Mar 27

Major Moves in the Online Video Space

By Heather Timmerman Digital Media Trends, Video Comments Off
Yahoo-Spotify

Image courtesy of pcworld.com.mx

For a slow holiday week, there are a couple of big news stories that could potentially change the landscape of the online video space. It could all be speculation, but anyone that pays attention to what’s happening in online video or is in charge of digital marketing for their organisations should probably take note nonetheless.

The Stories:

On March 25th the Business Insider and Fast Company both released stories about major players looking to do some interesting things with video. First up is Spotify, the digital music service that allows users to play music wherever and whenever they are online, via computer, tablet, or mobile, for a monthly fee. The service also has a social element to it which allows users to create playlists, see what their friends are listening to, and share great new song discoveries. While Spotify is popular with many consumers, their margins are relatively low due to the fact that they have to pay the music labels each time a user listens to a song. Therefore, they are looking for ways to create exclusive content to increase their margins and turning to video. Whether that means they become another on-demand video service such as Netflix or HBO creating successful series such as House of Cards or Sex and the City remains to be seen (Source: Business Insider).

Another interesting development in the online video space this week revolves around Yahoo. They are in talks to buy Dailymotion, a relatively small YouTube competitor which, according to Fast Company proves “that the future of the Internet lies squarely in video” (Source: Fast Company). The article makes some pretty impressive points in terms of how the web is shifting from text to online video which makes the potential Dailymotion purchase by Yahoo all the more interesting. While YouTube is for the moment the “single point of upload and playback for web video” other major players such as Facebook, AOL, and Amazon have made an impact in the video space. Most notably for those of us in the video syndication space, is AOL’s revenue jump in part due to their 5Min acquisition.  This has allowed them to build a video network with a mix of created, curated, and live video with the ”understanding that they need to be both a destination and a distributor of video to third party sites” (Source: Fast Company).

The Trends:

The three trends the Dailymotion acquisition and/or the Spotify video business model move could validate for the growing popularity of the use of online video revolve around: audience, devices, and money. The holy trinity for lack of a better term. Video drives website traffic and the increasing use of mobile devices increases the use of video, which ultimately brings in advertising revenues. Here are a few fun facts to chew on keeping those trends in mind:

Audience: The sum of all forms of video (TV, video on demand [VoD], Internet, and P2P) will be approximately 86 percent of global consumer traffic by 2016. (Cisco)

Devices: 93% of smartphone users use their devices in the home, and almost 50% of users watch videos on their smartphones. 90% of smartphone searches result in an action such as a purchase or a visit to a business. (Google Blog, April 2011)

Money: Online video is the fastest growing ad format in 2012 with nearly 55% growth. (eMarketer, January 2012). The online video industry will reach $28.72 billion in 2017, soaring from the $3.79 billion recorded in 2010 and the $11.14 billion expected in 2012. (Digital TV Research). Source: Fast Company

About Preview Networks

Preview Networks is a content marketing platform for brands and content aggregation and syndication platform for publishers. We provide the tools for brands to centrally distribute and manage marketing and PR content across media destinations, devices, and commerce platforms; allowing media partners to automate content acquisition delivering audience and advertising revenue growth. Acquired by Rightster in February 2013, our combined offering strengthens video distribution, marketing, and monetisation services globally.

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Nov 27

Black, Cyber & Mobile Strategies are Good for Online Sales

By Heather Timmerman Digital Media Trends Comments Off

Black Friday, known to many in North America as the day after Thanksgiving when retail stores offer deeply discounted products to kick start the holiday shopping season, saw record sales online at $1billion, a 26% increase from 2011. While the offline sales figures are still being calculated, the online numbers are showing shoppers are starting earlier, with many shopping online on Thanksgiving Day itself as well, with a 32% increase compared to 2011 (Source: comScore).

