Tag: video ads

Comcast And Verizon Launch Ad-Supported Video Streaming Platforms

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
The OTT video space just got a bit more crowded, with Comcast and Verizon both launching their video streaming platforms this week. First announced in mid-August, Comcast’s Watchable officially launched on Tuesday with 30 content partners, including Buzzfeed, Disney’s Maker Studios, Vice, and Vox, and is available on set-top boxes for Comcast customers, as well as mobile apps and online for anyone in the U.S.

Similarly, after teasing it for two months since late July, Verizon will officially open its video streaming service Go90 to the public on Thursday. Unlike Watchable, Go90 will only be available on mobile apps. But it is also ad-supported, and free to use for all mobile users in the States, regardless of carrier. Content-wise, Go90 includes a mixture of traditional TV content provided by partners such as Discovery and Viacom, live sports such as college football games, as well as some original digital shorts commonly seen on YouTube.

What Brands Need To Do
Since both services are ad-supported, brands, especially those seeking millennials, can reach their target audience with video ads that are usually not buyable on subscription-based streaming services. In comparison, Watchable seems to have an edge over Go90 in content, which is supplied by a batch of digital publishers popular among millennials. But with the support of AOL’s ad tech, which Verizon acquired earlier this year, Go90 could offer brands better targeting and customization for their ads. It remains to be seen whether these two new services will be able to draw an audience sizable enough to warrant ad buying. Nevertheless, brands of all types would be smart to stay mindful of the ongoing changes in the digital video space and adjust their ad buying strategy accordingly.

 

Source: Variety and CNET

Facebook Debuts New Ad-Buying Product to Woo TV Ad Buyers

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook has stepped up its ad game by introducing a new way for advertisers to plan, buy, and measure video ads on its platform in junction with their TV campaigns. Dubbed Target Rating Point (TRP) buying, the new tool is aimed wooing TV ad buyers by speaking to the top advertisers in the kind of language that they are familiar with, such as “ratings points” and “GRP.”

What Brands Need To Do
By offering the major ad buyers an easy way to plan and track their Facebook campaigns along with their TV buys, Facebook is no doubt trying to position its video ads as the perfect second-screen complement to TV ads. In the past year, Facebook has seen exponential growth of its natively hosted videos, as the social network recently reported 4 billion video views per day, 75% of which come from mobile devices. Brands wishing to reach viewers across multiple screens should consider utilizing this new offering from Facebook.  

 

Source: Digiday

Instagram Gets More Serious About Ads

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
After experimenting extensively with various ad products and formats, Instagram is now getting serious about courting TV and online advertisers with more standardized formats and buying options. After lifting the restriction on “non-square posts” last week, Instagram is now allowing brands to run 30-second-long video ads on its platform, extending the previous video runtime of 15 seconds. The company will also start rolling out its ad products to 30 more global markets such as Mexico and India, further expanding its reach.

Moreover, the photo-sharing network is also introducing a new banner-like ad format called Marquee, which, according to Instagram, aims to “help drive mass awareness and expanded reach in a short time-frame”. It will also start offer more customizable “call-to-action” buttons that appeals to a wide array of industries, including travel, entertainment, and retail, with direct response formats that can link outside of Instagram.

What Brands Should Do
As Instagram becomes more ad-friendly, brands should obviously start experiment with the new formats and learn to use each ad product to its advantages. The new Marquee buying option, for example, should be a good fit for for big product launches or movie releases where brands seek big opening sales. Moreover, brands should keep in mind that Instagram is still very much a mobile-first platform, which means that vertical videos are going to look better than the landscape ones.

 

Source: TechCrunch

 

Yahoo Adds Support For Native Video Ads On Third-Party Apps

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Yahoo will start helping developers add native video ads into their apps, the company announced on Wednesday during its Mobile Developer Conference in New York City. Mobile developers will soon get tools on Yahoo’s ad platform necessary for integrating video ads that fit their apps’ design.

