Category: Digital - Multi-Platform Mastermind

How Do You Combine TV and Digital Video?

6/24/2014

When blending the two, use TV for reach and digital video for frequency

Digital video advertising will make up nearly 12% of all digital ad spending in the US this year and is projected to grow significantly faster than search or overall display advertising for the next several years, according to a new eMarketer report, “50 Best Practices for Digital Video: Do’s and Don’ts for More Effective Advertising.”

Even though digital video advertising is in some ways well established, it is still new to many marketers and is still evolving for the experienced ones.

For this report, designed primarily for ad buyers, whether agencies or brands, eMarketer gathered insights from dozens of experts in the space—executives at brands and ad agencies, publishers, ad networks, and technology support companies. Here are the tips and suggestions from these thought leaders on integrating video ads with TV, one section of digital video advertising we focused on:

Use video to reinforce the larger TV campaign. “We know that when we’re out with a digital video buy, there’s greater recall when our [TV] spot actually airs.” (Amy Peet, Chrysler Group)

Use TV for reach and digital video for frequency. “As a cross-media planner, if you’re able to sequence these two things together, you can have them both working in unison—one for reach, one for frequency. TV advertising typically raises the profile and creates a lot of impact. Then it’s supplemented by high frequency, much cheaper inventory bought through video networks, for example, or any programmatic video buy.” (Matthew Waghorn, Huge)

Don’t expect a panacea—it doesn’t exist. There’s no simple or single formula for budgeting sight-sound-motion ads across TV and digital. “It’s going to depend by brand, by objective of what you’re trying to accomplish, by results over time and refining and tweaking those.” (Doug Knopper, FreeWheel)

Come together. Best practices are established by corporate silos—or the absence of them. “The next step will be around organizational structure. We hear a lot from agencies that the digital and linear sides are slowly coming together, and the same thing is happening with publishers. And the more these discussions happen and these groups come together, the easier it will be for the industry to start transacting on more of a converged space. So another best practice is to really think about how you merge those two sides of the house.” (Brian Dutt, FreeWheel)

Americans Are Crazy For Digital Devices, Time Consumption Is Up

2/11/2014

by Mark Walsh, Monday, February 10, 2014

Americans own an average of four digital devices (including high-definition TVs) and spend 60 hours a week consuming media across them collectively.

“The number of digital devices and platforms available to today’s consumers has exploded in recent years. As a result, today’s consumer is more connected than ever, with more access to and deeper engagement with content and brands,” stated a Nielsen blog post today on its Digital Consumer report.

Among the key findings by category:

General device ownership and media consumption
-The majority of U.S. households now own high-definition televisions (83%), Internet-connected computers (80%) and smartphones (65%). Nearly half also own digital video recorders (49%) and gaming consoles (46%).

-Average monthly time spent using the browser and/or apps on their smartphones has also grown by nearly 10 hours, ranking second only to live television in the amount of time spent on media. Consumers have increased their monthly time spent viewing time-shifted TV content by almost two hours.

Second-screen activities
-84% of smartphone and tablet owners say they use their devices as second screens while watching TV. In addition to multitasking, they’re using smartphones and tablets to shop, look up TV show-related information and check sports scores, among other things.

-Tablet owners are more likely to use their devices as a second screen for all of the activities examined -- with the exception of email/texting friends about the program.

Social media activities
-Nearly two-thirds (64%) of overall social media users say they use social sites at least once a day on their computer, and almost half (47%) do so on smartphones.

-More than half (56%) of adults ages 25-34 use social media at work.

Mobile shopping activities
-More than four in five (87%) smartphone and tablet owners are using a mobile device for shopping activities
-Two-thirds of smartphone owners use their device to do price checks, and almost half (49%) use mobile coupons.

Hispanic connected consumers
-Latinos spend more time than the average U.S. consumer viewing video on digital devices, at more than eight hours watching online video each month -- over 90 minutes longer than the U.S. average.

-Hispanics are adopting smartphones at a higher rate than any other demographic group: nearly three in four Latinos own smartphones (72%), and half (49%) said they planned to upgrade/replace their smartphones in the next six months.