The holiday sales boosting strategy is no longer just an American phenomenon as Canada has begun to offer deals on this day to keep Canadians from heading south. There are even projections indicating sales over the four days after Thanksgiving, estimated at $43.7 billion, could be bigger than Boxing Day (or Week), which is historically the biggest shopping period in Canada where retailers offer discounted products for shoppers looking to exchange gifts after Christmas (Source: CBCNews.ca, HollywoodReporter.com). UPDATE: Weekend sales reached $59.1 billion, up 12% from 2011. Read more here.

While online sales numbers are impressive, retail stores like Macy’s have capitalised on the increase in smartphone users by launching apps specifically for Black Friday luring customers into stores and directing them to the deal they fancy in the exact location of the store in order to avoid crowds (Source: NYTimes.com). For those who have ever gone shopping on Black Friday, one could see how this would be particularly valuable.  For those who haven’t, any number of videos can be easily found to steer you clear of the cattle call-like crowds.

Cyber Monday is projected to reach $1.5 billion in online sales and as of 11am on Monday, sales for Amazon had risen 52% compared to 2011 (Source: comScore, Bloomberg). Many brick and mortar retailers began online sales over the weekend or on Monday so as to not conflict with the Friday in-store deals, but online retailers such as eBay, who had seen a 57% increase in sales compared to 2011, began offering mobile-only deals starting at 5:23pm on Thanksgiving Day. The precise moment they estimated consumers would go online to surf the internet (Source: Bloomberg.com).

Consumers seem to have taken the bait as overall sales via mobile devices increased to 16.3% in 2012 compared to 9.8% in 2011, with tablets (or more specifically iPads) outpacing sales via smartphones at 10% compared to iPhone users at 8.7% and Android users at 5.5% on Thanksgiving Day (Source: SearchEngineWatch.com). Not only was mobile advertising effective in encouraging consumers online, physical mobile sales themselves seem to be a popular commodity with 26% of shoppers buying a smartphone and 22% buying a tablet on Black Friday according to data from the Consumer Electronics Association (Source: HollywoodReporter.com).

So what do all of these facts and figures tell us? For the first time ever, more people shopped online than in stores (Source: MediaPost). The holiday season is starting earlier online than in stores, which gives retailers an opportunity to reach those shoppers. Online e-commerce is a compliment to offline retail strategies and mobile advertising is increasingly becoming a way to encourage online consumer action. For more information on the online/offline connection, check out last week’s blog.

About Preview Networks

Preview Networks is a content marketing platform for brands and content aggregation and syndication platform for publishers. We provide the tools for brands to centrally distribute and manage marketing and PR content across media destinations, devices, and commerce platforms; allowing media partners to automate content acquisition delivering audience and advertising revenue growth.

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Nov 21

Advertising ROI: A TV & Online Comparison

By Heather Timmerman addience, Digital Media Trends, Video Comments Off

Increasing evidence from various studies and reports indicate that online video is a compliment to TV versus a replacement when it comes to advertising and branding efforts (Source: State of the Video Industry Q4 2012). Sticking with the theme from last week’s blog which discussed how media is bought and measured in the TV and online world, the question of how (or whether) ROI is measured is an obvious one. However, the results and answers to this question are less than obvious. 

Given ROI metrics for TV are still being developed 70 years after the first ad was broadcast, it begs the question why online is held to higher standards at a fraction of the cost (Source: gigaom.com, nielsen.com)? Does the receptiveness of the consumer mindset and time and place have something to do with it? Perhaps; as most consumers are watching TV after work hours and online during work hours, although tablets and mobile could challenge that theory. A logical reason could simply be that those in the advertising industry have learned from their mistakes and do not want to repeat history without proven ROI for all future advertising mediums.

Regardless of the reason, TV advertising has been shown to produce higher yields for a percentage of campaigns but the return cannot necessarily be guaranteed for all. A three year study by Deutsche Bank indicates that although in half of the advertising campaigns the return did not sufficiently cover the media cost, the gain from the other half more than offset the cost (Source: wpp.com). However, additional recent research by Accenture indicates that 82% of TV ads generate negative ROI, and a recent study by Simulmedia using data from Nielsen and Kantar Media shows that in the majority of cases, TV ads are only seen by 20% of marketers’ targeted audience (Source: Financial Times).

