Shelly Palmer raises some very interesting points in his blog entitled "TV/Video Web Inversion: It's Just a Question of When" -- the following is an excerpt. I don't know about you, but I can predict that this puzzle is something that Google will quickly solve as it considers how to dominate the emerging online video advertising opportunity.
I also predict that while traditional advertising agencies are still scratching their heads in disbelief, Google will implement a solution that enables most net savvy marketers to directly measure, manage and control precisely targeted video ad placement themselves.
I also predict that while traditional advertising agencies are still scratching their heads in disbelief, Google will implement a solution that enables most net savvy marketers to directly measure, manage and control precisely targeted video ad placement themselves.
We are also going to need a very robust online video advertising insertion service, one that can deal with work flow issues, approvals and electronic marketplace pricing schemas. There are consortiums at the ANA, AAAA, D!MA Group and other industry organizations whose goals include creating everything from common nomenclature to standard "advanced media" advertising units.
So far, they have not successfully captured the hearts and minds of the industry professionals who would have to make the system(s) work. (Oh, and since the Internet is inherently two-way, there must be special attention paid to dynamic and addressable feature sets as well.)
Then we are going to need online video packaging that can be traded, bought and sold in a commoditized marketplace and traded as currency. What are the equivalents of TV:30s, TV:15s, billboards, bumpers, GRPs, demos, ratings, etc. in the online video world. Until all media planners, buyers, brand managers and systems operators speak the same language, it will be hard to truly build a value chain on this side of the business.
And finally, we are going to need a process that enables advertisers to easily purchase media time from 350,000 different online video vendors to reach 1,000,000 people as opposed to buying one :30-second spot on an average-rated television show to achieve the same results. Sure, it's fun to see "Ask A Ninja" or "Funtwo" reach five or six million views, but that's not what most online videos can ever hope to achieve.
On the Internet, everyone is famous for 15 people! Monetizing small groups, social networks, communities of interest and clouds of interest is going to take a great deal of number crunching and that's what computers are good at. Completely new delivery and tagging mechanisms need to be created to do these jobs, and they are all in the works today. Some people with good ideas include, www.rightmedia.com, www.beamback.tv, www.booyahnetworks.com to name a few.
The advertising inversion will occur when it is more cost effective to reach true core audiences with IP-provisioned video than it is with traditional broadcasting techniques. When are we likely to see an inversion? Much sooner than the foregoing would have you believe. Although these issues seem like daunting problems, I might remind you that most of them are purely business rule issues.
The technologies required to accomplish these goals are not hugely complex. And, since this is the "Year of Online Video," you can be sure that the smart money recognizes this opportunity as the key to transforming the value of online video into wealth.