Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Online TV
Survey: “TV Everywhere” Interest High, Studios Can Skip Middlemen To Maximize Profits
Study of 1300 Online Video Viewers Indicates Robust Market For Premium Digital ContentFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Beck Media & Marketing
Research Triangle Park, NC - September 30, 2009
Beck Media & Marketing
Research Triangle Park, NC - September 30, 2009
Digitalsmiths, the innovative multi-screen media analysis, operations and publishing technology provider announced today the results of a survey authored by The Diffusion Group (TDG) that examines premium video viewing habits.
Among other insights, the survey of 1300 regular viewers of digital video revealed:
- Consumers want “TV Everywhere”- style content access, and many of them are already accessing video content on a wide variety of devices. Users will pay an additional monthly fee for seamless access to a TV Everywhere-type service that can be viewed on PCs and mobile devices.
- Consumers are willing to pay to rent premium content on-demand from studio-branded rental sites. Such sites would eliminate the middlemen found in the EST (Electronic Sell-Through) and VOD (Video On Demand) models.
The TDG whitepaper, analyzing the premium studio-branded rental site model, will be made available courtesy of Digitalsmiths in mid-October.
“I think what you see with this data is a continued upward trend in premium video viewing, combined with a clear endorsement of two profit models, namely premium studio-branded content sites and ‘TV Everywhere’,” said Andy Tarczon, founding partner, The Diffusion Group.
The results showed that nearly 25 percent would be willing to pay $10-15 a month for a premium “TV Everywhere” service allowing them to view premium content on their television, computer or mobile device and that a third of consumers are willing to pay studios a direct rental fee of $2-3 for the option to view a movie or television series on those same devices.
“We found these survey results to be extremely insightful and wanted to publish them as soon as possible,” said Ben Weinberger, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Digitalsmiths. “This data shows that consumers would like to access and interact with content everywhere, anytime, on every device – and that they are willing to pay to do so.”
The survey also asked consumers about their viewing habits and what would make them more likely to use a video site. 41 percent of respondents say that in the last month have watched video on several devices other than a computer or laptop, including mobile phones, portable video players, televisions and portable gaming players.
Nearly 60 percent of those surveyed said if they have the opportunity to use advanced “Google-like” search capabilities in video to locate specific scenes, segments, dialogue, characters, actors, or locations within an online movie or television series then they will be more likely to use a particular video site. Over 41 percent also said they will be more likely to visit a video site if they have the ability to create customized clips from online films and television programs to share with friends, post to video sharing sites or create mobile ringtones – demonstrating that consumers want the ability to interact with and customize their favorite content.
About Digitalsmiths
Digitalsmiths provides the industry’s only studio grade digital media analysis, operations and publishing solution with an advanced, time-based metadata framework that empowers digital media companies to distribute premium video content across multiple platforms, open up new revenue streams for film and TV assets, and build audience.
The company’s flagship product, VideoSense®, powers the digital media operations, publishing and analytics for today’s leading Hollywood studios, broadcasters, distributors and publishers including Warner Bros., Telepictures and TMZ.com. Digitalsmiths was named one of the "Top 45 Companies to Watch" by Dow Jones, one of the “OnHollywood Top 100” and “OnGlobal 250” by AlwaysOn, "Technology of the Year" by North Carolina's Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), and winner of the "Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards."
About TDG
The Diffusion Group is a consumer technology research and strategic marketing firm built by a team of seasoned consumer technology analysts. They have quickly grown to become one of the largest research firms dedicated to the Digital Home and connected consumer.
The Diffusion Group's mission is simple: to provide timely, actionable intelligence designed to best position new new consumer technologies for rapid diffusion. They go beyond offering simple ACCESS to numbers and forecasts and assist in the APPLICATION of this market knowledge directly to the clients' needs.
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Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Behavioral Targeting Moves Into Video Ads
Article from: Media Post's Behavioral Insider
by Laurie Sullivan , Wednesday, September 9, 2009
BrightRoll just unveiled a program to target consumers with banner and streaming ads based on their behavior across the Web.
The video network ranks No. 3 with 51,250 total unique viewers, taking 34.1% of the market, according to comScore's Metrix Key Measures Report Top 100 Video Properties for May 2009.
