Friday, April 10, 2009

STOP MAKING YOUR ADS FEEL LIKE ADS

By Rich Cherecwich

Online video is riding a wave of popularity that shows no signs of cresting anytime soon -- 14.8 billion videos were viewed online in U.S. alone in January, according to comScore. Yet the medium still has considerable and well-publicized drawbacks. Google has endured a never-ending stream of criticisms for its persistent failure to monetize YouTube, far and away the most popular video streaming website, and marketers are still loath to place their ads beside user-uploaded videos of water-skiing squirrels or potentially pirated material.

Premium content websites have sprung up, and with them come experiments in advertising formats, including overlays, pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll. Yet, the results have been mixed, and there's a growing conflict among publishers, advertisers, and audiences when it comes to interruptive video ads, as audiences don't want to be forced to watch repurposed 30-second television spots.

Simon Assaad is the co-founder and co-CEO of Heavy.

"What happens is, nine out of 10 people say 'f*** this, I don't want to watch this ad,' and they go find the content someplace else," Simon Assaad says. "The advertiser paid for delivery, but people are not watching the ad, and the publisher actually loses the consumer. Nobody wins out of that."

Assaad, the co-CEO and co-founder of Heavy.com, knows a thing or two about online video. He's been involved in the medium for more than a decade, dating back to what he calls the "dinosaur age" -- before YouTube kicked in the door, and before MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter let consumers connect and share videos with whomever they wanted.

Even though he's been involved in online video since the early days, Assaad still believes everyone acts like "Neanderthals in the cave" when it comes to video advertising.

The main problem is that advertisers are trying to apply the rules of television to a medium that is unique in its own right, according to Assaad. "Too many marketers are trying to slap what worked in another medium onto online video because they don't want to take the difficult step of creating something," he says. In his opinion, when video is finally monetized, it won't be the result of some new technology or format.

"It's not rocket science. You talk to all these investors and venture capitalists; they're like 'what's the format that's going to make monetization work on the web? Is it pre-roll or an overlay or targeting?' It's not really any of that stuff," he says.

Think of a new advertising paradigm
While others experiment with ad platforms that interrupt a video, Heavy has found the most success with its distinct video skin that wraps around its video player. The skin never interrupts the experience of the video, and offers the advertiser an impression throughout the length of the video. According Assaad, Heavy's video skin sees CTRs four to five times higher than pre-roll ads.

Heavy does run mid-roll ads within the video player, but only at a rate of one per every four videos watched. "During that time, you've seen maybe 12 video skins," Assaad says. "That works for us, works for advertiser, and it works for the audience."

Heavy is essentially a video site that sells lots of display, and it has even spun off the video skin into a sister company -- Husky Media. Husky lets advertisers and publisher take advantage of the skin on their own websites through a small piece of JavaScript. When a user clicks on a video on a site utilizing the Husky Skin, the player darkens the rest of the website and pops out, with the video wrapped in the distinctive skin.



But an interactive video skin isn't the end-all solution for video advertising, and Assaad is quick to admit this. Although the Husky Skin can be wrapped around myriad video players embedded on other websites, including YouTube, he insists Husky isn't an ad network. Rather, he considers it a content network that distributes Heavy's content with a built-in advertising format that lets Heavy spread and share its content, while helping publishers make a little money by including it on their websites.

The breakthrough will come when advertisers start to develop content that looks and feels less like advertising. Audiences are smarter than ever before, Assaad says, and if they see an ad and aren't interested, they will undoubtedly ignore it.

Assaad believes true success with video advertising will come via a structural change in the industry, when marketers move away from making 30-second advertisements and banner ads and understand they don't have to set their minds on traditional advertising campaigns.

"When marketers start to liberate themselves and understand they are as empowered as anybody to finance and produce things that are entertaining to them -- that's when I think you'll start to see a change in the monetization of online video," he says.

"You can actually make a marketing experience that says more than just, 'Here's my message, see my ad, I'm done,'" he continues. "It's actually an experience that people are engaged in, appreciate, and walk away from thinking, 'Wow, that was really cool. I really like that brand.' It doesn't necessarily have to be telling a story. It could be a game, or something with interactivity."

