Power Video

TECHNICOLOR TRAFFIC – GETTING VIDEO MARKETING RIGHT

Video changes everything.

Seemingly overnight, this emerging form of online media has transformed the internet landscape, fundamentally altered the way in which consumers ingest media, and changed the viewing, visiting, and buying patterns of online audiences of all ages and demographics. Americans, principally between the ages of 25 and 35, consume more than two-and-a-half hours of online video a month, rapidly making it one of the most popular forms of media of all time. And the Internet, once a great equalizer where brand counted for more than size or budget, has once more been tipped in the direction of the well-capitalized and the technologically-enabled.

PUTTING THE POWER OF VIDEO TO WORK FOR E-COMMERCE

By Benjamin Wayne, CEO of Fliqz

Americans – not just kids but that magic 25- to 35-year-old demographic – spend over three hours a month, nose to the screen, basking in its flickering glow. It’s not television. It’s online video, and it’s changing everything. Once the playground of digital media companies, and large enterprises with deep pockets and extensive technical resources, video was an engaging, but brutally expensive and fiendishly complicated proposition priced well beyond the reach of most online businesses. But new tools and services are putting video within the technical and financial reach of every internet property, and e-commerce sites; focused on the holy trinity of traffic, conversion, and repeat visitation; would do well to pay attention.

Online Video Advertising: Learning from SEM

Now that everyone has realized that online video is here to stay, the focus is on selling advertising. EMarketer projects U.S. spending on online video advertising will reach $4.3 billion in 2011—a ten-fold jump from the $410 million spent on online video ads in 2006.

The money is coming in as the major media players jump into the fray. Witness Time Warner’s investment in ScanScout. But the big question is: What’s the best approach for ad buying in this new frontier?

On this Video Insider post, Michael Shehan suggests that ad buyers looking to move into the online video space take a page from sponsored search. Noting that interactive marketers can create, test, and evaluate a campaign in as little as a week, online video offers marketers the same ability to adjust spending and optimize campaigns on the fly based on real-time performance data.

We agree. Too much time has been spent lately on whether overlays are better than pre-roll. That’s still old-media thinking. The real issue is how to find that audience and spend those ad dollars wisely. To that end, nothing has proven more efficient sponsored search. And as video search technology matures, SEM techniques will become even more critical.

Online video is all about moving beyond traditional modes of broadcasting. It’s time to move beyond the traditional modes of ad buying.

Big Screen, Small Screen

Techdirt notes that film director Ridley Scott has been complaining that gadgets like mobile phones and computers are killing cinema. It seems his point is that focusing on the commercial bottom line is dumbing down the movie industry. That is, if movies must be made to play well on the large and small (and really small) screens, then it’s not an authentic experience.

We’ve often wondered about the irony in the fact that as people shell out thousands of dollars for elaborate home theater systems with 50-inch widescreen TVs, demand for video on PCs and mobile devices is also on the rise. Maybe part of the answer can be found in this Advertising.com/InsightExpress survey of online video viewing habits. According to the report, while 51 percent of respondents said they would watch a TV show online if they missed the initial broadcast, 80 percent said that online video usage doesn’t cut into their TV time (emphasis ours).

Sounds like Ridley Scott is tilting at digital windmills. People still want a rich, cinematic viewing experience. If movies are dumber than ever, don’t blame trends in mobile and online video.

Blame Michael Bay.

Behind Every Silver Lining…

While we admit our bias at rejoicing over all the recent surveys about increased online video penetration, it seems some people just can’t be happy. The Wall Street Journal (via the Miami Herald) reports research analysts are worried that bandwidth-intensive applications like online video are putting a terrible strain on broadband networks. One analyst even warns of brownouts or service slowdowns this year as the Internet approaches full capacity.

Much of this hand wringing is fodder for the whole network neutrality debate. For others, it’s about the expense of delivering video content online to keep up with bandwidth requirements.

It’s always good to keep things in perspective (wouldn’t want any of that “irrational exuberance” to rear its ugly head), but to us it seems a little early for the party poopers to make an appearance. Online video is just beginning to get rolling in the mainstream, and everyone is still figuring out how to move forward. While it isn’t prudent to latch on to any company that professes to be the next big thing in online video, negative hype can be just as destructive.