Online video ads more effective than TV ads

A recent study by Millward Brown points to some surprising results: online video ads are more effective for brand awareness and recall than TV ads. Reasons include a less cluttered ad space and more attentive users.

ClickZ reports, "The study compared reactions of viewers to 30-second ads shown during network shows viewed on television, DVR and online. While TV and DVR viewing resulted in 54 percent brand awareness among the ad watchers, the survey found online viewing led to 82 percent brand awareness.

Ads placed online drove even higher brand recall: 18 and 19 percent for TV and DVR viewing, respectively, versus 77 percent for online viewing. In addition, while around 70 percent of TV and DVR ad viewers linked the correct brand to a commercial, 93 percent did so if they watched the ads online."

Mark Loughney, vice president, sales strategy & research, ABC commented, "The results of the Millward Brown CTV1 Study provide independent confirmation of our own research that we have been sharing with our advertisers on ABC.com. Sole sponsorship of programs in the "leanforward" online environment provides an opportunity for our partners to connect with passionate fans of ABC shows in a uniquely engaging environment."

Advertising's chaos senario 2.0

Bob Garfield has a long thought-inspiring article at Ad Age on the chaotic conditions facing advertisers. In short its all about niche verses mass and the old global agencies and traditional media outlets are not structured to make the transition.  Bob comes up with five truths about the current situation.

1. People don't like ads
2. But they crave information
3. The consumer is in control. No, really.
4. Diversion of ad budgets
5. Pay-per-view

"In imagining Chaos 2.0, you must follow the no-money. And when you do, you'll have taken the Chaos Scenario one step further: to a digital landscape in which marketing achieves hitherto unimaginable effectiveness, but in which display advertising's main role will be to quickly, straightforwardly, informatively draw you into a broader brand experience."

Brand acceptance in Second Life

A recent survey by Komjuniti shows that Second Lifers are not that excited about brands in-world. The study shows 72% are disappointed with branded activities, 42% were unaware of brand presence at all and only 7% said that in-world branded activities had a positive influence on their brand impression.

“Disappointing, but not entirely surprising,” comments Dr. Nils Andres, managing director of Komjuniti. “All the hype about Second Life in the traditional media has served to raise people’s expectations to a level that the technology and the companies taking part simply are not yet in a position to fulfil”.

MIT Advertising Lab summarizes the learning, "The aim has to be to build communities around Second Life sites and look to serve them over the long term. One-off promotional initiatives are punished over the long term with a lack of attention by Second Life users and can provoke a negative consumer backlash effect on the brands in real life."

"The State of the Console"...staggering

Nielsen's first study of the console industry is going to turn some heads. Lost Remote says, "the report clearly shows that much of the usage is taking place when people would normally be watching conventional TV programming."

Media Post says, "the study suggests that while Madison Avenue has become transfixed by other digital media, especially online, DVRs, and personal media devices such as the iPod, video games already are having a profound impact on the way people spend time watching TV for a very simple reason: Most video game consoles are connected to the primary or secondary TV set in TV households, and they are used primarily during traditionally peak TV usage time periods - especially among some of the most important and elusive TV audience demographics."

Key Takeaways:

• The console household universe has grown 18.5% sine fourth quarter 2004, compared to a 1.6% growth in the total universe of television households.
• Two-thirds of all Men aged 18-34 have access to a video game console in their home.
• The universe of connected console households (households subscribing to a service to connect their console to the internet) has grown to more then 4.4 million households, even before the newest Playstation 3 and Wii consoles are considered.
• In the NTI (Nielsen Television Index) fourth quarter of 2006, 93.8 million US Persons aged two and older used a video game console for at least one minute.
• In any given minute, approximately 1.6 million US Persons ages two and older are using a video game console.
• The heaviest console users accounted for 74.4% of all console usage and averages 345 minutes (5 hours and 45 minutes) of usage per day during the fourth quarter.

In-game advertising is going to really take off as more people get internet connectivity for their consoles. It also makes Microsoft's purchase of Massive seem pretty smart.

The coming onslaught of video sites

Last week alone several projects were announced that point to a massive increase in niche video sites.

A company called The Next New Network announced plans to launch 100 sites. "Next New Networks plans to blend elements of old and new media into a type of hybrid entertainment that is different from traditional television and user-generated sites like YouTube. Its various Web properties will revolve around professionally produced videos of three to eight minutes, which it plans to pitch to sponsors as safe and predictable places to advertise online."

MTV announced plans to build thousands of new sites. "It aims to build Web sites related to every personality and aspect of its shows, hoping to catch viewers wherever they happen to be on the Internet and on mobile phones."

Hearst is launching 12 new video sites to support its magazines. "The video content will include behind-the-scenes footage from cover shoots, red carpet video, product reviews, recipes, hair-and-makeup "how tos," user-generated video, and more. Opportunities exist to run interstitial and pre-roll video ads near the player."

The William Morris talent agency announced it will be building a site for each of its stars, of which there are around 3000. "The super-agency is teaming up with an Internet video-streaming company to actually create TV-quality programs for consumers to watch on computers, cell phones and other gadgets like iPods."

