Why Interactive Video Content is Imperative for Brands

1. People want to learn and interact In this Ad Age study with Google, consumers were asked “how important are ad features in getting you to interact with online ads?”

The results are encouraging: people want aesthetically pleasing ads, from recognizable brands, in noticeable placements, and preferably with video.

However, they also want “information on a product or service that I want to learn about” and “the ability to interact”. So it’s not just about online video but about interactive video, which can look great and have emotional impact but can also provide other marketing solutions.

2. It improves brand health

Many case studies show brands that foster engagement and captivate attention through interactive video enjoy better brand-customer relationships – as measured by brand influence, favorability and consideration – than more linear ad experiences.

3. It drives sales

Irrespective of what else is going on in a campaign, or in peoples’ lives, people that see your ads should buy more than people who don’t.

The same Ad Age/Google study shows that 94% of people who engage with ads frequently make their buying decisions based on online advertising and 40% who engage buy online often or daily. Brands: people that engage with interactive ads buy stuff.

How does interactive video deliver attention?

1. By cutting-through 

Once your brand is in front of the right person you need it to illicit an emotional, cognitive, or physical response. This requires an ad to cut through the noise of daily life and deliver an experience that is unique, interesting, and/or involving.

A study from Millward Brown revealed that’s exactly what you get when using interactive video – in-banner, in-stream and mobile – versus ‘plain’ video only.

2. Respects the consumer journey

Why is the average click through rate on standard display units around 0.07%? One argument is that clicking on an ad is a disruptive experience.

It relies on a consumer taking time from whatever online activity they’re doing, clicking away to your brand site, and then somehow finding their way back to their original activity. If you want people to spend time with your brand then give them an experience that respects their journey.

Interactive video allows you tease a person into an initial interaction with your ad and, if you have set expectations right, gives an opportunity for them spend time in your brand experience but be returned gently to their original journey.

3. Targets the right user

A colleague says: “Engagement acts as a natural filter, allowing users that are interested to raise their hands and allowing those that are not to enjoy only light impact”.
If you get the initial creative, the media, and the audience optimization right it gives you the opportunity to expose your brand to the right people. However, interactive video then self-determines for people interested at that moment, draws in new prospects by offering the chance to capture emotional attention whilst also offering rational exploration, and protects your brand equity from forced experiences.-eConsultancy

Are you using video? To learn how contact Jeff at 888.712.8211 or jmiller@vmakers.com.

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YouTube owns a fifth of the U.S. digital video ad market

YouTube brought in over $1.1 billion in video ad revenues in 2014, according to eMarketer. That’s 19 percent of the entire U.S. digital video ad spend, which totaled $5.9 billion this year.

To better compete with platforms featuring only well-produced, high-quality content, YouTube introduced its “Google Preferred” program in late April. Preferred enables brands to advertise exclusively against the top 5 percent of content on the site, in areas such as food, music and gaming. Marketers can pay an even higher rate to allocate some of that inventory to the top 1 percent of videos.

YouTube is seeking non-advertising revenue too.
To bolster its bottom line with non-advertising revenue, YouTube is aiming to mimic the success of subscription services such as Netflix and Spotify. In November, it introduced YouTube Music Key, which is currently in beta. For $10 a month, Music Key offers ad-free listening, the ability to play music offline and in the background on your phone, and access to Google’s Play Music All Access service. The service brings music fans convenient access to hot new tracks as well as the eclectic rarities and remixes uploaded by the YouTube community.

YouTube may also offer a paid subscription model for its video content down the line. In late October, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said she’d like to offer users an alternative to pre-roll ads on the site.

“YouTube right now is ad-supported, which is great because it has enabled us to scale to a billion users, but there are going to be cases where people are going to say, `I don’t want to see the ads, or I want to have a different experience’,” Wojcicki said in an onstage interview at a Re/code conference. She mentioned apps where users can “either choose ads, or pay a fee, which is an interesting model. … We’re thinking about how to give users options.”

