Harry Case on online video advertising
Harry Case, managing partner, director of media analytics and technology, Mindshare
Transcript: Harry Case on online video advertising
How are we actually going to integrate or how are we going to work two different channels – an online channel and a more traditional channel for video – and I think that it really boils down to what are the purposes for those two channels and are they really going to be the same sort of a branding or something along those lines the I think it makes sense that they should try to be more synergistic in how they approach the problem. If they really are going to have different approaches, and one is going to be more about a branding and the online is going to be more about a direct response, then I think you are going to see a differences develop in how those two channels operate in the types of video that you see being on each channel.
Historically, online has tried to mimic a lot of what we have seen going on in traditional advertising whether it is print or TV, but I think it is time for us to try to explore a whole new range of opportunities and a whole new range of roles for the online space because I think in the long term, by differentiating ourselves, I think we will be better off than to just try to mimic what is going on in traditional advertising.
The fact that the online experience is tied into a forced exposure where people are more leaned forward and really waiting for the content that they are really asking for, that the impact is significantly higher that we have seen in more traditional media where people are sort of anesthestize or used to: "this is an ad and I can leave for 30 seconds or I can leave for 15 seconds and nothing is going to be missed," so I think that the fact that online where it's a streaming situation with a pre-roll, it is actually more conducive to get people to actually see the entire ad and have a greater impact.
Clearly consumer-generated video is a huge area right now and I think we are going to see that expand. Where the role of advertising goes in consumer generated experience is really up I think is up for grabs. I think there is a lot of risk involved for advertisers when they look at losing control of the content that is around their advertising and I think that in most cases or in some cases that may not be the best initiative for an advertiser but I think the opportunities are there. But again the risk of it backfiring or losing control is really a major problem for advertisers.
We've seen initiatives where the content is really geared toward a particular age group or a particular narrow type of audience where it is really easy to target those people online, so to the extent that it is a very well defined audience I think that is one of the differences between the online space and the more traditional advertising is that we can get much more narrow in our targeting. WE can get people who have a very specific interest and I think that is really key to getting the maximum efficiency out of the online space. So where that type of targeting is really the lead-in to the rest of the campaign and I think that digital can clearly lead the way.
One of the nicest developments that we have seen recently in the online video space is this coordination of traditional media and the traditional advertiser working with the actual consumer generated content via a professional. What is happening is that consumers are coming to a particular website and they are writing scripts for what they would like to see created and we are having professionals creating those videos on their behalf. So I think that collaboration with a certain amount of control put in place because there are professionals on the back end actually implementing the idea of the consumer I think is a new way and I think a really exciting way to sort of take a lot of the risk out of online video consumer generated content but also give it that personal involvement that is really the key portion of the consumer generated efforts.