Tag: Digital Video

New Ad-Free OTT Video Service Fullscreen Welcomes Sponsored Content

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Fullscreen, a digital video network co-owned by AT&T and The Chernin Group, is set to officially launch its own subscription-based streaming service on April 26 as it tries to reduce its reliance on YouTube. Although the $4.99-per-month service won’t carry any ads, Fullscreen is very much open to hosting brand-sponsored content. AT&T, for example, is co-producing programs that will debut on the service at launch. Fullscreen has previously worked with brands to create branded or sponsored video content for distribution on various social channels like YouTube and Snapchat.

What Brands Need To Do
With 70% of U.S. internet users now watching TV via OTT streaming services, it is getting harder and harder for brands to reach their audiences with traditional TV ads. The fact that a lot of those subscription-based services are ad-free doesn’t mean that they are brand-free. On the contrary, they offer brands new opportunities to reach consumers with branded content, which can live alongside traditional media content and is equally discoverable on advanced TV interfaces. Therefore, brands should consider working with those brand-friendly OTT platforms to make their branded or sponsored content more accessible.  

To read more on how brands can reach viewers on OTT platforms, please check out the Appified TV section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: Marketing Land

Header image courtesy of Fullscreen

Facebook Now Offers Brands Daily Breakdown Of Video Views

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook has been steadily building out its video products to attract content creators and compete with YouTube for the huge ad spending shifting from TV to digital videos. Now, the social network has updated its video data dashboard to give brands daily breakdowns of video views, which include the three key metrics – total views, total time spent on a video, and the number of times the video was viewed for at least 10 seconds – that Facebook introduced in February to enhance its video measurement.

What Brands Need To Do
This new daily breakdown of video views can offer brands a more granular look at how their video content is performing on Facebook and better inform their digital video strategies. As Facebook continues to improve its video ad products, brand advertisers should also consider reconfiguring their digital ad mix and diversifying the video platforms they choose.

 

Source: The Next Web

 

YuMe and IPG Media Lab Evaluate the Impact of Digital Video Ad Lengths

Posted on by Lab Team

Research Test Ads Provide Insights Regarding What Ad Lengths Work Best Across Device and Location

Click here to download the full report.

Shifts in the way people consume video content are changing how marketers strategize about video advertising. Increased consumption of snack-sized content, for example, has made shorter video ad formats more popular. Concurrently, longer video ad formats have become increasingly prevalent as marketers start to invest in custom content created for digital platforms. While marketers are clearly experimenting with new video ad lengths, they are faced with increasing complexity about what works most effectively.

To help address these questions, today, YuMe, Inc., the global audience technology company powered by data-driven insights and multi-screen expertise and IPG Media Lab, the creative technology arm of IPG Mediabrands, unveil our latest joint research, addressing the effectiveness of different video ad lengths, looking at micro and longer form ad formats, devices and consumer perspective. Key findings include:

  • Ads perform differently based on length – developing a creative length strategy is imperative for success
  • Micro ads have a leg up on smaller screens, where video takes up 100% of screen real estate and short content is the norm
  • Having grown up with short form content, millennials respond best to micro ads, and also tend to see them as higher quality and more enjoyable than older consumers do
  • Shorter ads can serve as a quick reminder of established brands to drive top-of-mind awareness and longer ads can be employed to educate about a new brand
  • While every device performs differently, the 15 second mark is the shortest amount of time for making an impact on persuasion metrics

AdLengths Infographic_2-29-1

(Click on the image for the full-sized infographic.)

 

Click here to download the full report.

 

 

CES 2016: YouTube Keynote Session Promises Digital Video Domination

Posted on by Lab Team

Earlier today, Chief Business Officer of YouTube Robert Kyncl took the stage at CES 2016 to deliver a keynote session on the growth and future of digital video. He kicked off the session with a bold yet reasonable prediction that by the end of the decade, digital video will be the thing that people spend most time on besides sleeping and working. Throughout his keynote address, he laid out four key reasons why digital video, and YouTube by implication, will dominate our future media landscape.

Mobile

Digital videos may have started out on the desktops, but it is inherently fitted to transit onto the mobile screens. Where TV has struggled to go mobile, YouTube took the plunge long ago, and now more than half of YouTube’s traffic comes from mobile devices as consumers become increasingly used to consume media on mobile devices.

Music

“Half of teens today use YouTube as their primary music streaming source,” Kyncl pointed out. To capitalize on YouTube’s vast library of music and music videos, YouTube Music Key is now included in YouTube’s subscription service Red. Scooter Braun, the man who discovered Justin Bieber on YouTube and made him into a star, took the stage and shared some insights into YouTube’s impact on the music industry.

Diverse Content

Kyncl also counts YouTube’s diverse content as one of its strength. “YouTube is a democratic platform, which allows everyone to create a video for anyone,” he said, and that’s why YouTube has something for everyone. Therefore, digital videos are choice-based viewing, and YouTube holds the biggest content library for viewers to choose from.

