It took a while for TV to settle on the :30-second spot.
So why should the Internet be any different?
Business Week is reporting that the battle for eyeballs is ramping up when it comes to effective models for online video advertising. Lame pre-rolls? Irritating under-banners? Or embedded item rollovers that you can click through to learn more about and even purchase from (see my interview with Scott Broomfield, CEO of Veeple for more on that one).
"With so many different formats for video online, we incur incremental production costs every time we enter a new format," Nancy Ryan, media director for insurance company Allstate tells this week's Business Week. As a result, some companies are avoiding online video advertising altogether until a common standard can be worked out.
Indeed, between Hulu, CBS Interactive, AOL, Discovery Communications and others, there are over 30 online video ad formats today.
Now, Starcom is researching what appear to be the top five candidates for a standard. It's not saying which ones they are, but they'll be tested against the pre-roll :15- to :30-second model.
"Pre-roll tends to outperform on nearly every metric tracked by advertisers—duration viewed, click-through rate, cost per view, brand lift, and change in purchase intent," Brightroll Chief Executive Tod Sacerdoti wrote in his recent quarterly note on the industry. In fact, that model accounts for 83% of video spots on Brightrole's online network for video ads. That's up 63% in the last year alone.
Well, that is the most like the TV commercials we're all used to - and let's face it, we're all just trying to get the ad business out of the way so we can enjoy the entertainment content.
Google, at least, says the Veeple-style model works well. As BW reports, the ability to overlay YouTube videos with "click to buy" links helped increase sales of DVDs of "Life of Brian" and "The Meaning of Life" on Amazon.com by 23,000%. Yes, that's 23,000%.
Still - in a medium with limitless possibilities, do we need just one format?
And why are we trying to replicate or replace a marketing model that works on a different medium all together? Why not find the new models that work exclusively online. It may very well be something like Veeple's model. Or it might be models that have little or nothing to do with what's traditionally called an "ad buy."
Starcom of course, is a media buying giant - it has a vested interest in keeping the conversation about ad buys - as if it's a foregone conclusion it will be some form of interuptive video advertising.
Maybe the answer is really something entirely new.
Read the Business Week piece here.
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Posted by: Banner Stands | September 28, 2009 at 06:50 PM
I think that everyone is seriously missing the boat here for online video. The days of interruptive marketing practices where a message is thrown at the consumer in as many forms as possible are short in this world. It doesn't matter if it is 30-seconds or 5 minutes long, if you are interrupting the consumer, you have already lost their business and wasted your money. In this economy, you look even MORE foolish in their eyes.
The consumer has control, they have the knowledge, they have the technology to avoid/ignore anything that they chose. We need to provide them with the information and the experiential reviews (consumer generated only - ethically correct) in formats that they can access at their discretion. By providing value during their searching phase, you successfully position your brand as one of interest and eventually, one of preference.
Word of Mouth Marketing practices are the no.1 driver of consumer purchase decisions. Has been for long time, will be for long time to come. What brands and marketers need is to address the power of the internet to harness and create virtual word of mouth FROM the consumers TO the consumers (C2C). Then, take the time to reward your consumers for participating in the conversation by offering their video testimonials and user-generated commercials. Only then, will you have a successful monetization platform for online video advertising. www.mehype.com
Posted by: Tyler LeCompte (User-Generated Video Advertising) | January 29, 2009 at 05:59 AM