New "Internet TV Advertising Forum" Set to Announce Video Ads Standards

Online Video Inventory Will Increase 3 to 4 Times, Says Maven's Hilmi Ozguc

For the past several months, executives from Maven Networks, a leading Internet TV platform company, along with executives from Fox News Digital, Scripps Networks, Ogilvy, Digitas, CanWest, TV Guide, 4Kids TV, Microsoft Corp., DoubleClick and 24/7 Real Mediahave been quietly meeting to discuss the challenges and deficiencies associated with current online video advertising models. Today, the companies will announce the official formation of the Internet TV Advertising Forum and is inviting publishers, agencies, marketers and technology companies to join and participate in the development of online video advertising standards that respond to the challenges and issues related to pre-roll video advertising. The Forum has been conducting closed trials of new applications and technologies, including extensive research plus development and usability testing of new ad formats and technology capabilities.

Hilmi Ozguc, founder and CEO of five-year old Cambridge-based Maven, has spearheaded the effort and advises Jack MyersMedia Business Report in an exclusive interview that the group will announce later this month the results of initial tests of several new video advertising formats, with live campaigns utilizing these formats being introduced as early as November.

"This will be a watershed moment in the history of online video," says Ozguc. "New standards, combined with new publisher inventory management systems, will unlock three to four times the amount of available video inventory. There is huge pent up demand among advertisers and agencies who want to shift more spending online. But there has been a shortage of inventory and a frustration with limited creative opportunities. With these initiatives, a lot of creative and media possibilities will be opened and when the right tools are in place, there will be an accelerating shift of budgets to online. It's the holy grail of video - television combined with the interactivity of the Internet."

Ozguc acknowledges the independent efforts of YouTube, heavy.com and others to introduce new creative formats, but he believes advertisers are looking for more than a scattershot approach. "If advertisers want to do a broad based video buy across multiple sites, there needs to be standards across all publishers. We have been into the world of Internet video for a few years now and it's time to take advantage of all the Internet has to offer." The Internet TV Advertising Forum is open to anyone with a stake in Internet video, say Ozguc.

Although advertiser demand for video inventory has been escalating, the limitations of traditional pre-roll advertising has presented consumer problems and backlash. With those complaints, publishers have been frequency capping ads, running an average of one video advertising clip for every three video clips served to an individual, according to Ozguc. YouTube uses no pre-roll ads to be more appealing to consumers, a model that works for consumers but not for maximizing ad revenues. Publishers have had a Sophie's Choice between meeting the needs of audiences vs. the critical importance of generating ad revenues.

About a dozen formats are already being tested by the Forum with initial tests expected to result in defined standards for overlaying the lower third of videos with interactive advertising features that freeze programming in place, offer telescoping into a deeper versions of the ad, or deliver direct response call-to-action options without requiring the viewer to leave the video player.

Maven is also today announcing the launch of the Maven Internet TV Advertising Platform, which Ozguc says "will dramatically increase video advertising inventory and revenue via new ad formats, an intelligent and dynamic video ad insertion engine, and sophisticated video ad inventory management tools." Existing management tools, he argues, have been designed for web pages and banner ads – not video clips. "The new Maven platform," Ozguc explains, "combined with new industry standards for video advertising, will enable inventory levels to raise three to four times, and even more as longer form video consumption increases." Rather than being locked into pre, mid and post roll advertising, publishers will be able to dynamically and behaviorally target video advertising to viewers without intrusively interfering with the video experience. "Media companies can finally unlock the full potential of their video streams, exponentially increasing ad revenues, and providing consumers greater choice and control over their level of interaction with video advertising," Ozguc comments.

Maven’s ad platform introduces a patent-pending dynamic ad insertion engine that automatically determines optimal ad viewing points within a video clip based upon historical usage analytics (user viewing behavior and video popularity) and associated metadata (video length, topic, etc.). This enables relevant ads to be delivered at the appropriate time to behaviorally and contextually targeted viewers. Maven advises that pre-identified, manually placed insertion points within the video can also be created through a complementary cue point editor.

Ozguc has also addressed publishers' historic inability to accurately forecast available video inventory by "providing a high confidence avails reporting system that delivers advanced inventory management and forecasting capabilities and allows for greater advertising sales efficiencies. The result will be an exponential increase in ad inventory within short and long-form video content that media companies can make immediately available, responding to pent up demand."

"Ogilvy is working with Maven to help evolve the platform to create new formats in online video advertising that truly reach the right target at the right time with the right message -- it is the holy grail of advertising that marketers have been searching for," said Maria Mandel, Senior Partner and Executive Director of Digital Innovation, Ogilvy.

Hilmi Ozguc can be contacted at hozguc@maven.net

This special report is underwritten by Teletrax, "the leader in digital watermarking for video media tracking, measurement and intelligence." For more information, contact:  Peter Winkler at pwinkler@teletrax.tv.  The editorial content has been prepared by Myers Publishing with no involvement or approval of sponsors.