First, the inspiration, from SAI:

What explains pre-rolls popularity? In part, it’s because advertisers geniunely think they’re the most effective format available. And in part, it’s because pre-rolls look and feel just like the TV ads publishers and advertisers are already comfortable with. Who’s going to come up with a better solution? There’s a big pot of money waiting…

Well… you know how everyone initially thought digital music would be wildly profitable, then one by one, the labels began to bleed more and more money (think, hmm… all of them), and the startups vying in the space began to die too (think Pandora).  No wonder some investors began to argue that business plans for digital music were worthy of their shredder alone.  As a result, then came the notion that recorded music should simply be a marketing expense, and not a profit center.

Well… what if the same is to be said about video?  Most people hate pre-rolls.  I don’t see anything else becoming a category killer like AdSense in search (what about the PiP?).  But what if video became a cost - or marketing expense - in order to have more content to drive search and display ad revenues?

Not sure if I buy that, but it’s not a crazy hypothesis, is it?

I mean, it doesn’t help that the buffoons at eMarketer briskly reduced their projections by some 65% and few called them on it (of course, not like the PR machine of either eMarketer or the wildly overfunded video startups will try to cast a light on that)… but the fact remains, when companies call us to license our videos, I see some properties looking at adding high quality video content to their sites for revenues down the line… right now, they’re doing it because they want to add good content (ie. not crap).