NEWS GROOVE: Millennial Media, Mobix Interactive, MultiMedia Intelligence, RipCode Inc., Rhythm NewMedia & Singlepoint
Are mobile ads moving full-steam to video? Two recent announcements certainly signal a shift. Yesterday, mobile advertising company Millennial Media, and RipCode Inc., a provider of Internet and mobile video infrastructure solutions, teamed up in a partnership to make delivery and targeting of video ads (think commercials) a no-brainer.
In simple terms, the deal will enable Millennial Media’s advertiser clients to integrate dynamic, visually rich video into their mobile ad campaigns delivered across Millennial Media’s mobile advertising networks. RipCode brings on-demand video transcoding and delivery technology to the table, ensuring clients can seamlessly include video advertising and – more importantly – deliver the right experience to the right device. (Nothing worse than content that has not been adapted for the unique capabilities of the individual user’s device and screen size – it’s a bad user experience all around.)
Ad relevancy is also covered, according to the release. “Combined with Millennial Media’s intelligent ad targeting, video ads are paired with contextually relevant video content then seamlessly delivered as a single stream with no re-buffering between the ad and the requested content.”
Today, news of another similar partnership in my inbox. Rhythm NewMedia, a provider of ad funded mobile video services, has tied-up with Mobix Interactive, a player in the mobile video and TV space. What does the partnership aim to achieve? At a basic level it paves the way for Rhythm to sell advertising into Mobix’s Adrenalin ecosystem. Mobix works with network operators such as O2, 3 and T-Mobile, and global media owners such as Warner, Turner, and Universal.
We’re told in the press release that “initial projects, including Adrenalin customers Kontraband and Warner Music Entertainment’s Comedybox, will provide mobile subscribers worldwide with ad-funded mobile entertainment.” We’re also told that Rhythm Media’s algorithm allows it to deliver targeted advertising – but that should be pretty much a given these days. A company that can’t do that won’t be here next year.
The takeaway: Text and banner ads do the job, however companies are scrambling to offer users a more compelling experience. But are video ads the answer? Since we know we need to think mobile — and even Yankee Group tells us not to mimic the Internet (or other media, for that matter) – I have to wonder if we can be more imaginative.
Peggy adds: It’s a move in the direction of a more compelling experience, but it also needs to be genuinely useful. I’m currently immersed in the first chapters of Jonathan MacDonald’s upcoming book, The Communication Ideal, which provides us a roadmap and radical ideas on how to get there from here. In the meantime, before we get too carried away with mobile video, I suggest we think through the costs. A good place to start is this post on Sender-Pays Data.
Can TV interaction trigger meaningful mobile advertising? It’s a novel idea and one that may finally bring us all a giant leap closer to convergence across platforms and devices.
Sensing a business opportunity to do just this SinglePoint has launched a mobile ad-insertion platform designed to retrieve and serve ads in line with the scheduled inventory of popular interactive TV shows seen on Bravo, NBC Universal, MTV, FOX, The CW and others. In simple terms, when a TV viewer responds to a call to action to cast a vote for their favorite performer via their mobile phone, for example, they receive a confirmation reply thanking them for voting that also includes an ad message.
The scheme gives SinglePoint’s media and entertainment partners the chance to generate additional ad revenue by providing advertisers access to their viewers via a centralized solution that reaches millions of mobile phone users that interact on a daily basis with TV programs. Rich Begert, President and CEO of SinglePoint, said in a statement: “SinglePoint has processed close to 100 million interactive transactions over the past twelve months alone, so adding an advertising component to these transactions is the natural next step in expanding our suite of mobile campaign solutions.”
The takeaway: The ads SinglePoint serves up are SMS ad-insertion, enabling direct response campaigns such as click-to-call, click-to-link, and click-to-SMS – forms of user-brand interactivity that can also be customized to support applications such as ticketing / coupons, video streaming and content download. The wide variety of pitches and the potential for customer targeting, time and location-sensitive campaigns is impressive. But the real test will be whether the ads are perceived as a value-add (that is, they don’t annoy users engrossed in their favorite TV shows) or spam.
Are “call to action” schemes the real money makers? A new report (Mobile TV and Video: Premium Content and Advertising Elevate the Phone Away From Just Voice) from MultiMedia Intelligence points out that the mobile phones – because they allow users to interact with ads via voice, SMS and MMS – represent perfect vehicles for effective “call to action” advertising. The research firm estimates that this new category of advertising, which promotes real-time communication with the advertiser during the ad (think texting or click-to-call), will grow to $419 million in worldwide advertising revenue by 2012. It was “virtually non-existent” in 2007.
MultiMedia Intelligence also found that:
- Regionally, Call to Action advertising will be driven by the North American and Asian markets.
- Consumers are demanding more personalization and entertainment content on their mobile phones, driving mobile TV and video subscription revenue to almost $3.5 billion in 2008. By 2012, mobile video and mobile TV will exceed $14 billion
- Mobile TV ARPUs are much higher in North America and Europe than Asia due to the lack of free-to-air alternatives.
The takeaway: The validity of the statistics aside, this latest report underlines the emergence and importance of “call to action” advertising. Mobile phones are personal and interactive, and advertising has to match the unique characteristics of mobile. Naturally, we’ll see more “call to action” campaigns. Get it right and we may also see consumers respond.
August 6th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Very interesting post. I applaud any redemption mechanics that link to actual actions but the point that stands out here is the underlying assumption that – to quote – “intelligent ad targeting, video ads are paired with contextually relevant video content” is what users see as relevant – individually.
It certainly concurs with current logic that people who are watching a clip of a Formula 1 race for example, would be ‘the type of person’ who would be interested in, say, BMW – but my cousin watches Formula 1 clips and she doesn’t drive…
This is OK of course because other people WILL be relevant to the ad so its just ‘tough’ that others aren’t – after all, as the MD of an online network said to me – “people have filters able to see past irrelevance.” Can we do better though?
Another thing we need to look very carefully at is whether or not people actually WANT ads around video. We need to consider whether advertising is of real emotional value when all it sometimes does is ‘pay’ for the free content – and – what the negative impact is in the circumstance of intrusive, non-relevant (and what is curiously termed) ’semi-targeted’ ads..
Is the value of incentive, in an instance of ad-funded video, the value of free rather than the value of the content itself?
I think we need to collectively look at scenarios where the commercial communication ITSELF is of tremendous value – then, regardless of medium, it will be invited inside peoples hearts and minds. Actually, where ARE the strategies pertaining to joining conversations here?
As previously mentioned, the real world connection side is to be admired as it warms cold media.
What we actually need to do is make it hot. More than reach and frequency, more than action and redemption. We are entering an era of discussion and collaboration within which actions and redemptions are ubiquitous and infinitely scalable.
The ‘consumer’ will eventually be, I hope, recognised as the individual that advertisers need to ask for an invite.
The party has started and advertisers may or may not be invited.