Cynopsis: DIGITAL
03.22.13

Good morning. It’s Friday, March 22, 2013, and this is your first early morning digital briefing.

Native video ads are stronger than standard pre-rolls in driving brand lift, according to a new Nielsen study commissioned by online video ad distributor Sharethrough. Native ads, as defined by Sharethrough, are content-based brand videos that are integrated seamlessly into a publisher’s video catalog. This means that consumers have to choose to watch them like any other piece of video content. For the study, Sharethrough served the same creative message in both native and pre-roll formats for five different advertisers’ campaigns. For Jarritos, a naturally flavored soft drink, native ads generated an 82% brand lift when compared to users not exposed to the campaign, while pre-roll units generated a 2.1% brand lift. Those exposed to pre-roll units were 29.3% more likely to respond that they viewed Jarritos unfavorably or very unfavorably, compared with people who were not exposed to the campaign. Nielsen says in the case study, native ads outperformed pre-rolls for all five advertisers, regardless of the campaign’s category or marketing objective.

— In other words: The most fascinating nugget – that users exposed to pre-rolls were more likely to view the brand unfavorably – is the one for brands and agencies to pay most attention to, as they consider different platforms and vehicles. (Though let’s face it, that doesn’t mean that pre-roll is going away any time soon.) 

Redbox Instant by Verizon is now available on Xbox Live. The SVOD movie streaming service opened its doors to the public a week ago. The Xbox app requires users to have an Xbox Live Gold subscription. Redbox Instant’s CEO, Shawn Strickland, told GigaOM last week that the service will arrive on Google TV, LG, and Vizio connected devices in the next few weeks.

Net2TV is in discussions with “several” consumer electronics manufacturers to install its web-to-TV service, Portico, into smart TVs, according to Fierce Online Video. Portico is a connected TV-based video service that packages web video content from the likes of CBS Interactive, Revision3, and The Wall Street Journal into television-length “shows,” most of which are available through interest-based channels.

— In other words: If Net2TV is able to strike deals with smart TV manufacturers, the service might be available on as many as 20 million smart TVs in the US by early 2014. Per the report, Net2TV is also in discussions with Roku to get on their streaming platform.

Google Fiber update: The new TV and high-speed internet service – which is supposed to be 100 times faster than the average US connection – will soon expand to Olathe, Kansas. Per the announcement from Rachel Hack, Community Manager for Google Fiber, “We still have a lot of planning and engineering work to do before we’re ready to bring Fiber to Olathe. Once we get those underway, we’ll be able to announce more about pre-registration and construction timing.”

The Atlantic has signed a content deal with NowThis News, a start-up that produces short-form web videos covering news and trending topics. According to Poynter, under the agreement, NowThis will produce “two to three videos” based on stories in The Atlantic every month. These videos will accompany those articles online.

Cross-device ad solutions provider Tapad has closed its Series B round of funding for $6.5 million. Publicly traded VC fund Firsthand Technology Value Fund joined Tapad’s roster of investors, which include founding investors FirstMark Capital and Avalon Ventures (both participated in the Series B financing), as well as other investment heavyweights like Lerer Ventures, former DoubleClick CEO David Rosenblatt, AppNexus Founder Brian O’Kelley, and former Huffington Post CEO Eric Hippeau. The start-up says it is currently on pace to achieve a 200% increase in revenue for Q1 2013 versus Q1 2012.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

Video ad solutions provider YuMe has integrated brand safety metrics into its Placement Quality Index (PQI), which grades the value of all video ad inventory available on sites and apps. Analyzing each digital publisher and app on the site list, PQI algorithm factors in brand lift, driving signals such as video player size and location, content type, and past campaign performance metrics across publishers and apps to help advertisers pick the best possible placements to meet their campaign objectives. When testing the enhanced PQI with clients PHD, Digitas, and MEC, YuMe says all PQI-optimized video ad campaigns generated an average 15% lift in completion rates and an average of 30% lift in interaction rates versus YuMe category benchmarks. The PQI also blocks ads from being syndicated on blacklisted or unapproved sites or apps.