What Brands Should Do
According to a recent study by Nielsen and Sharethrough, native video ads perform better than other video ads including pre-roll ads. For brands that wish to spread its branded video content in the increasingly app-centric mobile ecosystem, Yahoo’s new addition could be helpful in increasing the reach while simplifying the process.

Source: TechCrunch

Facebook Extends Autoplay Video Ads And More To Mobile Ad Platform

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook continues to diversify its mobile ad offering by bringing its autoplay video ads to third-party mobile apps that utilize its mobile ad network, Audience Network. Moreover, the social network is also extending its slideshow-like carousel ads that first debuted on Instagram to non-Facebook apps, as well as its dynamic product ads that allow retailers to target shoppers who had previously browsed on their ecommerce sites.

What Brands Should Do
Mobile ads, especially those in the mobile web, have been widely criticized for dragging down access speed and undermining the mobile experience. By employing the new in-app ad formats, brands and marketers may find a way to skirt around some of the common issues plaguing display ads in mobile web, while also discovering new, efficient ways to reach consumers in today’s mobile-first world. As of right now, Google’s mobile ad network doesn’t support autoplay video ads or other high performing ad units that Facebook offers.

 

Source: Marketing Land

Why Verizon Is Launching Its Own Streaming Service Go90

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Verizon is reportedly getting ready to launch its own mobile-first, video streaming service named Go90 this summer, which will allow users to stream full episodes of TV shows from selected networks as well as music videos and other short-form content. Sources claim that Verizon will offer the service entirely free of charge, at least initially. Some of the content that Verizon gained through the recent AOL acquisition will also be added to the service.

What Brands Should Do
Verizon has long been making good use of the vast amount of consumer data gathered through its wireless service., including app usage and web browsing habits. That, coupled with the ad tech that AOL owns, could offer brands strong ad targeting tools on Go90’s ad-supported platform. Admittedly, it may be too early to tell if Go90 will be able to attract enough users that warrants brands’ attention. Nethertheless, brands need to be mindful of the great advertising potential it has.

 

Source: Variety

Facebook Launches “Floating Videos”, Integrates Location Pins From Google Maps

Posted on by Lab Team

Facebook continues its push into videos by testing a “floating video” feature on its desktop site. Taking a page out of Tumblr’s video playbook, Facebook now allows users to pop videos out of their place in the feed to hover in the corner as the user continues to scroll. Facebook is clearly hoping this feature will get more users to watch more videos for more time as it continues to compete for video ads dollars with YouTube, which added similar detachable video player on its mobile apps back in 2013.

In related Facebook news, the social network and its spun-off chat app Messenger now integrate with Google Maps to allow easy share of locations across the two platforms, a feature previously not available to anyone with an iOS device. As Facebook continues to expand its platform, especially its mobile messaging platform, we expect to see more similar cross-service integrations pop up in the future.

 

Source: The Next Web & CNET

Facebook To Challenge YouTube With New “Suggested Videos” Stream

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original article on: Re/code

Continuing its effort in eclipsing YouTube’s video ad revenues, Facebook has announced a new initiative to start sharing ad revenue with some of its most popular video creators. Despite setting the revenue split at 55%-45%, the same ratio as YouTube, two significant differences set the two platforms apart for advertisers.

First, unlike YouTube, Facebook won’t run pre-roll ads, but instead will put video ads in between videos within its new “Suggested Videos” stream, a feature it started testing last week. It offers a stream of content, so a user might watch three videos before seeing an ad. An implication of this is that ad revenue on Facebook would be divided among multiple video creators, whereas on YouTube, the 55% of revenue split goes to a single creator.

Second, Facebook seems to be taking a stricter approach towards video monetization. Unlike on YouTube, where any user can easily add pre-roll ads to their videos with a few clicks, Facebook is only partnering with some established content creators like the NBA, Hearst, and Funny Or Die on this new revenue share program. Although it leaves out the rest of user-generated video content that usually dominates News Feed, such selective measures may help ensure the content quality of the video stream, therefore giving advertisers more control over the type of content that their ads would appear with.