"If you're a truly a brand marketer, take the essence of what your brand is, the essence of what your message is, and find some way to actually create some kind of body for that that can travel and actually surprise and delight your audience," he says.

Let an expert handle your viral efforts
What Assaad describes sounds a lot like viral video, an area that several brands (including Heavy itself) have leveraged for advertising success. But anyone who's ever been sent a link to a funny video knows not every viral hit is a branded advertisement, and not every branded video becomes a runway viral success. Viral is in a sad state right now, according to Assaad. The classic mistake he sees time and time again is when brands and marketers try to develop hits or entertainment, and they turn into an obvious advertisement.

Assad offers two pieces of advice for brands looking to develop content. The first is to not put all your eggs into one basket, because the odds of creating a hit are long. "We've had plenty of misses for me to know we're not going to hit it out of the park every time," he says.

His second piece of advice is to find someone who knows what they're doing when it comes to viral. And he means someone who knows what they're doing -- a company that can show its word-of-mouth successes -- and this may not be your agency.

"The wonder of today's world is that the 17-year-old skate-punk kid has as much a chance of producing a viral hit as does a 20-something creative star from an agency," he says. "Everyone is working with the same set of tools and a good idea can from anywhere."

Keep your advertisers happy

While video makes the slow and steady journey toward a monetization solution, advertisers will still want to buy around video, and you need to keep those advertisers happy.

Heavy makes no qualms about being geared toward a male demographic. According to Assaad, the site's demographic has aged a bit since launch, going from a post-collegiate early 20s crowd to an audience that is now in their late 20s and early 30s and don't take themselves too seriously.

"They're kind of merry pranksters," Assaad says of his audience. "We have cars and girls and fighting and music videos -- all that good stuff that guys want to watch -- with the idea being that once they get there, they don't have to go anywhere else."

And while Heavy includes original content such as "Behind the Music that Sucks" and videos that sometimes resort to sophomoric humor like a baseball to the groin, all of its advertisers are Fortune 500 companies. The site doesn't rely on ad networks or performance deals, but instead puts a lot of work into brand safety to ensure brand advertisers are happy with where their ads appear.

Heavy uses a three-tiered process to ensure brand safety on its website. It starts with the basic editorial rule that everything on the site could be seen on cable television. The second rule is that all user-generated content is viewed by a real person, guaranteeing that everything is appropriate and legal. The final piece is the use of meta tags, where all 40,000 of Heavy's videos are rated and tagged by human beings to guarantee relevant ads are being served alongside them.

"Brand managers are smart," Assaad says. "They want to go where the guys are, and there's a line they tread, and it varies from client to client. Axe is a brand that's more risqué, AT&T is not so risqué, but both want to target guys. Creating areas within the site that are safe for them but have a good enough size audience, that's what publishers do."

In the long run, Assaad sees Heavy as an online cable network. The website develops original content, and it offers advertisers a clean place to advertise with the assurance that their advertising will appear beside the content they want. Other online channels aren't looked at as competition, but as places where Heavy's content can be spread.

"I'm way past the days of thinking that it's competitive," Assaad says. "We think of Heavy as a brand and a creative company; we're a content company. I look at Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube as the modern day equivalents of the cable MSOs. They're the broadcast networks to us."

Think integration, not competition
Instead of viewing other social media outlets as competition, Assaad thinks about ways to incorporate them into Heavy's ventures. The website will re-launch in June with more social features, and may even include a Twitter feed with live commentary of the video a user is watching.

Assad also has aspirations of using Twitter to let fans get in touch with Heavy personalities. Beginning this fall, Nick Stevens, host of the Heavy original series "Burly Sports Show," will live-tweet during Monday Night Football games, offering Heavy fans snarky commentary instead of the staid play-by-play offered by the broadcast network. It's not a monetization solution, but it's a fun way to interact with the audience and promote the product.

"You've got to play around with these things to get a sense of them; they're so interesting as tools," he says. "[Twitter feeds] are not going to be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but it sure is a fun way to watch football."

Original article.

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