YouTube’s competitors are gaining ground.
YouTube remains a massive, dominant player in the world of digital video, but its competition has steadily gained ground over the course of the year. AOL has quietly become a digital video powerhouse; Vessel is gearing up to launch a short-form Hulu, poaching YouTube stars as its key draw; and brands are moving away from a YouTube-centric strategy as they embrace native Facebook video for their video marketing efforts.

Facebook is also courting publishers, YouTube stars and other key partners in the looming battle for digital video dominance. The social media giant even signed a deal with the NFL last week for access to short video clips, such as highlights and news, revealing the massive scope of its video ambitions.

The advance of YouTube’s competitors is reflected the latest data from comScore, which tracks video viewership on U.S. desktop devices. In November, YouTube still topped the charts with 162 million unique viewers. But with 104 million unique viewers, AOL topped a major milestone, breaching the 100 million mark for the first time. Facebook sat in a close third with 95 million uniques, followed by Yahoo with 56 million. This past May, YouTube posted 150 million unique video viewers, AOL had 66 million, Facebook had 81 million and Yahoo had 52 million, according to comScore.

YouTube is investing in its creators (again).
In September, YouTube promised to open up its checkbook to creators on the platform, funding some of their original content efforts on a per-project basis. This isn’t the first time it has tossed money at channels, however: Back in 2011, it handed out $100 million to over 100 channels on the platform, many of which were established media firms and figures. It was an exercise in garnering legitimacy for the burgeoning platform.

This time around, with the money going exclusively to “authentic YouTube creators,” YouTube’s motivation is completely different. It’s a defensive move as competitors such as Facebook, Vessel and Vimeo court YouTube creators with lucrative deals and revenue shares, Grantland publisher David Cho explained to Digiday at the time.

It’s also about encouraging creators to produce longer programming, said Outrigger Media CEO Mike Henry. “Stretching the popularity of YouTube stars beyond their typically short-form clocks is going to present a lot of advantages for Google, particularly for over-the-top consumption,” said Henry. Specifically, content shaped more like TV programming could appeal to a broader range of demographics as well as advertisers more comfortable with that format.

YouTube networks selling for major money.
Massive media companies that want a piece of the digital video scene have an easy way in: buy a multichannel network (MCN). That’s exactly what Disney, Otter Media (The Chernin Group and AT&T’s joint venture) and European broadcaster RTL Group did this year with their respective acquisitions of Maker Studios, Fullscreen and StyleHaul. Maker sold for $500 million, with another $450 million tied to performance goals; Fullscreen sold for somewhere between $200 to $300 million; and StyleHaul went for around $151 million. Other investment activity in the space — including Hearst’s $81 million check to AwesomenessTV, which bought it for a 25 percent stake — highlighted the massive value of big MCNs.

Leading MCNs such as Maker and Fullscreen have grown their audiences to the tens of millions, while keeping their productions costs extremely low compared to TV and film. But these media giants snapping up MCNs are paying for more than access to millennials and Generation Z: MCNs enable marketers to deliver video ads to highly targeted audiences and craft effective native ads with leading influencers.-Digiday

Take your video marketing to the next level. 
Call Jeff at VMakers at 888-712-8211. 
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Top 7 Holiday Videos for 2014

1. John Lewis’ “Monty the Penguin”: 31,140,574 views


2. Samsung’s “Home for the Holidays”: 21,013,232 views

3. Sainsbury’s “Christmas 2014”: 16,420,630 views



4. Band Aid 30’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas”: 15,063,530 views


5. Poo~Pourri’s “Even Santa Poops”: 10,344,783 views


6. Target’s “Holiday 2014”: 6,264,542 views


7. Microsoft’s “Winter Wonderland”: 6,370,293 views



Take your video marketing to the next level. 
Call Jeff at VMakers at 888-712-8211. 

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Digital Ad Viewers Are Most Attentive on Smartphones

The device on which a consumer views video ads matters far more than mood or location—or even the content genre. According to July 2014 research by YuMe and IPG Media Lab, smartphones have the biggest influence on attention, followed by tablets and then PCs.

