Digital Mission to New York is scheduled for 15th – 20th November 2009 and will coincide with the renowned Web 2.0 Expo (16-19th Nov 2009), New York.

This will be the second Digital Mission to visit New York and it’s shaping up rather nicely, building on existing relationships with New York-based entrepeuners, VC’s, agencies and digital practitioners to create a cracking line up of activities.

http://chinwag.com/digitalmission/nyc09

Really looking forward to this. We are just starting to work with clients in New York and I believe interactive video advertising is about to explode.

A blog post by Amit Kumar Mishra on Internet Marketing Trends for 2009 got me thinking again about why the uptake of interactive video seems to be generally slower on the Internet than other disruptive technologies that have come along in the past.

As Amit suggests, the interactive video space is definitely one to watch this year, as it is becoming more mainstream.  I personally feel that this will run over into 2010, with massive take up thereafter.  I have been working in this space for 4 years now and in the last 6 months we have witnessed a large mainstream uptake in this arena, with global brands starting to leverage the benefits that interactive video can deliver.  This is not just from the point of view of driving traffic directly from a video to an e-commerce or destination portal, but also information about how the user interacts with the elements within the video.  MTV’s recent venture into the space with the Cold War Kids video and our customers’ ventures are evidence of this.  Unfortunately, this arena may have not seen the instant mainstream adoption that other similar, recent disruptive technologies have experienced.  I personally believe that this is due to the fact, that unlike other, “new” disruptive areas such as social networking, we as users, did not have an established behaviour.  We created a new behaviour to take on the benefits of this new technology.

Our normal video viewing behaviour, which has been established over a lifetime, is somewhat different.  Interactive video changes video from being a fairly unidimensional entity into a multi-dimensional one.  This is very disruptive to our normal behaviour patterns, requiring the viewer to depart from the passive viewing experience and become “part” of the content, make choices.

Interactive video is definitely poised to disrupt our normal viewing behaviour, effectively turning video into a web element like any other, complete with links, cross references, quoting and a web of information behind the elements within the content.

The only question is, how long is it going to take for that momentum to grow? How long until interactive video is the defacto standard of internet video?  Due to this being a fundamental change to how we do, one of the things the modern society does a lot of, watch video, it may take a little while longer than social networking’s pervasive penetration.  However, it is not a question of if, only when.  The benefits of having metadata and links in video itself are to significant not to be taken up.  It is not that hard to imagine watching a piece of content in the future and thinking, “What have I seen him in before?”, clicking on the actor and being given links and/or data surrounding that “object”, his IMDB profile for instance, a list of films he has been in, etc, etc.

When the floodgates open, video will never be the same again…. It is only a matter of time.

28 May 2009 – Gary Wilson

I read with interest the recent research from Right Media it reflects our own experiences. MPU ’s the nations favourite!

UK advertisers are moving from traditional leaderboard banners to MPUs and other new formats, according to new research.

The findings, from Yahoo’s ad exchange company, Right Media, show that MPUs (Mid Page Units) are now the most popular online ad format in the UK during the first half of 2008.

The figures disclose the trade in leaderboards as a percentage share of the total trades on the Exchange in the UK dropped from 34.1% in January to 24.8% in June, a continuation of a trend that was seen during 2007. 

In the UK, MPUs now made up 34.1% of all ad formats being traded in January, with only a small drop to 32.6% by June. 

In the last few months 99% of all our video campaigns have been MPU’s and it doesnt look like changing in the last few months of 2008

Coull has been around since 1998 and making videos interactive since 1999. A long time before anyone could have foreseen the current growth in online video content.

Consciously choosing not to promote user generated content, clients of Coull consist of Media Agencies and rights holders and publishers of professional content. “We see our position as offering publishers and content owners something different and I think that’s been successful for us.” Stated Irfon Watkins, CEO of Coull in an interview with AdMarkTech.

With in-house developed technology Coull gives their clients a method for simplifying video production and adding user interaction. Taking care of all the technical elements of the process, clients are left to focus their budget not on technology, but on the important issues of creative design and marketing. Using the Coull technology platform to add interaction to videos takes approximately five minutes per video once clients become familiar with the platform.

Consisting of a team of 16 people based in Bristol, England, Coull has spent the best part of the last 10 years building the in-depth technology. With the lack of broadband, it has only been the past 18 months that they have really been in a position to benefit from the technology that has no real competition in the current market place.

Their client base consists of clients such as MindShare who, in turn, are utilizing the Coull technology platform to service international clients such as Unilever. “We’ve been working with other media agencies like MediaCom and Carat on brands such as Renault and Alfa Romeo. We also work with MySpace, Fox, MSN, Yahoo, Bebo and many other publishers and media agencies. We don’t tend to work directly with the brands themselves. We focus our sales activity on the agencies and publishers.”

