Event Recap: AdWeek — Future. Video 3.0

As part of our continuing Advertising Week coverage, this morning we attended a discussion on breakthroughs in audience targeting in cross-platform video advertising. Moderated by Scott Donaton, Global Chief Content Officer & Head of UM Studios, the panelists consisted of Bryan Gernert, CEO of Resonate; Jamie King, CPO of Keek; Andrew Snyder, Video Sales VP of Yahoo; and Matt Van Houten, Ad Sales Director of AT&T Adworks.

Video 3.0 and the Content Business

“Everybody knows mobile is the future, and mobile video is the key to that future”, declared Snyder at the start of the session. This mobile video content has been dubbed “Video 3.0” and is promising for advertisers partly because the viewers of Video 3.0 are measurable and can be targeted. Furthermore, “there is hope for a single content marketplace,” as Gernert noted.

More Helpful & Less Disruptive

The panel also discussed one persistent issue in video advertising—its disruptiveness. “Pre-roll video ads can sometimes be disruptive to viewer experience, and that depends largely on the content,” King noted, as the discussion turned to using behavior data generated by Video 3.0 to determine to the right context for video content.

The bottom line here, as Gernet and Donaton concluded, is that “advertising is the ‘necessary evil’ that fuels the content business”, which, with the improved targeting and measuring capacity of Video 3.0, will hopefully become more helpful and less disruptive.

 

Facebook Purchases LiveRail

Facebook continues to build out its video ad platform by purchasing video ad tech company LiveRail. The acquisition means that Facebook users shouldn’t be surprised to see video ads based on your Facebook profile elsewhere across the Internet, as LiveRail is known for tailoring videos very specifically across platforms and sites. Publishers will benefit, as more relevant ads will help them make the most out of all the opportunities that they have across the web, but the creepiness factor might begin to creep in for users as they see the same videos everywhere.