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Purchase intent benefitted from high video attention on mobile devices. Among US internet users who viewed pre-roll video ads on a smartphone—a group that’s often on the go—64% of those who were highly attentive planned to purchase the product advertised. In comparison, just 23% of smartphone viewers who paid little attention intended to buy. Interestingly, while there was a correlation between attention and purchase intent on tablets as well, 37% of those who viewed pre-roll ads on tablets with low attention still planned to buy the product advertised—more than the low-attention audiences for PCs and smartphones.

Smartphones are increasing their share of digital video ad views. Q2 2014 research from FreeWheel found that, while desktop and laptop computers still grabbed the large majority of digital video ad views served in the US on the source’s platform (76%), this had dropped 3 percentage points since Q1 2014 as a result of smartphone views. Between Q1 2014 and Q2 2014, the smaller screen grew its proportion of total video ad views from 11% to 13%.

For now, PCs still rule the field when it comes to digital video ad views, but as smartphone viewers prove to be more attentive—and purchase intent continues to rise as a result of ads on such devices—users should be prepared to see more video ads popping up on their phones.eMarketer
Take your video marketing to the next level. 
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YouTube’s US video ad revenues - $1.13 billion in 2014

According to new figures from eMarketer, YouTube’s net video ad revenues—ads exclusively run on the site’s video clips, not including banners, search and other ads on the site, and excluding traffic and content acquisition costs—will grow in step with the video ad market overall, and the site won’t increase its market share significantly in the coming years.



Though its video ads are growing at a rapid rate, YouTube’s potential is currently hindered in part because its video ad placements are not consistent across the board. Advertisers like the volume of users and variety of content on YouTube, and the growth of various channels on YouTube, focused on topics such as beauty tips and gaming, gives advertisers that want to deliver relevant ads to those audiences a very well-targeted reach.

But they’re also increasingly drawn to platforms with exclusively high-quality, well-produced content. Much of the time audiences spend with digital video in general is not useful for advertisers, such as clips that are either too short to include ads or not brand friendly, and both are attributes of many user-generated YouTube videos that get the most views.

eMarketer’s outlook for both AOL and Yahoo is predicated on increases in digital display revenues due to ads placed against premium video content, which includes full-length shows, digital shorts and other professionally produced programming. AOL will see its US display ad revenues grow nearly 20% in 2014, eMarketer estimates, due in no small part to the success of its Adap.tv ad platform. Meanwhile, Yahoo’s US display business is currently in decline—expected to drop 3.6% this year—but aided by its intensified push into premium video content this year, we estimate that Yahoo’s display ad revenue growth will turn positive again in 2015.



Overall, US digital video ad spending continues to increase significantly, up 56.0% this year to reach $5.96 billion, according to eMarketer. Growth will taper off rapidly, however, slowing to 13.9% by 2018, when digital video spending will reach $12.82 billion, according to our forecast. Though video advertisers are following the broader trend of shifting dollars to mobile devices, mobile video ads actually suppress the overall market in part, since many smartphone video ads are short ads accompanying short clips and often cost less than desktop video ads.

Video’s share of digital display ads in the US will gain significant ground, increasing from 21.6% of all digital display advertising last year to 30.1% by 2018. Meanwhile, rich media—which can include video and interactive elements—will also gain share of the digital display market, taking away dollars from banners and other static ad formats.



One key factor holding back the digital video ad market, however, is the fact that more and more digital video content is streamed through subscription services such as Netflix or Amazon Prime Video—neither of which support advertising. In addition, TV will remain by far the leading individual medium for ad spending in the US, totaling $68.54 billion this year—compared with just shy of $6 billion for digital video ads—and TV advertising will increase more than digital video in real dollars in each year throughout our forecast period.-eMarketer

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DoubleVerify Launches First Complete Video Ad Quality Solution

DoubleVerify.com launches Video+ -- the industry's first complete solution that protects advertisers and their inventory suppliers from the rising fraud and abuse in the digital video ad environment. 

