Here's a tough sell: Agency folks should be telling their clients to invest more in online video because it's audiences are more valuable than TV audiences. Is that true? Pound for pound, yes,
given that video audiences are more contained and engaged in what they're doing, but this comes at the expense of TV's massive reach. If your client is a national brand advertiser, don't be surprised
if they reject shifting a significant portion of TV spending to online video. If you work for a business-to-business, automotive or financial services company, they're more likely to listen.
In an AAF study, leading ad executives said they "expect a large share of their advertising budgets over the next few years, originally slated for broadcast and cable TV advertising, to shift to
online video buys." But if you believe eMarketer's November figures, online video is expected to hit just $775 million in 2007, while TV spending hovers at above $60 billion.
The article
points to a great comparison: online video is like soccer in the United States -- regularly talked about as being the next big thing, but only experiencing temporary surges in popularity in reality.
What's really needed to foster growth is reach and frequency metrics that TV folks understand. They need to be able to measure online video performance against TV.
Read the whole story at IMedia Connection »