The information was compiled from various Nielsen reports, including its NetView, VideoCensus, and Mobile NetView panel data from the third quarter of 2013. TV-related data came from its national panel of TV homes and includes time-shifted viewing.

Nielsen said the Digital Consumer report is a combination of two previously separate studies: The Social Media Report and The U.S. Consumer Usage Report. It plans to issue the merged report annually.

"Mobile devices" photo from Shutterstock.

TV Exposure Drives More New Customers To Brands Vs. Digital

9/20/2013

Wayne Friedman, Thursday, September 19, 2013

Not all media is created equal when delivery new and old consumers to brands.

In looking at one significant piece of research from a cross platform campaign, TiVo Research and Analytics (TRA) says TV drives more new customers to make sales, while digital media gets more business from existing customers.

When it comes to media exposure via TV, nearly 70% of purchasing household gains came from new customers that were new to the brand and category. Digital media activity gets more sales activity from existing brand customers than new customers.

The cross-media study was done last fall with Comcast Spotlight’s Comcast Media 360, a cross-platform advertising unit that surveyed 735,000 homes for a Starcom MediaVest Group consumer products marketer with consumers exposed to a cross-media television and digital advertising campaign.

Household advertising impressions were matched to TRA purchase data, with purchasing habits tracked for up to 20 weeks after the campaign ended.

The study also says digital media complements TV media; a targeted cross-media campaign produced a 10% sales lift. Nearly two-thirds of those who were exposed by the digital ads had little or no exposure to the TV campaign.

The survey also says higher TV ad frequency drives sales lift -- seven to 10 exposures of a TV commercial were the most effective. TRA says brand advertising from the campaign continue to create a sales lift after the campaign ended. After 20 weeks, sales from the exposed homes surpassed sales from the unexposed homes.

Tracey Scheppach, executive vice president of innovations at Starcom MediaVest Group, stated: “The study shows that cross-platform campaigns and measurement can be implemented at scale, and allow us unprecedented understanding of how multiple screens are working together.”

More TV Viewers Tune Into Digital Video

9/9/2013

More TV Viewers Tune Into Digital Video
by Wayne Friedman, Friday, September 6, 2013

Traditional TV viewers are increasingly spending more of their time watching more digital video.

While 40% of 18-34 viewers watch some digital video at least once a day -- and 21% of those 35-49 -- a portion of viewers both young and old say they "never" watch digital video.

According to a Ipsos MediaCT survey, 11% of 18-34 viewers "never" watch digital video and 26% of 35-49 viewers also "never" watch digital video. The study was conducted in May 2013.

Research also says 35% of 18-34 TV viewers and 32% of 35-49 TV viewers watch digital video less than once a week. The study defined TV viewers as those who watch TV during prime time at least twice a week.

Most of the digital viewing was between 8 p.m. and 12 midnight. Sixty-seven percent of all those surveyed 18-49 watch "live TV"; with 47% of viewers watching some streaming or online video in that time period, 36% of TV viewers watching DVR time-shifting programming at that time; and 28% viewing video-on-demand programming.

Full-length movies were the content of choice digitally, with 62% watching this type of digital video. Cable or broadcast network was next at 45%, with 38% watching other longer-form original content.

According to a study from Harris Interactive, 35% of viewers "often or sometimes "streamed video through a subscription service, such as Netflix. Purchasing or renting individual videos -- a declining activity -- was reported at a 19% level of consumers doing this "sometimes."

US Total Media Ad Spend Inches Up, Pushed by Digital

8/22/2013

TV remains top ad medium in the country
eMarketer expects US advertisers to spend $171.01 billion on paid media this year, up 3.6% over 2012 spending levels, according to our most recent forecast of US ad spending.

The 3.6% growth rate will be down somewhat from last year’s 4.3% increase, attributable largely to boosts from the Summer Olympics and a national election season. Spending growth for 2014 will be up, with help from the Winter Olympics, midterm elections and the FIFA World Cup, as growth rates hover between 3.1% and 4.1% for the rest of the forecast period.

eMarketer expects TV to continue to capture the largest share of paid ad spending in the US for the foreseeable future, though its percentage of total spending will drop slightly, from 39.1% in 2012 to 38.8% this year and 38.2% in 2017, as spending on TV ads grows more slowly than spending on paid media as a whole.