Tod Sacerdoti, BrightRoll's cofounder and CEO, provided some insight on the benefits and the challenges for BT in video today and down the road. Could BT become an accelerator for a variety of video ads? If you look at the growth rate of BT and video, separately, you realize they are about the same size and growing approximately at the same rate, Sacerdoti says.
In August, comScore released July 2009 data showing 158 million U.S. Internet users watched online video during the month, the largest audience ever recorded -- who viewed a record total of 21.4 billion videos.
Advertisers get the model and how it works, but have traditionally felt online video didn't give them enough control to target specific consumers. Sacerdoti estimates BT for video ads won't exceed more than 25% of the business any time soon, but it will grow to that within the next year or two. The data from the technology providers will spur the uptick.
Historically, data ownership has been presented as a competitive advantage. Ad networks didn't own the inventory, but owned the data. Since eXelate has opened the data to many companies, networks now have a new responsibility to find advertisers the best data, too. Once access to data becomes open in an exchange format, what does it do to display networks that viewed their data as a competitive advantage? It opens interesting doors to the change of power from traditionally large networks into a new video BT category.
The industry will go through challenges as more BT video ad targeting comes online -- for starters, finding ways to effectively package and sell data in a market that buyers can understand. Sacerdoti says BrightRoll gets requests continually to target specific audiences, such as age 18 to 22 males who watch HBO and own a scooter. On the flip side, he gets targets that are way off the mark -- in which case, the account manager must set the client straight.
Sacerdoti says there's no BT data to pull and store in servers. The data is stored in computer cookies that map to segments on BrightRoll servers. The data is leveraged on the fly or in bunches based on campaigns. BrightRoll only needs to store the data in the segments that have been served, so they can go back and refer to the sucess or failure of the campaign.
BrightRoll has been testing the service for a few months, but it's a little early to say how "much it will move the needle for the business," Sacerdoti says. "In the next month or two we will have a little better feeling, particularly for the in-market category, as auto comes back."
Laurie Sullivan can be reached at sullivan@mediapost.com.
by Laurie Sullivan , Wednesday, September 9, 2009
BrightRoll just unveiled a program to target consumers with banner and streaming ads based on their behavior across the Web.
The video network ranks No. 3 with 51,250 total unique viewers, taking 34.1% of the market, according to comScore's Metrix Key Measures Report Top 100 Video Properties for May 2009.
Tod Sacerdoti, BrightRoll's cofounder and CEO, provided some insight on the benefits and the challenges for BT in video today and down the road. Could BT become an accelerator for a variety of video ads? If you look at the growth rate of BT and video, separately, you realize they are about the same size and growing approximately at the same rate, Sacerdoti says.
In August, comScore released July 2009 data showing 158 million U.S. Internet users watched online video during the month, the largest audience ever recorded -- who viewed a record total of 21.4 billion videos.
Advertisers get the model and how it works, but have traditionally felt online video didn't give them enough control to target specific consumers. Sacerdoti estimates BT for video ads won't exceed more than 25% of the business any time soon, but it will grow to that within the next year or two. The data from the technology providers will spur the uptick.
Historically, data ownership has been presented as a competitive advantage. Ad networks didn't own the inventory, but owned the data. Since eXelate has opened the data to many companies, networks now have a new responsibility to find advertisers the best data, too. Once access to data becomes open in an exchange format, what does it do to display networks that viewed their data as a competitive advantage? It opens interesting doors to the change of power from traditionally large networks into a new video BT category.
The industry will go through challenges as more BT video ad targeting comes online -- for starters, finding ways to effectively package and sell data in a market that buyers can understand. Sacerdoti says BrightRoll gets requests continually to target specific audiences, such as age 18 to 22 males who watch HBO and own a scooter. On the flip side, he gets targets that are way off the mark -- in which case, the account manager must set the client straight.
Sacerdoti says there's no BT data to pull and store in servers. The data is stored in computer cookies that map to segments on BrightRoll servers. The data is leveraged on the fly or in bunches based on campaigns. BrightRoll only needs to store the data in the segments that have been served, so they can go back and refer to the sucess or failure of the campaign.
BrightRoll has been testing the service for a few months, but it's a little early to say how "much it will move the needle for the business," Sacerdoti says. "In the next month or two we will have a little better feeling, particularly for the in-market category, as auto comes back."