The revenue model can work in one of two ways and all revenue is generated as a result of published videos. Coull host all the video content and use 3rd party content delivery networks such as Limelight or Akami to deliver the videos.

“The whole philosophy of Coull, from an ad perspective, is to make the platform open and allow the advertising client to work with existing systems that they already have. Using MindShare as an example, Mindshare would upload a video to our dashboard; bearing in mind we’ll take a video in any file format. They would then make the video interactive themselves. It’s a simple process to do with no need to involve creative or technical knowledge. Any junior within the account team can make the video interactive using the Coull technology. Selecting the player is the next step. Mindshare used this technology on a Unilever product called ‘Sure for Girls’ which is a deodorant. They branded the player ‘Sure for Girls’ and then our dashboard generated a tag. The tag conforms and is served through existing ad property systems like DoubleClick or Atlas. Additionally it is also format compatible with publisher sites such as Bebo. MindShare use our platform to make their videos interactive, split server tag, traffic that tag to their existing systems and publish them on partner sites. Our format is approved across Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Fox and MySpace.”

With relatively little competition in the video analytic space, Coull is gaining huge traction in this area of service.

“One of the big issues about the online video space is if the objective of the online video ad is to get you from that ad to another site as quickly as possible, then why spend a lot of money making a 30 second video clip if it’s designed for you to navigate away? Using our format drives engagement with the video. Coull technology allows a viewer to click on objects within the video and find out a little bit more about what they’ve clicked on before choosing to exit to go onto another site. We’re measuring everything in terms of what objects are clicked on and every bit of user interactivity once they’ve clicked to play the video. This is what we class as engagement.”

Additionally, using the Coull technology, videos can be shared in multiple ways. Using a url, email or embed code to drop into MySpace, blog or the user’s choice of Social Network, all the advertiser’s branding stays perfectly in tact, therefore benefiting the advertiser by all method of distribution.

But what does the future hold in store for Coull?

“We will continue to grow our business in the online video advertising space and also move very aggressively into the social networking space, allowing anybody to upload and make videos interactive and publish. Then we’ll connect it to the revenue and advertising model. What you’ll see a year from now is an interactive video version of salesforce.com. A site which is fully transactional where you can upload a video, publish it and link it to contextual advertising models and networks and share revenues that are generated from published videos.”

Having just signed a deal with JWT, Coull are looking to extend their current relationships with marketing agencies and enter the US market by the end of this year.

Click here to  see the article on AdMarkTech.Com.

FMCG brands have been traditionally slow to embrace online advertising.
A research from PHD and Yahoo, featured on Brand Republic,  revealed that consumer exposure to both TV and online video campaigns led to an 18% increase in purchase intent and a 12% rise in brand favourability compared to consumers who were only exposed to TV advertising. The research shows that “online video advertising can impact on a brand’s marketing objectives – particularly in key metrics such as purchasing intent and brand favourability”.

Online video advertising campaigns are not a mere extension of TV advertising but they can provide added value in terms of brand awareness.

Yesterday’s MediaPost Video Insider’s post “Video Advertising: A Performance Medium by Any Measure” focuses on the importance of performance in online video advertising. Video advertising performance is driven by three key factors: campaign execution, traffic quality and technology.

Producing  “creative creatives” drives campaign execution according to MediaPost.  “Advertiser-generated content represents the ultimate branding solution, wiping out the line between advertising and programming. Consumers love it, and advertisers who leverage the ‘lean-forward’ experience by adding interactivity or calls to action are clearly getting higher performance than from repurposed 30-second television commercials.“

“Advertisers should leverage the interactivity video formats can add to their creative. While television offers established ways to monitor performance, the measurement capabilities provided in the online world are even greater.”

We are on the right track then!

I found the latest research published on MediaPost very interesting, it is backed up by our own statistics around engagement.  In essence the research finds that online video advertising is at least as good as TV in building brands.

“The takeaway is that nothing is lost and much can be gained. There is no downside in terms of bringing a brand-building message,” Marianne Foley, senior vice president-strategic initiatives at Harris Interactive said referring to the impact of running TV commercials online.

The study found that the commercials performed equally in all the major attributes on each of those platforms, but that embedded video ads might actually perform slightly better in terms of their ability to influence “purchase intent.”

Maybe this is why we have seen a huge spike in activity over the last few months. Long may it continue..

Irfon

I’ve just been reading Liz Gannes on newteevee

It staggers me that videoegg take on $32m in investment then decide that the market for UGC video advertising is not as large as they were forecasting. I bet that pleased the VC’s!