Digital media will gain the most share during the forecast period, rising from 22.3% of total spending in 2012 to nearly a quarter this year and 31.1% by 2017. Mobile alone will grow ad spending even more quickly than digital as a whole; mobile is expected to account for 15.8% of all ad spending by 2017, or $31.1 billion.

Among digital formats, video remains the fastest-growing—though still from a small base compared to giants like search or banners. And even with the rapid rise of digital video viewership and ad spending, levels of spending on online and mobile video fall far below spending on TV. Even by 2017, eMarketer expects digital video spending to reach only around one-eighth of what is spent on television ads.

eMarketer forecast in June 2013 that total media ad spending would be up 3.4% this year to $170.69 billion. The upward revision to the forecast was primarily a result of upward revisions to expected spending on mobile advertising this year.

eMarketer bases its forecast of US ad spending on the analysis of various elements related to the ad spending market, including macro-level economic conditions; historical trends of the advertising market; historical trends of each medium in relation to other media; reported revenues from major ad publishers; estimates from other research firms; consumer media consumption trends; and eMarketer interviews with executives at ad agencies, brands, media publishers and other industry leaders.

Media Buyers Favor TV, But Digital, Video On Rise

8/22/2013

Media Buyers Favor TV, But Digital, Video On Rise
by Wayne Friedman, Wednesday, August 21, 2013

TV is still the most popular advertising tool for media buyers -- but at its lowest level in three years, according to a new survey.

Chicago-based Strata, the media-buying and selling software company, says TV remains the top advertising medium with 44% of survey respondents saying “they are more interested in advertising" on it. But this is the lowest score in three years.

Digital is now at 35% -- up from 16% a year ago. Twenty-eight percent of those surveyed say advertisers will have greater spend on digital media platforms than traditional media in one to three years. Conversely, about the same number -- 27% -- say they don’t ever anticipate spending more on digital than traditional media.

Overall interest in video also remains high. There is a 61% interest in video -- TV, cable, network and digital streaming -- with 66% saying they are more interested in online video than last year. YouTube is the top online video site for media agencies at 69%. Hulu is next at 35%, and Netflix and social media video site Vine are tied for third at 14%.

Other older media continues to fall -- traditional radio advertising, for example. Eighty-six percent of media buyers say clients were interested at the same level or less than last year -- the lowest rate of interest for radio in 19 quarters.

Forty-one percent of media executives say “client attraction” remains a main goal, with 21% pointing to client spending is the second biggest challenge. Media executives say the ad economy generally looks healthy -- over half of the agencies polled experienced an increase in business compared to this time last year.

Digital Video Takes TV Dollars

8/20/2013

Buying digital video and TV ads together sees considerable interest Video is the fastest-growing digital ad format; eMarketer expects US digital video ad spend to rise by 41.4% this year and by nearly 40% next year as well, when outlays will reach $5.7 billion.

Findings from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) show that much of that increased digital video spending will come out of former TV budgets. Seventy percent of buy-side US senior executives told the IAB they would likely move TV dollars to digital video in the coming year. An even greater 75% of all US senior executives surveyed said the same, suggesting there is significant excitement around digital video from all corners. However, those on the buy side may be slightly more realistic about how budgets will really move.

As to which digital video ad formats would likely see the biggest bumps in investment, an April 2013 study from Be On, a division of AOL, found that 73% of marketers polled worldwide expected to increase spending on pre-roll ads over the next 12 months. Social video ads came in second, at 53% of respondents.

Putting dollars to digital video, though, does not have to mean leaving TV behind, and there are increasing opportunities for cross-platform ad campaigns, something marketers seem particularly excited about.

According to the IAB, nearly two-thirds of respondents who had previously launched cross-platform ad buys seemed happy enough with their results that they said they would increase their budget for combined TV and digital video buys going forward.

