Do you want your ad next to video of teenagers throwing kittens in a river?
In this guest posting, NineMSN’s Andrew Hunter argues that brands are taking unneccessary risks when they advertise against user generated content or autoplay video – which is why ad revenue does not necessarily follow the audience.
Recently YouTube’s Karen Stocks wrote the reason advertising dollars weren’t flowing to user-generated content was because marketing people didn’t understand the viewing habits of the digital audience. She seemed to be saying that because users did not discern between UGC and “premium” content, nor should advertisers.
When you look at YouTube’s UGC-heavy content mix, it’s an understandable position. Understandable, but somewhat disingenuous. Content quality and environment matter to both users and sponsors.
Just because audiences are consuming UGC does not mean advertisers will, or should, automatically follow.
Great article. Thoughtful consideration to context that seems to be ignored in many other discussions. And it’s about time we saw some real analysis around viewing habits behind many of these videos. Watching a Russian blow his car up on Youtube while scoffing down a pie at the desk for lunch may not be the best time to consume a Bridgestone ad…
Thanks Andrew — I often wonder at the use of that phrase “catch-up TV”. Does the TV industry really still think of IP TV as “catch-up TV” or even “catalog [ie old] TV”? Or do they simply lack the online rights? And if so will they seek online rights more aggressively and start broadcasting online at the same time? And if they don’t, will global producers one day say bugger it and sell global online rights instead to Facebook (and let Facebook sell the ads — which might make ad rates cheaper and the ads more targetted and more effective?) And if that’s the case what’s the future for local networks?
Andrew, maybe you should do your own ‘heavy lifting’ and have MSN pay for a study into ad effectiveness (or whatever metrics you wish to use) to help the adverting community better understand how consumers interact with ads on premium platforms (e.g. MSN) vs riskier propositions like You Tube.
My suspicion is that the lower cost of entry will always make the broader networks more efficient, even if you allow for the occasional bit of inappropriate placement.
All I read was a naked spruik as to why you need to advertise on NineMSN… yawn…
Never mind the usual biatches, this was fairly well thought out and a good read. What I find innaresting is the use of adblockers- do you or the agencies know when your ads/videos are blocked?
Didn’t NineMSN and Ch9 show the footage of the kids chucking the cat in the river, or stoneing the swan? Who paid for the pre-rolls and basic TV ads…..Did they care???
All – thanks for the feedback.
Rob – excellent idea. Stay tuned.
David, an interesting question and theory … Securing extended online rights to premium TV shows is difficult, unless you’re aligned to a free-to-air station (as ninemsn is with Nine) for a catch-up service. The factors at play are myriad but two of the bigger issues are the output deals the major studios have with FTA stations (each of the FTA players is tied to the output of one or more of the major studios), and windowing (whereby content owners seek to maximise revenue through DVD and other digital sales before releasing to IPTV players and then over-the-top streaming providers such as ninemsn.)
IPTV is different to ninemsn’s FIXPlay offering. FIXPlay is streamed over the web. IPTV is delivered in data packets, via the internet, which are reassembled by the device (such as Telstra and Fetch boxes). The web-streamed experience will improve as the NBN rolls out but, for now, you can’t expect the user to sit through as many ads on a web-streamed service as they do on TV. The experiences aren’t yet close enough. Combine that with Facebook’s lower advertising yields and the proposition you’ve outlined is unattractive in the medium term. Also, the content owners make more money dicing the content by territory than they would with a singular global deal. A global web player could pay a fortune up front in the hope of building a business but they’d be taking a serious bath in the meantime.
Due to a massive work load I was unable to read the entire article above. I work for a company that manafatures like jackets for kittens and other small animals and would like further information on advertising next to the “kitten throwing” video.
Regards,
Mr Meowgi Products
Hi Andrew,
‘Streaming’ content over the internet functions precisely in the same way as other content sent over the internet. It’s broken into packets, transmitted and reassembled at the client side.
On that technical basis NineMSN’s Fixplay service is IPTV.
The reason it is called ‘streaming’ is because the content can begin playing before the file fully downloads – the opposite of streaming is downloaded video – where you download the entire file before being able to view it. This is due to a difference in how the file is encoded, not a difference in how it is transmitted across a TCP/IP network like the internet.
Refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media
Technical distinctions aren’t what is important anyway. What is important is the quality of the content.
Cheers,
Craig