BUSINESS BLOGS
BUSINESS BLOGS
category: business
20 Jan 2008

US Video advertising will surpass $1B in billings in 2008.  That is a psychological mark more than anything else as video advertising overtakes search advertising in the upcoming decade.  It might sound impossible now, but the day Web ads overtake TV ads, it won’t be on the strength of search ads, but rather, the titanic shift of marketing dollars from TV to the internet.

Over the past few years, marketers have began to experiment with video advertising, or rather, advertising around video content.  A lot of that has been via pre-rolls, but pre-rolls - while they will remain an important component in years to come - are no different than popunders and popups.  Over time, we’ll need something better and less intrusive for users to render the format effective.  I suggested maybe the PiP will make a dent, who knows?

In the upcoming years, expect sponsorships to be a popular format.  Today Fast Company announced that its upcoming FastCompany.tv programming won’t run pre-rolls, but will be monetized via sponsorships.

To understand why, let’s examine a few factors.

Advertisers look for clickable and unclickable formats.

They also look at tracked, and untracked placements.  Mind you these days online everything can be tracked.

But given that Fast Company has an established brand and will be rolling out its video initiative from scratch, it has a lot to lose by selling anything on a tracked and clickable basis.  But specifically because Fast Company has brand equity and host Robert Scoble has a following and experience with sponsorship-based programming, this is a wise way to launch into the medium.

As a video producer myself, I welcome this because it will encourage other marketers to give sponsorships a try and drop the rhetoric over pre-rolls.  After all, marketers are great thinkers sometimes, but occasionally you will walk into an ad agency and suggest something that is outside of the box and they will look at you like you are an alien.

This is one storyline worth keeping an eye on.

In other words, why Fast Company would want this is a no-brainer, but for marketers to embrace it would be welcome.

As they would say, a small step for publishers, a giant leap for marketers.