Interpublic Strikes Deals Automating Buys With 5 Media Giants

8/20/2013

Interpublic Strikes Deals Automating Buys With 5 Media Giants: Covers TV, Radio, Outdoor, Display, Video, Mobile
by Joe Mandese

On the heels of last week’s deal naming Adap.tv its primary automation platform for targeting and buying TV and video inventory, Interpublic this morning unveiled a spate of similar deals to automate its transactions with five big media suppliers traversing TV, radio, out-of-home, mobile and online video and display.

Details about how the deals would be structured and how they would work were not disclosed, but Interpublic said it now has agreements with TV programmer A&E Networks, cable operator Cablevision, out-of-home and radio operator Clear Channel, local broadcaster Tribune and online portal AOL, which is in the process of acquiring Adap.tv, to supply assets “not previously available through automated buying systems.”

The initiative, which was developed by Interpublic’s Mediabrands unit, is dubbed the Magna Consortium, and is part of the agency holding company’s mission to automate 50% of its media-buying by 2016.

Interpublic has said it is making the push for several reasons, including both greater operating efficiency for its agencies and its clients as media-buying becomes hyper-fragmented and hyper-complex, as well as greater precision in targeting audiences it says will result by shifting from conventional audience-buying data (ie. Nielsen ratings, GRPs, etc.) to estimates that co-mingle so-called first- and second-party sources of data in a manner similar to the way agency trading desks utilize DMPs -- or data management platforms -- to trade online audience buys.

“The good news is that our charter members were quick to sign on to develop a plan forward,” Magna Global Worldwide CEO Tim Spengler stated, adding: “Our goal is to ignite real change in the way media is transacted for the industry.”

While programmatic trading systems are growing fast in the online display marketplace (Magna estimates this is currently about 25% of all online display advertising), the growth has come largely from the emergence of an over-supply of online inventory and auction-based media-buying models like “RTB,” or real-time bidding, that many “premium” suppliers are loath to embrace for fear it will “commoditize” the value of their inventory.

However, some of the most premium online publishers now participate in programmatic exchanges, and many of those deals are not necessarily auction-based, but function more like private exchanges where sellers can set pricing “floors” and buyers can set “ceilings" to ensure that both sides are in control of the process -- even if it’s being processed by machines faster than humans can manage such deal-making.

According to Frank Addante, CEO of Rubicon Project, one of the biggest suppliers of media-buying automation technology, the speed of such transactions is accelerating and is now down to 30 milliseconds of processing time for the average online buy. That’s an improvement from 300 milliseconds a year ago, and three seconds three years ago, all thanks to improvements in data-processing technologies.

The advances of such technologies, and the shift among advertisers and agencies to use them to improve their efficiency, as well as the data-driven effectiveness of reaching their audiences, has sparked a gold rush among media and advertising technology suppliers, many of whom are now going public. One of the fastest-growing and most sophisticated of those developers -- Rocket Fuel, which utilizes artificial intelligence and robots that can assess and bid for media value faster than any human can -- is the latest to file for an initial public offering.

In its filing late last week, Rocket Fuel noted that advertisers are flocking to its technology, and that its revenues more than doubled last year -- and more than tripled during the first half of this one, thanks to a surge in the number of advertisers using its platform. The filings said Rocket Fuel currently has 784 advertisers (up from 341 last year), and that many of its existing advertisers continue to increase the volume they trade via its systems.

The greatest impediment to Interpublic’s goal of automating 50% of all its media buys by 2016 is convincing the most premium suppliers of media inventory -- especially the major television networks -- that they won’t lose control, or value, by doing so, which is why A&E Networks' direct involvement is so significant.

That said, at least a portion of all of the most premium TV suppliers inventory already is being sold through programmatic exchanges. While it’s not being sold directly by the national TV networks themselves, the trading desks of at least two agency holding companies have already begun utilizing AudienceXpress, a programmatic audience-buying exchange spun off from target TV-ad serving developer Visible World. The portion being traded by AudienceXpress comes from the two minutes per hour that networks give to local cable TV operators as part of their carriage agreements. While the cable operators are supposed to sell that commercial time to local or regional advertisers, AudienceXpress effectively pools their national reach into unwired network buys.