Laurie Sullivan can be reached at sullivan@mediapost.com.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Why Not Merge TV And Internet?
by Michael Kokernak , Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Internet video distribution today seems like the inevitable path media companies are going to take in order to ensure their content gets to consumers. But big media needs to figure out a way to operate (for at least the next five to seven years) with one foot firmly planted in today's TV distribution platform, while incubating their Internet audiences.
Decades were spent getting the digital standard ready for prime time. During the process the industry communicated to vendors how to make digital television sets and how new transmission equipment needed to work. This expensive digital TV rebuild brought about a flurry of industry PR by networks on why cable companies should be paying more for HDTV content. Broadcasters have also been trying to play catch-up; they want to see their compensation someday match the cable networks' subscriber fees.
Cable Holding Tight onto Content
As the cablers (like Comcast and Cablevision) renew content agreements, they are also spending to rebuild their cable systems with next-generation transmission equipment like switched digital video and network DVR technologies. These rebuilds put pressure on the cablers to try to manage content costs. In addition, they are simultaneously trying to fend off competitors, like Verizon's FIOS, by increasing available HDTV channels and launching new services (like TV Caller ID). Hence as programmers try to find their own Internet audience, the cable guys want to keep the revenue behind their walled garden, or at least position themselves to share in some of the upside of Internet distribution.
Impossible Could Be Possible
Once the digital transition fog lifts and the industry looks at the current distribution ecosystem, we might find that TV Everywhere and Hulu (to just name two) should technically be integrated with the digital spectrum and cable distribution. We, for instance, should probably be concentrating our efforts on how to combine the Internet and the digital television experience so consumers get content delivered through one seamless "platform."
Cross-platform technologies could satisfy everyone, including the consumer, while also building revenue streams that are integrated across both TV and the Internet. After all, wouldn't you like to be able to click your TV remote control and move the TV show you are watching to the Internet without missing a punch line?
Internet video distribution today seems like the inevitable path media companies are going to take in order to ensure their content gets to consumers. But big media needs to figure out a way to operate (for at least the next five to seven years) with one foot firmly planted in today's TV distribution platform, while incubating their Internet audiences.
Decades were spent getting the digital standard ready for prime time. During the process the industry communicated to vendors how to make digital television sets and how new transmission equipment needed to work. This expensive digital TV rebuild brought about a flurry of industry PR by networks on why cable companies should be paying more for HDTV content. Broadcasters have also been trying to play catch-up; they want to see their compensation someday match the cable networks' subscriber fees.
Cable Holding Tight onto Content
As the cablers (like Comcast and Cablevision) renew content agreements, they are also spending to rebuild their cable systems with next-generation transmission equipment like switched digital video and network DVR technologies. These rebuilds put pressure on the cablers to try to manage content costs. In addition, they are simultaneously trying to fend off competitors, like Verizon's FIOS, by increasing available HDTV channels and launching new services (like TV Caller ID). Hence as programmers try to find their own Internet audience, the cable guys want to keep the revenue behind their walled garden, or at least position themselves to share in some of the upside of Internet distribution.
Impossible Could Be Possible
Once the digital transition fog lifts and the industry looks at the current distribution ecosystem, we might find that TV Everywhere and Hulu (to just name two) should technically be integrated with the digital spectrum and cable distribution. We, for instance, should probably be concentrating our efforts on how to combine the Internet and the digital television experience so consumers get content delivered through one seamless "platform."
Cross-platform technologies could satisfy everyone, including the consumer, while also building revenue streams that are integrated across both TV and the Internet. After all, wouldn't you like to be able to click your TV remote control and move the TV show you are watching to the Internet without missing a punch line?
Monday, July 20, 2009
Web Video Marketing 101
Whether you’re trying to drive B2B sales, interact with consumers, or create visibility for your non-profit, there is no denying the utility of web video marketing. But many executives are faced with a litany of questions and concerns about the process of using web video to reach their clients: How do I go about implementing web video into my marketing efforts? What kind of expertise do I need to create web video content? Isn’t web video marketing expensive? Is it effective? How do I track ROI for video marketing campaigns? To get you started on the path to video marketing greatness, the Web Video Marketing Council offers answers to these questions and many more.
Is Web Video Marketing Effective?
