When surfing the Net are you actually aware of “online video advertising?” Perhaps the safest answer is “it depends who’s looking” since the Net caters to both mass audiences as well as many special interests.

For example, take the 100 million plus YouTube views that Britain’s-Got-Talent singing sensation, Susan Boyle, racked up in a matter of days. Her exploits attracted a truly international audience - pity that YouTube and ITV didn’t have an advertising deal in place while the masses were watching.

(Especially with Google Adwords also supporting video ads on a cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) basis, there’s a ton of keyword driven money stuck in ‘pause’ mode while these media titans get their act together.)

Anyone following the ongoing and sad(?) decline of the print newspaper advertising model knows that the fourth estate are not taking this lying down. Most all the major newspapers and magazines have invested heavily in an online presence and offer advertising spots ranging from text ads to video billboards. But the darkening economic outlook and a new realism on ad revenue estimates means that the average online video CPM of 20$ will probably have to drop to around $8 to be competitive with average US TV rates.

(Source: A survey done by video Ad company BrightRoll.com, as reported in techcrunch.com. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/27/brightroll-video-ad-rates-dropped-12-percent-in-first-quarter-and-the-pre-roll-is-still-king/)

What’s even more astonishing about Brightroll’s survey is the apparent attempt by mainstream media ad executives to shoehorn the popular ‘pre-roll’ 30 seconds TV ad slot approach into an online video equivalent. How do they know it works so well on the Net? Who are these pre-rolls targeted at? Just two questions that come to mind

Some more savvy Net advertisers are following a different path. Rather than push web viewers into a pre-roll ad, they’re taking advantage of major trends such as online casual gaming to insert branding ads into the games - in return for free access. They’re also picking up on online demographics such as the increasing numbers of female gamers.

For the most part we’ve been talking about industry heavy hitters here - both the advertisers and the video networks have deeper pockets than the many indie video producers who’ve had the Net to themselves up until recently. To adapt and survive, the most creative are working with active communities online (particularly bloggers) to create appealing web shows that influence rather than prod to consume.

Regards,
Mark McClure