Fox Sports Digital reports ads sales surrounding its March Madness content are up 120% year-over-year, even though Fox Sports is not a rights-holder for the college basketball tournament. Southwest Airlines and Home Depot have signed on to sponsor Fox Sports digital content, including the site’s $1 Million Bracket Challenge and Celebrity Bracket Challenge, as well as Fox Sports Gametrax and Yardbarker’s March Madness Sponsored Post Series.

YouTube has topped one billion unique monthly users.YouTube says Generation C, the term Nielsen created to describe men and women 18-34 because they are defined by their connected behavior, is powering this growth. Google has now released some data about how Gen C consumes content on YouTube:

• In 2012, the number of Gen C viewers who regularly access YouTube via their smartphones caught up to the number of people who do so via their computers.
• 67% of Gen C access YouTube on two devices or more, versus 53% of the general population.
• For Gen C, watching videos on YouTube is “a complementary activity”: 41% access YouTube on their smartphones while waiting for someone/something; 18% while commuting; and 15% do so during TV commercial breaks.

February was a record-breaking month for HLNTV.com as the site generated 37.1 million page views, up 11% over January and 187% over February 2012. In addition, the site also saw a record-high 3.6 million video starts, an increase of 26% over January and 296% from February 2012. Omniture credits the traffic jump to HLNTV.com’s coverage of the Jodi Arias trial (the woman who is accused of killing her ex-boyfriend in 2008). Content related to the trial appeared in the site’s top 10 videos and five of the top 10 articles on the site throughout the month.

App beta-testing platform TestFlight has launched FlightPath, an analytics solution for mobile app developers, in beta. Available via a single, interactive page, FlightPath offers developers real-time data on app usage. Developers will have the ability to access data based on preset audience segments like “Loyal Users,” “Early Adopters,” and “Flight Risks,” as well as create and save custom segments. TestFlight is currently used by more than 300,000 apps for testing and optimization.

Tremor Video has promoted Anthony Flaccavento to National Sales Director/Entertainment and Spirits for its Tremor Video division, the media and creative shop within the company that builds digital video ad campaigns for advertisers. Reporting to Abbey Ramsey, VP/Entertainment Sales, Flaccavento will now manage sales teams within the Entertainment and Spirits categories in both NY and LA. He oversees accounts for clients like Showtime, HBO, A&E, and AMC. Other new hires at the company include Aaron Saltz as Associate General Counsel, reporting to Adam Lichstein, COO and General Counsel, as well as Doug DeSimone as Director/Talent Acquisition for Tremor Video and VideoHub. He will report to Sharon Grundfast, VP/Human Resources.

Seneca Mudd, Director/Industry Initiatives at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), is leaving the organization today to return to the private sector. In an email, Mudd said he will “advise a venture capital firm on strategy, business, and revenue development for its digital holdings portfolio.” 

Christina Van Tassell has joined 24/7 Media in the role of Chief Financial Officer. She is responsible for the financial operations of the digital marketing tech company, which is owned by WPP, and 24/7’s two divisions, Real Media Group and Media Innovation Group. She is based in the company’s NY headquarters.

Devavrat Shah, a Jamieson Career Development Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer science at MIT, has joined the Advisory Board at social marketing platform Compass Labs. CEO Dilip Venkatachari said Shah’s renown as a data scientist will be invaluable to Compass Labs as it builds social ad technologies to help brands improve their marketing efforts. Last fall, Shah unveiled an algorithm that predicts Twitter trending topics hours before Twitter’s own algorithm lists them.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) is the latest entity to publicly announce its love of Vine, the short-form video app from Twitter. TFF and Vine are partnering together for the #6SECFILMS Competition, a contest that invites Vine users to shoot and submit short, looping films across the following categories: #Genre, #Auteur, #Animate, and/or #Series. Deadline for submissions is April 7, after which the TFF programming team will review and select a short-list of Vines to be displayed on Tribeca Film’s website. Then, the jury panel, which currently includes Adam Goldberg and Penny Marshall (with more to be added), will choose a winner in each category. The winners, who will each win $600, will be announced April 26.

Later – Sahil
Sahil Patel, Associate Editor for Cynopsis Digital
03.22.13

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