In short, yes. Web video marketing is one of the most effective methods of generating authentic interaction between your company and your clients, prospective customers, and/or potential donors. Research done by DoubleClick reveals that web users are four to seven times more likely to respond to online video content than to static images and text. Biologically speaking, the human brain is able to compile and interpret video data faster than it can interpret text, which means less effort on the part of your audience to absorb your message. According to the most recent Neilsen A2/M2 three-screen report, Americans are watching more video on the Internet and on mobile devices than ever before. “The American fascination with television and other video content is not easing up,” said Susan Whiting, Nielsen’s Vice Chair. “Online and mobile platforms are an increasingly important complement to live home-based television.”
Web video marketing taps into exactly this burgeoning trend in contemporary media consumption. Using web-based video, your company can inject itself directly into the mainline of online advertising, reaching an almost unlimited set of potential buyers who will experience your company’s message in alluring rich media. With such upside, it would be imprudent for any company to ignore web video marketing as a solution to their marketing needs.
Do I Need to Have a Special Set of Skills to Create and Distribute Web Video Content?
It used to be the case that creating and distributing web video required a lot of expensive equipment and fancy programming. Today that is hardly the case.
How Can I Implement Web Video into my Marketing Strategy?
There are many ways that companies like yours are implementing web video into their marketing processes.
Interactive Advertising
Rich-media advertising got its start as an interactive banner when Hewlett-Packard released a Pong banner ad in the mid-nineties. Today, effective rich media advertising in the form of expanding ads, overlays and rollovers, represents a significant percentage of all online advertising. While it is true that many ads use Flash as merely an attention-grabber, the most effective examples of interactive advertising to date, such as the popular Esurance banner ads, incorporate video.
Pre-Roll, Mid-Roll, and Post-Roll Advertising
If you’ve done your research, you know exactly which videos and video sites your prospective customer, client, or donor visits on a regular basis. Imagine one of your potential buyers being exposed to a fifteen second video ad for your company before he watches a related video. That’s the power of pre-roll advertising. Mid-roll works similar to a TV commercial, interrupting an online video to show your ad. Post-Rolls show up at the end of a video, and are particularly effective if the ad and the video match closely in content, tone or theme.
Direct Email Marketing
The most targeted approach to web video marketing is through direct email campaigns. Emails are sent to existing or prospective buyers, who are asked to take a moment to view the video that you have published. Now, most email clients don’t support viewing videos, so the safe bet is to include a video still in the email which links to the video itself. That actually works to your advantage: if you have to link to an outside site, you can customize that site with links to product descriptions, pricing guides, white papers, or any other portal into the sales cycle.
What are the Advantages of Web Video Marketing?
What can you do better with web video marketing than with more traditional static media? Lots of stuff!
Engage Your Customer
As we’ve discussed, and as you’ve probably observed yourself, video is more engaging than static images or texts could ever be. Web video is sleek and stylish, and if done right it can resonate deeply with your audience. So how do you do it right? As with all marketing messages, keep the audience in mind. Use you-centric language; discuss how your company’s product is a solution to their problem. And if you can do that in a creative and meaningful way, you’ve just created the most influential kind of marketing tool there is: inspired web video.
Increase Lead Generation
The trick to using video to create leads is to leave the message incomplete in some way, and then to include a call to action for the audience to find out more. Yellowbook effectively drove traffic to its website this way, using TV ads that only told part of a story and directed users to visit the website to see the conclusion. For a more subtle approach, try suggesting how your product might help a customer, and then asking the customer to visit your website for more information.
Tell a Story
Sometimes nothing sells a product better than an intriguing story. It could be the story of how your company was founded, or the passion with which your product is made, or the money your company has raised over the years for a particular charity. Whatever it is, if you have a story to tell, web video can help you put real people front-and-center in a way that text just can’t.
Rally the Troops
Maybe your goal isn’t to try and sell something to a customer, but to gain support for a cause or business initiative. What better rallying cry is there than an inspired bit of video distributed via email to remind partners, investors and employees exactly what you’re doing and why you’re doing it? Few things are more inspiring that someone speaking passionately about a goal they want to achieve. This sentiment is best conveyed through video.
We hope that this article answered any question you might have about starting up your own web video marketing campaign. Thanks for reading, and check back soon for more great articles!
Article Extracted From: Video Marketing Council
Is Web Video Marketing Effective?
