• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, April 23, 2008

Web video network Broadband Enterprises has selected ScanScout as its exclusive domestic provider of in-stream video advertising, the companies are expected to announce today.

ScanScout becomes the exclusive provider of overlay video ads for Broadband Enterprises' lifestyle, news and entertainment affiliate network. "The deal expands our network five to seven times to roughly about a billion monthly streams in the U.S.," said ScanScout co-founder and CEO Waikit Lau.

Despite drawing large and highly engaged audiences, social and video-sharing networks have had difficulty making the experiences relevant for marketers.

ScanScout has been trying to change that with Brand Protector, a proprietary technology that scans online video content to determine its appropriateness for a particular advertiser's brand. Its technology breaks up a video into tiny segments, which it lumps into ad categories, making sure the piece of content is both ad-friendly and relevant.

"ScanScout's Brand Protector, as well as their additional technology offerings, holds great potential moving forward," said Darryl LaRue, executive vice president of operations and marketing at Broadband Enterprises.

BBE plans to implement ScanScout's overlay technology across its news and entertainment affiliate network, which includes some 1,800 branded local TV, newspaper and radio sites across the country. "This relationship enables our delivery of overlay ads from Fortune 500 brands across BBE's roster of A-list publisher partners," Lau said.

ScanScout's proprietary content-matching technology is expected to increase the ability of Broadband Enterprises to monetize its network's traffic by automatically matching relevant ads with its professionally produced content.

ScanScout's creative ad formats provide additional opportunities for advertisers to showcase their messages in ways that encourage interaction. The company claims to have served more than one billion ad impressions in the most recent six months, while the partnership with BBE is expected to bring exponential growth.

On average, Lau said, the company now commands $15 CPMs for overlay ads. "That number," he added, "varies depending on campaign size, targeting technology, and other factors."

Expanding further into the world of original content development, Broadband Enterprises is scheduled to hold its digital upfront for advertisers later this week. Presently, Broadband Enterprises is producing two original online video programs, "The Fantastic Two"--a mockumentary series that chronicles a pair of sports fanatics and their fantasy football wars--and a celebrity news-focused "Access Hollywood"-like series named "Hollywood Fast Track."

With the help of Omnicom's OMD Digital, Broadband Enterprises has attached some big brands to its original programming. For "Cube Fabulous," a mock-makeover series made exclusively for the Web, OMD brought in AOL. And the deal paid off: It its third season, "Fabulous'" 16 five- to-seven-minute episodes were streamed 200 million times by some 25 million unique users.

For "Fantastic Two," OMD wrangled up none other than McDonald's. Since the series debuted this fall, it has so far been streamed 30 million times.