Tag: video ads

YouTube Makes Its Shoppable Ads Widely Available In Time For Holiday Season

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
YouTube’s two latest shoppable ad formats – “TrueView for Shopping” and “Shopping Ads on YouTube” – are now out of beta and available to all advertisers using Google’s AdWords. First introduced in May, TrueView for Shopping allows retailers to create interactive video ads that contain actionable shopping cards that can direct viewers to purchase pages. Meanwhile, Shopping Ads on YouTube, which debuted in late September, enable retailers to overlay shoppable cards in all contextually relevant YouTube videos, not limited their own videos.

What Brands Need To Do
By extending the general availability of its shoppable ad formats, YouTube is ramping up its video ad products for retailers just in time for the holiday shopping season. YouTube currently leads the digital video ads market with its ad revenue set to reach $2.2 billion this year, according to eMarketer (paywall). And retail brands should consider utilizing these buyable ad formats to help move potential consumers down the sales funnel.

 

Source: Marketing Land

Header image is a promotional image courtesy of Google’s Inside AdWords Blog

IPG Lab + Google Release Deconstructing Branded Content: The Global Guide To What Works

Posted on by Lab Team

Click here to download the report.

Branded content, defined in this research as content that lives on its own, produced by and for the brand, as opposed to content produced by someone else the brand affixes itself to, has transformed marketing, overall. With the increased emphasis on cross-screen viewing, and digital at the core of brand communications, branded content has become a core part of many brand campaigns.

IPG Media Lab, a division of IPG Mediabrands, in conjunction with Google, today announced the results of the industry’s first global comprehensive branded content effectiveness study. Aiming to understand consumer perceptions and to compare the effectiveness of branded content and video advertising, this closed study surveyed 14,780 consumers, looked at 50 brands, across 19 verticals, in 10 countries, assessing how branded content is perceived in different parts of the world and how this translates into branding effectiveness.

Content That Works

Based on the research we conducted, here are two examples of content that was effective and seen differently by consumers.

Nutroplex: 

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Rexona: 

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You can download and read the report here.

 

YouTube Opens Ad Viewability To Third-Party Verifications

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
In response to the increasing demand of the ad industry, YouTube has announced it will soon allow third-party vendors to verify its ad viewability. ComScore, DoubleVerify, Integral AdScience, and Moat are among the first batch of outside vendors that YouTube has approved to report viewability beginning early next year.

Market Impact
Viewability verifications help guarantee that advertisers only pay for ad impressions that are actually seen. As the industry leader in online videos, YouTube’s net US video ad revenues soared to $1.55 billion this year, and is estimated to top $2 billion by 2017, according to eMarketer (paywalled link). Google has made significant efforts to make YouTube’s ads more effective, adding “buy buttons” to the pre-roll ads recently, and YouTube’s willingness to open its ad views to scrutiny shows its confidence in its ad products. Facebook also added support for third-party verifications for its video ads viewability in September.

 

Source: Marketing Land

Twitter Now Serves Native Video Ads Via Its MoPub Marketplace

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter announced at its Flight developer conference yesterday it has added the capability of serving native video ads in third-party apps to its in-app ad network MoPub Marketplace. Available for all developers and app publishers, this new native ad product features a video and a call-to-action button, similar to those on Twitter itself, in a style that can be customized to blend in with the content feed in third-party apps.

What Brands Need To Do
This new ad product came on the heels of a new ad network for pre-roll video ads that Twitter introduced last week, signaling Twitter’s determination in pushing further into the video ads market and contend with YouTube and Facebook. Compared to other common digital ads, native in-app ads bear no risk of being blocked by ad-blockers, which have seen rapidly increasing adoption this year. For brands looking to reach today’s mobile-first consumers, these two new video ad products from Twitter may prove useful.

 

Source: Marketing Land

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

Comcast Integrates Digital Videos Into Its X1 Cable Box

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Following the launch of its OTT video service Watchable in July, Comcast continues its attempt in broadening its content offering by adding digital videos right into its X1 set-top box. Bringing in short-form videos from a number of content providers, including ABC, Discovery, AMC, BBC America, and its subsidiary NBC, Comcast’s digital content mostly consists of clips of news and sports at the moment. While it probably won’t be enough to convince the customers considering cord-cutting to keep their service, it does offer a nice complement to the existing living room viewing experience.

What Brands Need To Do
With consumers of all age demos excluding baby boomers now watch as much digital video as television, traditional media companies are starting to recognize the importance of digital content in reaching the increasingly fragmented audience today. In August, Comcast invested $200 million in BuzzFeed via NBCUniversal, making a play for its viral digital content. As the audience continues to migrate towards OTT on-demand platforms, marketers and brands will have to follow the eyeballs, as well as developing a more comprehensive digital strategy and campaign approaches.

 

Source: Engadget

Twitter Opens Ad Network For Pre-Roll Video Ads

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter is getting serious about video ads. The microblogging social network has expanded its Amplify program to include an ad network for pre-roll video on Twitter which allows marketers to  to automatically place six-second ads before videos professionally created by a wide range of publishers across the TV and digital publishing industries including Fox, MTV, Univision, BuzzFeed, Vox Media, and AOL.