In short, yes. Web video marketing is one of the most effective methods of generating authentic interaction between your company and your clients, prospective customers, and/or potential donors. Research done by DoubleClick reveals that web users are four to seven times more likely to respond to online video content than to static images and text. Biologically speaking, the human brain is able to compile and interpret video data faster than it can interpret text, which means less effort on the part of your audience to absorb your message. According to the most recent Neilsen A2/M2 three-screen report, Americans are watching more video on the Internet and on mobile devices than ever before. “The American fascination with television and other video content is not easing up,” said Susan Whiting, Nielsen’s Vice Chair. “Online and mobile platforms are an increasingly important complement to live home-based television.”
Web video marketing taps into exactly this burgeoning trend in contemporary media consumption. Using web-based video, your company can inject itself directly into the mainline of online advertising, reaching an almost unlimited set of potential buyers who will experience your company’s message in alluring rich media. With such upside, it would be imprudent for any company to ignore web video marketing as a solution to their marketing needs.
Do I Need to Have a Special Set of Skills to Create and Distribute Web Video Content?
It used to be the case that creating and distributing web video required a lot of expensive equipment and fancy programming. Today that is hardly the case.
How Can I Implement Web Video into my Marketing Strategy?
There are many ways that companies like yours are implementing web video into their marketing processes.
Interactive Advertising
Rich-media advertising got its start as an interactive banner when Hewlett-Packard released a Pong banner ad in the mid-nineties. Today, effective rich media advertising in the form of expanding ads, overlays and rollovers, represents a significant percentage of all online advertising. While it is true that many ads use Flash as merely an attention-grabber, the most effective examples of interactive advertising to date, such as the popular Esurance banner ads, incorporate video.
Pre-Roll, Mid-Roll, and Post-Roll Advertising
If you’ve done your research, you know exactly which videos and video sites your prospective customer, client, or donor visits on a regular basis. Imagine one of your potential buyers being exposed to a fifteen second video ad for your company before he watches a related video. That’s the power of pre-roll advertising. Mid-roll works similar to a TV commercial, interrupting an online video to show your ad. Post-Rolls show up at the end of a video, and are particularly effective if the ad and the video match closely in content, tone or theme.
Direct Email Marketing
The most targeted approach to web video marketing is through direct email campaigns. Emails are sent to existing or prospective buyers, who are asked to take a moment to view the video that you have published. Now, most email clients don’t support viewing videos, so the safe bet is to include a video still in the email which links to the video itself. That actually works to your advantage: if you have to link to an outside site, you can customize that site with links to product descriptions, pricing guides, white papers, or any other portal into the sales cycle.
What are the Advantages of Web Video Marketing?
What can you do better with web video marketing than with more traditional static media? Lots of stuff!
Engage Your Customer
As we’ve discussed, and as you’ve probably observed yourself, video is more engaging than static images or texts could ever be. Web video is sleek and stylish, and if done right it can resonate deeply with your audience. So how do you do it right? As with all marketing messages, keep the audience in mind. Use you-centric language; discuss how your company’s product is a solution to their problem. And if you can do that in a creative and meaningful way, you’ve just created the most influential kind of marketing tool there is: inspired web video.
Increase Lead Generation
The trick to using video to create leads is to leave the message incomplete in some way, and then to include a call to action for the audience to find out more. Yellowbook effectively drove traffic to its website this way, using TV ads that only told part of a story and directed users to visit the website to see the conclusion. For a more subtle approach, try suggesting how your product might help a customer, and then asking the customer to visit your website for more information.
Tell a Story
Sometimes nothing sells a product better than an intriguing story. It could be the story of how your company was founded, or the passion with which your product is made, or the money your company has raised over the years for a particular charity. Whatever it is, if you have a story to tell, web video can help you put real people front-and-center in a way that text just can’t.
Rally the Troops
Maybe your goal isn’t to try and sell something to a customer, but to gain support for a cause or business initiative. What better rallying cry is there than an inspired bit of video distributed via email to remind partners, investors and employees exactly what you’re doing and why you’re doing it? Few things are more inspiring that someone speaking passionately about a goal they want to achieve. This sentiment is best conveyed through video.
We hope that this article answered any question you might have about starting up your own web video marketing campaign. Thanks for reading, and check back soon for more great articles!
Article Extracted From: Video Marketing Council
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