With online video advertising expected to double in the next two years, Video+ provides the transparency and safeguards necessary to deliver a fraud-free, brand safe, viewable video ad.

DV Video+ authenticates the quality and impact of each video ad impression across 4 important areas:

• Brand Safety: the quality of the video content that an ad is running in
• Fraud Protection: if the video ad is served to a non-human bot
• Video Viewability: if the video ad is never viewed, partially viewed or seen in its entirety
• Engagement: if the video ad was on auto play or initiated by the user, with sound on or off, or running in an inferior format

DV advanced technology uncovers the most complete set of problems where video ad fraud and abuse can occur, including:

• Video ads that are served to non-human bots
• Video ads integrated within video content that is offensive and objectionable
• Video ads that 'play' automatically in the background even when the user didn't activate them
• Video ads running on a video player too small to be seen by the user
• Video ads that are barely viewed, rendering them completely ineffective
• Video ads that run within a low quality banner or video game, when the advertiser is paying for a premium video placement.

DV Video+ is the latest advancement to the company's broader Impression Quality suite of services that authenticate the quality and effectiveness of each impression in a digital ad campaign. DV Impression Quality solutions maximize performance across five critical dimensions - ad viewability, brand safety, fraud protection, impression delivery and ad prominence - that give brand advertisers and media sellers a comprehensive view of the quality and effectiveness of their digital media campaigns.

Take your video marketing to the next level. 
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Interest in Video Ads Jumps 45% [study]

Online Video Ad Growth Strong Even as Agencies Question the Value 
A recent survey of media buying agencies found that 45% of those polled are more interested in digital/online video than they were a year ago, while streaming/online radio saw a 53% increase. Overall, video dominates as 67% of agencies said that their clients’ primary focus for campaigns is video advertising (which includes traditional TV, cable, and network, as well as digital video). The second quarter survey of agencies was conducted by STRATA, the leader in media buying and selling software.



YouTube is the most dominant site within digital video, as 72% of agencies said their clients are interested in advertising on that medium, up 5% from last year. HULU followed at 36%, a 32% jump from 3Q13. Despite the strong growth for digital video, agencies still question the value of online video ads. Almost half (47%) said they are fairly confident they are getting a good value for their money in recent digital video ad purchases, while 40% say they are unsure.

Driven by television along with digital advertising, the overall ad economy appears to be strong as 62% of agencies say their business is increasing this quarter compared to the same time last year, representing an all-time high for the STRATA Agency Survey.  Spot TV continues to be the top source for advertisers as 55% say their clients are the most interested in that medium, the largest percentage in 22 quarters of the survey. For spot radio, 13% of agencies responded that that medium is receiving the most interest, up 32% from a year ago.

Long-form digital video content is increasingly mirroring the 30-second TV ad experience, further blurring the lines between devices. This industry needs to make it easier to buy video, regardless of the platform, and provide the right measurement and accountability to help our buyers purchase digital video at scale.

The use of programmatic buying also continues to draw differing opinions from agencies. Thirty-nine percent of agencies are still undecided as to whether they trust programmatic to carry out their media buying, while an equal amount of agencies believe that programmatic buying is effective in reaching their clients’ target audiences. The most popular form of programmatic buying, according to agencies, is digital, with a third of agencies polled stating they use programmatic to purchase their digital ads.

Other key findings: 
• 89% plan on using Facebook in client campaigns, which is the third highest number in the STRATA Agency Survey since 2008. YouTube (53%), Twitter (50%), LinkedIn (36%) and Pinterest (32%) followed.
• Pinterest had the largest year-to-year growth, jumping up 31% over 2Q13.
• 51% project the second half of 2014 to be better than the first half, up 19% from the second quarter of 2013.
• 31% are less interested in Out of Home advertising than a year ago, the largest percentage since 2008.

Take your video marketing to the next level. 
Call Jeff at VMakers at 888-712-8211. 

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