Digital Video Advertising: What's holding it back? - Gene DeWitt- MediaBizBlogger

DVA Digital Video Advertising has some fantastic advertising attributes Sight sound and motion High advertiser demand Targeted audiences Interactivity Measurable performance What39s missing from this picture To become 39the next big thing39 in media DVA needs to accomplish the following1 Scale A recent WSJ report noted that a MySpace show sponsored by Ford quotSpecial Deliveryquot delivered a very unspecial audience of 200000 viewers In a country of 300 million people and an auto company that sold 21 million cars in the US last year this is not even spit in a bucket 2 Efficiency In a recent speech to a group of Columbia University Business School alumni Rishad Tobaccowala CEO of Denuo said that advertisers could buy mass TV ads for around 20 cost per thousand exposures vs about 560 for online video CPM39s For a smaller screen and a shorter message this seems out of line with common sense no matter how engaged or targeted the audience 3 Production Quality MySpace estimates its production costs at 1000 per minute vs as much as 50000 per minute for broadcast network programming One wonders if this affords a high quality program environment for a major advertiser39s message As for usergenerated content that may be fine if you39re marketing songs or soft drinks to subteens but may not be appropriate for advertising leisure travel or financial services to older affluent audiencesI39m reminded of the early days of cable when all the new networks would come in and present proposals that promised extraordinary ad efficiencies if each network 39only39 delivered a 10 rating When the first Nielsen surveys came out I recall that it took an accumulation of eighteen cable networks to total a 10 rating The cable networks then called it 39targetcasting39 which Ted Turner founder of the Turner networks called 39a euphemism for low ratings39Nevertheless cable not only survived it thrived Perhaps there are some lessons for digital video ventures in what we learned in building audiences and advertising for cable1 Promotion Presenting a TV or video content and advertising opportunity without promoting 39tunein39 is like staging an expensive party without sending invitations However increased tunein promotion alone while necessary is unlikely to drive online video advertising to critical mass levels 2 Syndication Given the somewhat scattered nature of online viewing an aggregation of platforms may be required to accumulate significant audiences for internet programming This will require individual sites to find a way to collaborate on the development scheduling promotion and ad sales for a new generation of video with wider appeal to potential audiences and advertisers 3 An Entrepreneurial Business Model When I advised Jon Hendricks and his Discovery channels in building audience and advertising throughout the 199039s we developed a PampampL pro forma for every program and special The idea was that spending more on promotion and programming could be justified if this resulted in higher ratings and ad spend Similarly DVA providers will need to invest in added promotion and broader distribution to make the leap into the big timeAnd big time it will be since these are not particularly daunting obstacles What39s needed is a bit of vision to get over the blinders of today in order to see the path to tomorrow

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Digital Video Advertising: What's holding it back? - Gene DeWitt- MediaBizBlogger

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