As more and more sites are created around video assets there will be a huge increase in inventory and thus a decrease in ad rates.  As Cory at Lost Remote points out this will "ultimately lead to consolidation and the creation of vast video ad networks. Long-form advertorial and advertainment video will become the norm, but many online video projects will be abandoned because of low return."

2007 is shaping up to be an exciting year for online video and online advertisement.

Lack of online video inventory

Ad Age reports that while demand from marketeers is high there is a sever lack of online video content. The article sites four reasons holding online advertising back, "fragmented audiences, limited inventory, a lack of video created specifically for the web and a still-evolving ad-buying model."

Online video advertising accounted for just 5% of the $20 billion dollar interactive media market in 2007.  That $775 million does not include brands going direct to consumers with offerings like Anheuser-Busch's Bud.tv.

Daily news developments point to companies addressing the fragmented audiences issue, like today's announcement between Viacom and Joost. Ad buying models will surely settle themselves.  The tough part is finding content created specifically for online viewing.

Newspapers beat TV stations for online video revenue

A new report from Borrell Associates indicates that local newspapers are beating local TV stations for online video advertising revenue. The report shows that in 2006 newspapers sold approximately $81 million in local online video commercials in comparison to $32 million sold by TV broadcasters.

Lost Remote comments, "Portals (and other pure plays), network/cable sites, newspapers and even video blogs are beating local TV sites in video innovation and revenue generation. How important is video? Borrell goes on to predict that video advertising will skyrocket to make up one-third of all local online advertising in 2012, just below paid search."

From the report: "The most exciting thing I’ve seen in the numbers is the consumer demand for advertising, which pales in comparison to consumer demand for local news. In the end, the local media company that wins is one that can deliver a wealth of interactive content — especially video — around consumer verticals like real estate, health, automotive and other high-priced items that require lots of prior research."

Long form local video will find its audience as more people look online for deeper information than a 30 second ad or a 15 second pre-roll. No matter what the media outlet is, local is going to be the new black.

Bud.tv and Identity 2.0

Bud.tv launched this Monday only to get hit with immediate feedback as to the egregious registration requirements. While there have been other comments as to why Bud.tv is or isn't the next great thing in advertising, the registration issue cuts deep into an ongoing discussion about the web and Identity 2.0.

For a entertaining overview of Identity 2.0 issues, watch Dick Hardt's, CEO of Sxip Identity, 2005 OSCON keynote address.  I know its old but its still a great starting point.

Sxip's is working with the OpenID group which is a "a free framework for user-centric digital identity; and Whobar for web developers, which streamlines the user registration and login process with Identity 2.0 technologies, such as InfoCard, i-Names, and OpenID."

OpenID and projects like it seek to provide a "user-centric identity where by each website trusts the user, and the user is free to choose any identity agent that provides the appropriate technical functionality. Thus the user is in the middle of a data transaction. This does not mean the user has to approve every tr ansaction, but that the data always flows through the user's identity agent."

Identity management and verification could have prevented Bud.tv from having to invent its own authentication process and allowed them instead to focus on its real goal of providing original content to its target audience.  That's going to be hard enough.

The evolution of UGOV

It looks like MarketingVOX actually got the full report from Screen Digest on user-generated online video (UGOV.) 

From the post: "The user-generated online video market (UGOV) exploded in 2006 and by the end of the year user-generated videos accounted for 47 percent of the total online videos streamed in the U.S.

By 2010, more than half (55 percent) of all the video content consumed online in the U.S. will be user generated, accounting for 44 billion video streams; however, user-generated videos will account for just 15 percent of total revenues, according to Screen Digest."

Report author, Arash Amel, suggested that smaller sites will need to diversify to combat the dominant existing UGVO brands like Youtube and MySpace.

Amel says, "Emerging alternative offerings include online editing, revenue sharing with content producers and hybrid services which offer both premium and user-generated content."

The Desperation of Viral Campaigns

Scott Donaton's article on Advertising Age brings up a point that we all know: most viral campaigns suck. The fundamental reason they suck: "They are not the end result of an actual idea or strategy but are born of a desperate desire to do something, anything, in the new-media space."

Scott looks at the Folger's Tolerate Mornings: "This is Folgers' attempt to appear cool and ironic by offering slow risers such appealing goodies as a wake-up call on their mobile phone from "Lucy," billed as a "sexy way to rise and shine (for the fellas)," or a "boss tracker," in case you want to catch a few z's at your desk. The fact that it's meant to be tongue-in-cheek makes it somehow sadder, like a dad trying to act cool in front of his teenage daughter's friends."

Viral campaigns are so hard to create for brands because the viral aspect relies on the content being edgy, irreverent, graphic and funny.  Those are hard to manage for most brands. The best viral videos have, in most cases, not come from the brands themselves, but rather from the consumers, like the Diet Coke/Mentos videos. Therefore one strategy is to be watchful for consumer content and then have a plan to capitalize on that conversation.

Scott's take away: "Doing something just to do something still leads to nothing."