Since it became operational in late January, AudienceXpress Founder and CEO Walt Horstman estimates the two agency trading desks that have been beta testing it have bought 2 billion TV advertising impressions through it.

The reason why AudienceXpress has been successful where others, including Google and Microsoft, have failed, says Horstman, is that its platform is designed to give suppliers 100% control over the floors they set for selling their inventory, while giving buyers the ability to analyze more data that will enhance the value of buying those audiences from their perspective.

As with online publishing, the supply of unsold TV inventory also continues to expand due to the emergence of so-called “long-tail” networks that are not yet rated by Nielsen, as well as a torrent of free video-on-demand audience impressions

NBC News Digital TO Create Streaming Media

8/20/2013

NBC News Digital To Create Streaming Media
by Gavin O'Malley, August 19th, 2013

Not content with its current video output, NBC News Digital Group has assembled an in-house production team to create streaming media specifically for social, mobile and Web viewers.

The suitably named Original Video Unit will be tasked with creating video for various brands across the NBC News Digital Group, including NBC News Digital and Today Digital. “We will now have an additional focus on original video that extends the news division’s on-air and digital brands,” Vivian Schiller, senior vice president and chief digital officer of NBC News, said on Monday.

The Original Video Unit will focus on creating branded video series, extending NBC News' high-quality storytelling across digital platforms with an emphasis on mobile and social audiences. The digital video franchises will feature journalists from across NBC News’ shows and platforms.

Bill Smee -- previously executive producer Slate.com's video arm Slate V -- has been tapped to lead the new team as executive producer of original video production. He is expected to join NBC News in September.

Gregory Gittrich, vice president of news and product for NBC News Digital and executive editor of NBCNews.com, said it’s increasingly important to entertain, as well as inform audiences. The new unit, he said, “will share important, unique and undiscovered stories while entertaining our audience."

Last week, NBC News acquired Stringwire, a start-up that develops real-time mobile video-sharing software. Upon the news, Schiller told Online Media Daily that consumers could expect a Stringwire-supported NBC News-branded product sometime next year.

Before joining Slate, Smee spent 20 years in television news and documentary as a producer and network executive at CNN and the Discovery Times Channel.

The NBC News Digital Group encompasses NBCNews.com, msnbc.com, TODAY.com, theGrio.com, NBCLatino.com, NBCPolitics.com, iVillage, Nightly News, Meet the Press, Dateline, Newsvine, Breaking News, and each brands’ apps and digital extensions.

Radio Ad Revenue Flat, Digital Ads Rise

8/19/2013

Radio Ad Revs Flat, Digital Ads Rise

by Erik Sass, Friday, August 16, 2013

Radio advertising revenues were unchanged in the second quarter of 2013 compared to the year before, according to the latest figures from the Radio Advertising Bureau, which tallied total revenue at $4.66 billion.

Spot advertising, long the mainstay of the industry, was also flat at $3.74 billion, as were off-air revenues, steady at $407 million, while network advertising slipped 4% to $285 million.

As in previous quarters, the main bright spot for radio was digital advertising, which saw a 16% year-over-year increase, to $222 million.

Communications advertisers dominated radio spending, continuing a trend seen in previous quarters, with a 27% increase over the second quarter of 2012. AT&T, Comcast, and T-Mobile taking the top three spots in terms of dollars spent, while Verizon took fourth place (after McDonald’s) and Sprint was in eighth place; all five companies increased their spending substantially over the second quarter of 2012. The other spots in the list of the top ten radio advertisers were held by PepsiCo, in sixth place, Safeway in seventh, Walmart in ninth, and Geico Insurance in tenth.

Automotive advertising -- a strong category for radio in previous quarters -- dipped 11% in the second quarter, despite healthy growth in car sales, including a 9% jump in June. Beverage advertising also slumped in the second quarter, dropping 15%. On the positive side, spending grew in casinos and lotteries, up 4% in the quarter, due mostly to heavy promotion of state lotteries, concerts, theaters and movies, up 7%.

While also positive, digital advertising remains a fairly small part of radio’s overall business, with the $222 million in reported digital revenues representing just 4.7% of total ad revenues.