Online advertising on the other hand, has a targeted audience focus with immediate measurable results, but some would argue it lacks the reach of TV, while others would argue scale is the internet’s strength (Source: gigaom.com, techcrunch.com). Platforms such as Facebook with over 1 billion active monthly users are quickly gaining ground, but the industry has yet to settle on the most effective online advertisement type or strategy, which is completely dependent on the brand or advertiser goal (Source: facebook.com). From keyword advertising to banner ads to video, and paid, owned, earned, and social media strategies, the options are vast.

Research any of these methods and you will find multiple studies indicating online keyword campaigns increase offline sales results, to online banners are dead, and that video is the new TV (Source: inc.com, forbes.com, tech crunch.com). How can a marketer not be confused? Out of all the data, one theme is ringing through loud and clear. The proven use of sight, sound, and motion in the TV world is quickly becoming the preferred method of choice online as well with video advertising projections continuing to increase year over year (Source: MediaPost). Advertisers have even gone so far as to say that online video is just as effective if not more than TV advertising, but they also said that more definitive ROI and success metrics are still needed (Source: TechCrunch, Brightroll Report).

Facebook seems to have found a way to close the loop through their partnership with Datalogix, a Nielsen competitor (Source: BusinessInsider.com). The way it works is after a user views or clicks on an ad on Facebook, the retail store collects the user/consumers email and home address information, which allows the brand or advertiser to cross-reference that information with a report Facebook provides, ensuring the user/consumers anonymity, and confirming the online and offline link. The question now remains whether the conversion percentage and overall yield is higher online compared to spend.

About Preview Networks

Preview Networks is a content marketing platform for brands and content aggregation and syndication platform for publishers. We provide the tools for brands to centrally distribute and manage marketing and PR content across media destinations, devices, and commerce platforms; allowing media partners to automate content acquisition delivering audience and advertising revenue growth.

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Nov 14

The Measurable Media Buy: A TV & Online Comparison

By Heather Timmerman addience, Digital Media Trends, Measurement Comments Off

While advertising is becoming more and more targeted for both offline and online mediums, it is still too early to tell how this will affect advertising buying and revenue trends in the future. While online is considered the most measurable medium in the world, TV still holds the majority of advertising budget spend. According to Nielsen, TV holds 61% of advertising dollars globally and in Europe online advertising is currently 20% of budgets according to the latest IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark report. 

Looking at the past 4 fiscal quarters (Q1&2 2012 and Q3&4 2011) there is a positive overall global trend in terms of advertising spend, even though it has steadily become lower per quarter. Starting with the oldest calendar quarter first, Q3 2011 showed a 9.6% increase, Q4 2011 showed a 7.3% increase and Q1 2012 showed a 3.1% increase in global advertising spend. While overall there was global growth in Q1 2012, Europe was the only region to show a decrease in spend. However, the first half of 2012 altogether shows an increase in spend by 2.7% compared to the first half of 2011 (Source: Nielsen.com, Blog.nielsen.com). Comparing 2010 to 2011 there is a marginal increase in U.S. ad spend by 1.8% and a decrease in Europe by -0.4% which indicates the London Olympics and U.S. Election advertising helped in 2012.

Breaking it down by medium, the first half of 2012 shows that even though Europe may have decreased spend overall, online advertising spend was up by 11.2% and TV down by -2.2%. The IAB indicates a 14.5% growth in online overall, with a 45% growth in video, and 132% growth in mobile advertising (Source: IAB UK). Even though all these numbers indicate there is a growth in online advertising mediums, and there have been a multitude of articles written about the shift of TV dollars to digital, TV continues to hold “the lions’s share” of ad dollars (Source: Nielsen). The question is 1) how long will that remain the case and 2) how important are measurable results to the media buy?

