Statistics: Online Video Ads Convert

According to a study by Burst Media, barely over half of all viewers of online video will tune out after seeing an instream. Here are some highlights from the original post:

According to Burst Media’s numbers, slightly more than half of all online viewers recall seeing an instream advertisement (defined as either a pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll advertisement).

…of all respondents, 50.7% stop watching an online video once they encounter an in-stream advertisement, and only 43.2% stay to watch the ad and the rest of the video. The study didn’t delve at all into response ratios at all, which is one of the reasons I think the report tends to skew the results a bit too far into the negative category.

If under half watch the advertisement, and then 45% of those folks respond, you’ve got around a 25% viewer to response ratio, a not insignificant number. Likewise, of all the folks that will view a video, 12.9% will end up buying the product, requesting a free trial, or ordering a subscription.

Essentially, what I’m saying is that we’re looking at a glass half-full/half-empty situation here, but video advertisement still has the highest return on investment of all other forms of advertising when you disregard issues of targeting. As such, the results of the survey look much more like a net positive upon deeper digging than they might on first blush.

Original post here

Yahoo buying Maven Networks, to serve online video ads for big media

Original post: Yahoo buying Maven Networks, to serve online video ads for big media

By Eric Eldon 01.31.08

Yahoo is buying a broadband television distribution company called Maven Networks, for $150 million, according to Techcrunch and for between $160 million and $170 million according to NewTeeVee.

If true, Maven will be a promising new way for Yahoo to sell more online video ads that run on large media companies’ videos.

Maven hosts videos for large media companies, then offers ways to syndicate videos, including video ads, online to other web sites well as high-definition downloads — at a tenth of the cost of rival formats, it claims. There are many such companies, meaning the market was crowded and the company sold for a relatively low amount, as WatchMojo points out.

The Boston-based company’s services are already used by Fox News, Gannett, Hearst, Sony BMG, Univision, TV Guide, The Financial Times and a long list of other big clients. Maven is now another reason for these companies to work with Yahoo for online video distribution, and online video advertising, instead of buying their own technology or working with a rival (such as Google or Microsoft).

Large media companies like Maven’s clients are trying to figure out how to distribute and make money on their large stashes of videos, as their television audiences stagnate. The sentiment in the media industry, as we heard from several executives at yesterday’s OnMediaNYC closing panel, was that they don’t care whether revenue comes from their sales teams or outside parties — outside parties like Yahoo, that has its own ad network. “Do you join [the tech companies] or beat them? Beating them is not an option, ” said Alisa Bowen, SVP at Reuters.

Sample Maven ad-insertion screen below:

 

Meanwhile, Maven is growing at a “breakneck pace quarter to quarter,” co-founder Hilmi Ozguc told NewTeeVee last fall. “Media companies have needs but they don’t have technology experience. It is rocket science, it’s difficult, and that’s what we’re very good at.”

Maven’s content management system was “designed for millions of video assets, millions of video transactions happening simultaneously,” Ozguc told Broadcasting Cable last fall in reference to the company’s deal with Fox. “[Maven] can handle anything from a few sites to hundreds, if not thousands, of sites that are simultaneously pulling video from Fox News, distributing it to a very large audience — both Fox’s own, as well as their affiliates.”

Of course, Yahoo is also a content creator that in some sense competes with these large media companies. “Some of [our media] brands will say “our content is great,” said Caroline Little, CEO and Publisher of The Washington Post and Newsweek Interactive, at the conference yesterday. “And I say, have you looked at Yahoo? It’s pretty good [content] too.” For more VentureBeat coverage of trends online advertising, see Julie Ruvolo’s post from yesterday.

Maven raised a total of $30 million in venture funding, from Accel Partners, General Catalyst, and Prism Ventures.

Interactive Video Resume

“PR is changing. We’ve already evolved.”

Interactive videos are changing our internet experience one by one, from education, retail, travel, etc. Today I came across this post Not the Social Media Press Release…but the Social Media Video Release, which about how the PR firm Liberate Media located in UK use Asterpix to promote Interactive Video Resume/Biography.

Each of the company directors filmed a video biography, and sourced additional online links referencing the credentials they talk about. These resources included visual cues for Flickr and LinkedIn, as well as downloadable photos that we hosted, and a PDF script for accessibility and fact checking purposes.

Our trials were so successful that we pitched the idea to our client iCrossing (formerly Spannerworks in the UK) for their re-brand announcement. They very much liked the idea but wanted a more polished finish, and more in-depth additional information.

Here’s the post Spannerworks announces iCrossing re-brand, and they distributed an interactive video release of global CEO Jeff Herzog, and CEO of iCrossing UK Arjo Ghosh, discussing the brand integration, and vision for iCrossing and digital marketing as a whole in 2008.

from www.asterpix.com posted with vodpod

The above video is interactive, offering links to other sources of information on iCrossing, our spokespeople, and some of the work that we’ve been pioneering in integrated digital marketing. Hover over the logos as they appear throughout the short film to view a description of the additional resource they provide, and click on them to open-up the information in a new browser. A PDF transcript of the video is also available as a download.We hope you enjoy the video, and continue to support us under our new brand.

I think there could be a lot more potential in this idea of using interactive video as the resume. Maybe pretty soon I will see interactive videos showing up in LinkedIn profiles. If you are interested, you could visit Asterpix to create your own.

This is another post from Asterpix CEO Nat Kausik talking about this idea.