dubbed foreign film.

But neither side may see it from the side of the consumer, which is exactly a replay of that hot dog/bun conundrum. You can argue that the market will decide, but that’s true only to the extent the market is ever presented with the choice.

pj@mediapost.com