If we were to focus on the 2nd question first, the answer is uncertain considering ROI on TV Metrics are still being developed 80 years after the invention of the medium (Source: gigaom.com). Although there are measurement standards that still need to be put into place in the online space, the online advertising world allows brands and advertisers to be much more targeted and strategic than they can be with TV which relies mostly on demographics when buying ad space (gigaom.com). In terms of mass reach, there is no doubt TV dominates but that also comes with a massive price tag. Online syndication strategies, like those offered at Preview Networks, are increasingly becoming a viable option for brands and advertisers focused on reach. The “programmatic buying of video inventory” (otherwise known as RTB) allows for audience specific buys which could eventually close the gap between TV and online (Source: BeetTV/Forrester).

The answer to the 1st question above may take a few more years to develop before we see any monumental shifts moving budgets away from TV and more towards online, particularly as the Millennial generation becomes more influential in the media buy equation. The reality for now is that while online video trends are increasing, the advertising spend is much smaller than TV but the future looks bright. Projections for 2012 spend are 29% over 2011, with another 29% year-over-year growth forecast for 2013, and 27% growth for 2014 (Source: MediaPost). The good news for both advertising mediums is that measurement initiatives are becoming more strategic for TV and standardised for online in 2013 (gigaom.com, comscore.com). Hopefully that will provide more insight into how important measurement is in the media buy equation in the future.

About Preview Networks

Preview Networks is a content marketing platform for brands and content aggregation and syndication platform for publishers. We provide the tools for brands to centrally distribute and manage marketing and PR content across media destinations, devices, and commerce platforms; allowing media partners to automate content acquisition delivering audience and advertising revenue growth.

 

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Nov 08

The RTB Discussion for Brands & Publishers

By Heather Timmerman addience, Digital Media Trends Comments Off

There has been a lot of information and excitement in the online advertising industry about real-time bidding (RTB) as of late. While most of the articles are from markets advanced in this advertising buying method, as a European based international company, we understand that all markets are not created equal. Whether RTB is a regular practice in your market or not, one projection states that 50% of all online advertising will be bought or sold via RTB by 2015 and another states that RTB will grow at a compound rate of 60% over the next four years (MediaPost.com, AdExchanger.com). So in order to make sense of an increasing trend and all of the information overload, here is a breakdown of what RTB might mean for you as a brand marketer or publisher.

What does it mean?

Put very simply, RTB is an automatic way to buy display advertising in individual and targeted impressions versus buying a block of impressions on select websites. This moves the focus away from specific site lists and towards a more efficient audience buy. The demographic of the consumer or their search behaviour or purchase intent is more important than the website itself, as the brand or advertiser may want to reach a consumer who uses many websites in one day. The idea is to follow the consumer in a strategic and targeted way, not cross your fingers and hope that they visit the website on which you have purchased thousands of impressions.

How does this affect online video?

As online video is currently being bought and sold in display advertising spaces, RTB is very relevant for online video advertising buys at the moment. However, this is a very troublesome approach as we have stated in our Online Video Advertising Challenges & Opportunities three-part blog series as it works against the medium’s potential as an advertising tool. When video is negotiated and analysed in a CPM world, there are also measurement and placement challenges. However based on the description of RTB above, one could argue this could benefit video advertising buying in the future. If recent trends are any indication of the changes to come, then the partnership by video music site Vevo and Adap.tv, are an indication of what private exchanges could mean for the industry in terms of premium placements and monetisation of video inventory.

Who are the players?

Many agencies and ad networks are using this buying mechanism to help brands and advertisers with their online advertising initiatives. From a brand perspective, you will have many different RTB solutions or partners – not just one, as a recent article by MediaPost points out. Brands may also encounter RTB’s through their demand side platform (DSP) provider which by definition, optimises media buying from multiple sources including ad exchanges and ad networks. From a publisher perspective, RTB’s help them improve yield and fill rates by exposing the inventory to a larger buyer number. By allowing a sell side platform (SSP) to optimise media selling, publishers can increase their earned revenue dollar and decrease unsold inventory. The IAB has a great chart that outlines and explains all the various players in the online advertising ecosystem which is highly recommended for more information.