Immersive Content

Looking ahead, YouTube is betting on spherical videos and VR-mode viewing to be the next big thing in digital video. Kyncl invited Nick Woodman, CEO of GoPro on stage to talk about the allures of 360-dgree videos, and announced a partnership between YouTube and GoPro, which aims to help create more immersive content on YouTube using GoPro’s 360-degree cameras.

 

For more of the Lab’s CES coverage, click here.

Global Watch: Alibaba Acquires China’s YouTube

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
China’s leading ecommerce giant Alibaba has acquired Youku Tudou, China’s leading digital video site, for $3.67 billion. Previously, Alibaba held a 18.3% share in the online video company. Pending regulatory approval, Alibaba will gain access to over 580 million monthly users watching videos on Youku Tudou with this takeover, further bolstering its position in the Chinese digital media market.

Market Impact
To put it as an analogy using their U.S. equivalents, this acquisition is essentially China’s Amazon buying China’s YouTube. This deal provides Alibaba with a new vital channel to reach potential online shoppers and, presumably, to integrate its ecommerce assets, such as payment information and consumer data, to create better, actionable video ads. Meanwhile, Youku Tudou gains Alibaba’s support to help it compete with rival video sites, such as Baidu’s IQiYi and Tencent Videos, and solidify its leading position in the Chinese digital video market.

For brands that have a presence in the Chinese market or looking to enter it, this deal should spell great opportunities to reach Chinese consumers via digital video ads and leverage Alibaba’s consumer data to target the right audience segments for direct sales.

 

Source: Wall Street Journal

YouTube To Launch Ad-Free Monthly Subscription Service

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
After months of speculation, YouTube has finally confirmed the launch of a paid subscription service called YouTube Red. Set to launch on October 28th in the US, the $9.99/month subscription service will allow users to watch YouTube without ads, save videos for offline watching, and keep video playback running in the background on mobile. YouTube is also planning to put some new original content created by its top content creators behind the paywall. In addition to the YouTube content, subscribers will also gain access to the entire library of Google Play Music as well.

Market Impact
Currently boasting over 1 billion monthly users worldwide, YouTube has long been the number one destination site for digital videos. Yet it still struggles with turning a profit. Launching an ad-free subscription tier opens up a new revenue stream for YouTube, while also putting it in direct competition with other subscription-based music streaming services. As a distribution platform, the site offers some of the best video ad products in the industry thanks to its scale and support from its parent company Google.

Overall, YouTube Red won’t necessarily reduce the streaming site’s existing ad scale by much – after all, 10 dollars a month is not that cheap – but it could cause a certain high-income demo of YouTube viewers to opt out of seeing ads, therefore costing some brands that specifically targeting this demo their targeted audience.

 

Source: The Verge

Header image courtesy of YouTube

Facebook To Challenge YouTube With Dedicated Video Feed

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Following the debut of a “shopping feed” earlier this week, Facebook has also started testing a dedicated video feed that is designed to provide Facebook users with a lean-back viewing experience. In the test, a new “Videos” tab replaces the one for Messenger in the Facebook iOS app, and divides the video feed into separate channels for clips shared by friends, pages a user Liked, trending videos on Facebook, previously watched, and more.

In the past few months, Facebook has been touting out several new features to strengthen its video offerings, such as Suggested Videos, unlisted Secret Videos, and picture-in-picture video playback, which are all incorporated into the new video feed. The company also hinted at possibly expanding this video experience to other platforms such as smart TVs down the road.

What Brands Need To Do
This move signals Facebook’s ambition in building out its platform to attract more video content, so as to better compete with YouTube in the booming online video ads market, which is forecast to increase by 23% to reach $13.8 billion this year, according to a recent study by IHS and Vidiro. Therefore, it is important for brands to adjust their video ad strategy accordingly and choose the most suitable platform for distribution.  

 

Source: Marketing Land

Verizon’s OTT Service To Feature Content From Vice News And NCAA Games

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
New details have emerged on Go90, Verizon’s mobile video service first announced in July. The platform will feature a mix of select TV series and short-form videos, including original content from digital studios including Vice Media, DreamWorksTV, and Collective Digital Studio. Live programming featured on the app will include NCAA football and basketball games, as well as international soccer matches. The service will be available via a free, ad-supported mobile app for both Android and iOS devices.

What Brands Should Do
As we previously wrote, Verizon has long been making good use of the consumer data it acquires through its wireless service, including app usage and web browsing habits. Combined with AOL’s ad tech that Verizon now owns, the Go90 could offer brands some great ad targeting. If Verizon can provide compelling content for its platform, Go90 could grow into a late-bloomer in the OTT market, and a rare one that is actually ad-friendly.

 

Source: The Hollywood Reporter