What Brands Need To Do
Taking a page out of YouTube’s playbook, this new pre-roll ad network will no doubt bolster Twitter’s video ad capabilities. With the launch of the “Moments” feature earlier this week, Twitter now has a great channel to package its video content and deliver it via neatly curated collections to audiences based on their varying interests. Pre-roll ads offer a great spot to connect with the audience in a native way, and brands seeking to amplify their social reach should definitely take this new ad network into consideration.

 

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Apple To Open Universal Search Wide On Apple TV

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
One highlight feature of the new Apple TV that was unveiled last month is Universal Search, which allows users to search for content via Siri in a granular manner – down to a specific episode or even a specific guest star – across multiple OTT content platforms. At launch, this feature only supports select launch partners such as Netflix, Hulu, Showtime, and HBO, which vastly limits the reach of this killer feature. So it came as no surprise that Tim Cook confirmed, in a recent interview with Buzzfeed, that Apple would soon release an API for Universal Search, which allows developers to easily integrate this feature with their content, so it will show up in the search results as well.

What Brands Need To Do
As we previously wrote in our Fast Forward analysis on the new Apple TV, Universal Search provides an unprecedented opportunity for new content discovery across integrated apps, especially from lesser-known services. Now that Apple has confirmed that it will soon open this feature up to all providers, brands need to be prepared to add Universal Search support to their Apple TV app as soon as the API arrives, and to start by indexing their content for it to appear in favorable spots when users search for certain keywords.

 

Source: Buzzfeed

 

Event Recap: IPG Mediabrands’ Advertising Week Panel On Viewability

Posted on by Lab Team

This morning, IPG Mediabrands held an Advertising Week event to tackle one of the hottest topics in the ad industry today, viewability. The event consisted of a presentation of the Lab’s new research results and a panel discussion featuring five industry insiders.

Kara Manatt, our VP of Consumer Research Strategy, kicked off the event with a presentation of  never-before-seen research conducted by the IPG Media Lab in partnership with our sister agencies Cadreon and Magna Global, along with Integral Ad Science. In her presentation, Manatt explained how the new viewability study rigorously tested standard banner, rich media, and auto-play video ads from two brands representing different industry verticals and shared some key findings from the research. The widely accepted MRC standard for viewability, as the research shows, is not a magic threshold for improved ad recall, but rather “a stepping stone for ad effectiveness.” This means even some impressions below the MRC standard have impact on viewers. For example, the research finds that while the MRC standard states video ads need to have at least 50% in view for 2 seconds to count as viewable, our study found that for significant impact auto-play video ads with audio on only need 25% in view for 2 seconds.

Following the insightful presentation, Suzanne Vranica of the Wall Street Journal moderated a panel discussion featuring Gail Horwood from Johnson & Johnson, Mitchell Weinstein from Magna Global, Zach Putman from ABC Television, Ian Wallin from Integral Ad Science, and Howard Mittman from GQ. The panelists talked about a wide range of issues surrounding ad viewability, including vendor standards, ad fraud, and different perspectives on finding solutions for viewability issues. “Viewability is not an entry point, it should be an exit point,” Gail Horwood remarked, pointing out the importance of focusing on delivering ads in an impactful, viewable manner. Mitchell Weinstein concurred by saying that “for agencies, viewability is really about only paying for the ads that are seen.” Overall, the panelists agreed that viewability is a crucial issue that the digital ad industry needs to overcome. While achieving 100% viewability is practically impossible, striving for better viewability via developing new standards and eliminating fraudulent ads is not the ultimate goal, but rather a means for clearing the path to reach the consumer audience.

POV: Apps in the Living Room – Opportunities in Apple’s New TV Platform

Posted on by Lab Team

On Wednesday, the Lab attended the 2015 OMMA Programmatic Video event, where our Director of Strategy Adam Simon delivered an in-depth presentation on the emerging opportunities for brands and advertisers on the new Apple TV.

Starting with a brief recap of the ongoing transition from linear TV viewing to OTT streaming, Simon quickly moved on to the significance of the new Apple TV, how Apple’s ecosystem plays into the future, and the transition to apps. Calling it “a collaboration between Hollywood and Silicon Valley,” he deftly pointed out how Apple TV offers media owners and brands with video content new ways of delivering engaging content. Also, retailers can benefit from the closed attribution loop consisting of iTunes Store, iAd, and Apple Pay delivered through new apps.

After explaining the potential social utilities and interactive, blended content on Apple TV with Airbnb and MLB TV as examples, respectively, Simon offered a few insights for brand integration and on how to reach audiences on streaming services without ads such as Netflix. He closed out his insightful presentation with two main takeaways for brands: start optimizing and experimenting with Apple’s New TV platform and adjust your ad buying and targeting strategy accordingly.

The Lab has extensive experience working with brands to reach their audiences in the OTT and digital video space. Earlier this year, we led our parent company Interpublic Group to invest in Samba TV, a startup that specializes in advanced real-time TV analytics and cross device retargeting. For more details on how brands can utilize the new Apple TV, read our Fast Forward analysis here.

You can go through the presentation embedded below.

 

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