What to be aware of?

As a marketer you want the most ‘bang for your buck’ which means maximising message delivery in front of a relevant audience. The idea behind RTB is to eliminate wasted impressions on sites that are not producing results for your advertising. There have been some RTB concerns regarding ads appearing on low-quality sites, so you will want to make sure your RTB vendors use brand safety mechanisms to ensure this doesn’t happen (Source: MediaPost.com). There are also some performance efficiency concerns in which some argue technologies still need to be built in order to protect advertisers. Either way, as long as the brand or advertisers are knowledgeable and aware of the issues, there are partners to work with to ensure an “in-view” ad impression (Source: AdExchanger.com). From a publisher perspective, you want to maximise all possible advertising spaces and revenue potential, and RTB’s help you accomplish this task. However, the revenue potential is minimal due to the abundance of inventory available in the exchange. On one hand earning revenue is a good thing, but on the other the inventory available may not be premium quality or relevant for your site. The question is, whether premium exchanges will be able to solve this issue.

What are the alternatives?

For brands, the alternative is to keep a manual, control based approach to media buying which means you are in charge of all advertising placement and audience decisions. The benefit to this method is assurance your ad is only seen on sites and in spots that you deem appropriate. On the other hand, scalability may be lost. Brands also need to ensure they have the appropriate amount of in-house resources or partners secured in order to make these buying decisions. For publishers, the alternative to using an RTB is also manual ensuring readers or viewers are always exposed to the messaging you would like them to receive. The in-house resource requirement is an increased need in this case as well, which means the revenue opportunity could be decreased if the appropriate ad cannot be sourced, resulting in unsold inventory. Ultimately, the RTB decision for both brands and publishers comes down to whether scalability or control is the focus.

About Preview Networks

Preview Networks is a content marketing platform for brands and content aggregation and syndication platform for publishers. We provide the tools for brands to centrally distribute and manage marketing and PR content across media destinations, devices, and commerce platforms; allowing media partners to automate content acquisition delivering audience and advertising revenue growth.

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Oct 24

The Art & Science of Marketing Just Got Technical With Digital Content

By Heather Timmerman Digital Media Trends Comments Off

The inspiration for this post comes from a great article based on a McKinsey report which can be summed up by this one simple message: marketing is complicated. In a world where the channels and vehicles available to deliver a brand or marketing message has increased from few to many, and where consumer attention spans and patience are becoming increasingly short, one could argue the audience and attention fragmentation of the industry and consumer is working against the average marketer. 

On the other hand, there are more tools and technology on the market today than there has ever been to target consumers and measure the success of those efforts. This opens up the possibility for marketers to be more strategic than ever before. In a recent Forrester blog post the concept of marketing mix modeling (MMM) was discussed which effectively measures the sales impact and ROI from marketing activities. However, marketing mix modeling not only requires a dramatic internal shift in decision-making processes, measurement frameworks, and cross-functional collaboration, it also requires a new marketing skill set (Michael Glantz, blogs.forrester.com). Marketing is now the mix of right-brain creatives and left-brand analysts, in one person or team. If marketing involves the science of targeting and behavior, the art of content development, and the technology of distributing a brand message, then “The CMO job is part art, part science, and part media publisher” (siliconvalleywatcher.com). The question is whether the internal shift and resources required can keep up with the pace of external change.

If we consider the publisher aspect of marketing only, marketing media channels consist of not only traditional ones such as print and TV, but also digital channels across multiple platforms including websites, tablets, mobile, and connected TV. The marketer is expected to not only develop the creative, but also make strategic distribution channel decisions, and report back on the effects of the campaign compared to sales. While that is a fantastic full-circle effect, more media channels bring more promotion, technical and data opportunities, not to mention challenges. (See Online Video Advertising Challenges & Opportunities). With all the technology and data available, it’s hard not to let the possibilities overshadow the marketing message, but the expression “content is king” has been discussed by almost every player in the industry (including us!) for a reason.

