Kill Banners and Purchase Time

Source

A lot of people are spending time online today, so obviously advertising money is flowing to the internet as well. Yet, time is not really a factor at all when it comes to valuing online advertising. The length of time spend with the brand and the ad is the most important factor in determining the effectiveness of the ad. With banners and CPM, the advertising takes no consideration of the time.

I mean sure the repetition lead to clicks and eventual action, but the repetition itself has no real value. Especially as we are more and more "blind" to the banners and when compared to the well thought recommendations from our peers. Also I might close the browser window so fast that the banner didn't even load, still the advertiser pays the same amount when compared to the person who stays on the page for three minutes. A recent comScore study states that 31% of ads are delivered but never seen by a customer.

This CPM model drives publisher to deliver huge amount of impressions that create web page clutter and a poor user exprience. The problem becomes apparent when we think how effective the advertising is within content, or in many cases is the content. People are motived by and are looking to spend time with the content. Therefore the purchase cost for advertisers should be more like cost per second (CPS) model, where each second spend with the content is valued. The most valuable customers anyway spend time with the brand and therefore advertisers should be more willing to compensate publishers for those high-value users.

This is a very simplified expression on the idea that we will most likely develop further. But think about it. What if publishers would rather have less banners, and more highly valuable content that users are interested to spend time with. Isn't that the picture we all want the online publishing to be?

Digital is either Global or Hyperlocal

(This is an excerpt from an essay for the Community Media Expert Meeting's whitelabel)

Filtering is not a new phenomenon as news agencies have done this since the beginning of media. The difference is that now “we all can be small news agencies” and curate the most intersting content we find. Content is global and there is infinite amount of it, enabling easy cross-referencing and such.

This development requires media to look at their operations as global. National level is diminishing and readers are increasingly gaining influences from the global community through the networked societies. This will obviously be a long transition, but when national borders used to regulate the flow of cultural phenomenoms, today’s flow of information has no borders. Therefore cultures are most likely going to go global, and media will as well as an important mediator of it.

However, as the media will go global beyond national borders, it is fragmenting into niches. As the post modern society tends to categories everything in order to be functional, so will the cultural interests be categoriest. For example teenagers will listen a certain kind of music of their niche, not just from the national level, but from the certain niche on the global level. The media that will be able to focus on these niches will gain most viewerships from the fans. More than from the general focused media, because of the stronger community ties, feeling of belonging and enjoyment through sharing of similar ideas.

Beside cultural, this feeling of belonging on communities can be seen in the idea of hyperlocal. Media that focuses on cities, on the neighbourhoods or on the certain streets, will most likely gain interest of the locals regardles of their cultural interest. Locals are a part a community that is not bound by culture, but by physical location. News of what happens on your street is always interesting.

So, media organisations will face options to choose global niches, where viewers are bound by cultural interests, or hyperlocal communities, where viewers are bound by interest of their physical location. Communities, cultural or physical, are the most important aspect as no viewer will be interested of information on which they cannot relate to.

Content Creators "Have No ROI" in Producing Videos Just for Their Own Destination

Business

We at Videoflow have been working heavily on this opportunity. Truly, on web you are connected by nature, therefore there is no reason to produce content just for yourself or for you own properties. As a content owner you should distribute, distribute and distribute!! And use Videoflow to help you distribute and monetise your content. I believe this way you are able to reach more and wider audience for your kick ass content. Makes sense, right?

Lets say you are a wineblogger producing high quality content. Or you are a production house creating a 15 episode show for TV. Would it be nice to get access to different medias by someone else working for you without fee. Thou taking a cut from your advertising sales. Cooperation on the distribution benefits the whole ecosystem.

Here is a link to the Beet.TV article about it.

Advertisers are following Online Video space

A Helsinki based media agency Dagmar, wrote about the use and future of online videos and web-tv. According to them, currently videos are the faster growing advertising platform online, with a market of $4,6 billion in US by 2013. European figures are very similar, as Tekes forecast (in finnish) online video to have €6 billion by 2013.

All these forecast and market researches echo what CityVice has been building on. We have some great news to tell you in soonish. We have come up with a great solution for the market, for media, advertisers and media agencies. Here are some points from the studies:

Online videos are perfect way to continue the advertising campaign shown on TV. One point to note however; most of the spots used in traditional TV does not work perfectly online. So for advertisers it is important to tweak the online ad according to needs. CityVice has the best knowledge on this data, so get in touch. :)

- 20% of 16-25 years do not own a TV.
- 40% of 16-25 years are watching TV & videos mainly online
- Online has much better tracking and reporting tool, therefore more meaninful advertising.
- Brand Lifting value is exceptional in online videos
- Click Through Rates in CityVice network is 4.5% - 5%, Interaction rates massive 40%.
- TNS Gallup has started a video tracking service. We are not familiar with this...yet that is :)

So overall online videos are booming, regardless of the recession times. CityVice is there for you, serving the needs of online video.

The Future of Media

Thoughts



This is a very interesting video on the future of media, posted at Callan's blog. Some great thought behind it and some catchy graphics make it worth the six minutes of your life. Is it unrealistic? You tell me. Not sure about the logo right at the end though - conspiracy theory anyone? And somehow I feel Google has something to do with this clip.