All the technology in the world doesn’t mean a thing if the content does nothing for you. Because marketing is both a science and art, it has the ability to evoke emotion and change behavior. The technology available today creates engagement and co-creation opportunities between the brand and consumer that add up to real-time action and future development possibilities. While the digital marketer needs to understand the technical opportunities and limitations, the concept or idea should take center stage in order to create great content, and evoke the response the brand wants. Never has this point been made more clear than through the experiment by Google called Project Re:Brief. They brought in “old-school” advertising legends to work with “new-school” marketers and major brands. The result was an incredible mix of old and new school tricks, creating engagement with consumers and solidifying brand position in the market.

About Preview Networks

Preview Networks is a content marketing platform for brands and content aggregation and syndication platform for publishers. We provide the tools for brands to centrally distribute and manage marketing and PR content across media destinations, devices, and commerce platforms; allowing media partners to automate content acquisition delivering audience and advertising revenue growth.

 

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Oct 10

Content Syndication – When Owned is Not Enough

By Heather Timmerman Digital Media Trends 1 Comment »

Digital marketing begins with a piece of content. Whether video, graphics, or text are used depends on the company and the marketing strategy. Content marketing for many B2B companies consists of text and graphics wrapped into press releases, whitepapers, newsletters, case studies, and blog posts such as this one. The strategy behind these tactics are mostly lead generation (68%), thought leadership/market education (50%), or brand generation (39%) according to a recent report by Holger Schulze for Optify (marketingprofs.com). The goal here is to help companies choose the best product or service for their company, which is why proven examples of expertise are so important. 

Content marketing for many B2C companies consist of e-mail marketing, social media updates, and video (among others) according to the first Content Marketing Report by Econsultancy and Outbrain. The goal being an improvement in brand perception, SEO, and an increase in traffic to a site (econsultancy.com). What is interesting to note is that video is recognised as content marketing in this report, and as last week’s blog pointed out, video is also an emerging online advertising medium. In terms of strategy, the report indicates that just 38% of companies have a content marketing strategy which is surprising considering 90% of respondents believe it is important.

Therefore, the purpose of this post is to highlight content syndication strategy as an option. The media strategy most frequently used to spread the B2B and B2C content marketing message is first implemented on company owned and operated websites, profiles, or platforms that can also be used as mechanisms to earn media via user-generated comments or social media sharing capability. However, the brand visibility achieved through owned and earned media strategy is not enough for companies to reach the lead generation or traffic goals mentioned above, which is where a paid media strategy comes in. Using video as an example, this is where B2B or B2C companies would come to Preview Networks to help them increase brand exposure, or syndicate their content, to thousands of publisher sites and platforms.

Syndication and distribution is often confused and often times interchanged in its meaning, and the difference according to the following definition is two way content flow, control, and automation. Syndication includes a central management platform where content is uploaded, disseminated to an infinite amount of partner sites, which are automatically updated with new content. Data regarding the content is sent back from the partner sites and reported to the content owner via the central management platform. Distribution on the other hand, is more manual in its method of pushing out content to partner sites and platforms. The ability to automatically update or control content versioning is lost, and the data reported back from partner sites may be a manual process.

While there are many content management platforms, analytical tools, and syndication solutions on the market, very few have the ability to do all of the above really well. Not only that, the information the content owner receives is limited to data such as clicks, views, or impressions. In terms of video, the options become much more tangible. As more brands and content owners use video in their content marketing strategies, and the data demand becomes less about clicks and impressions, and more about engagement, interactivity, and ultimately a purchase, the ROI will become more transparent. Online video advertising options will encourage a content marketing strategy that provides both maximum reach and in-depth data, putting companies with a syndication strategy ahead of the game once the technology catches up with the opportunity.

About Preview Networks

Preview Networks is a content marketing platform for brands and content aggregation and syndication platform for publishers. We provide the tools for brands to centrally distribute and manage marketing and PR content across media destinations, devices, and commerce platforms; allowing media partners to automate content acquisition delivering audience and advertising revenue growth.

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