If you are at the 2012 NADA conference starting Feb 3 in Las Vegas be sure to say hello to the folks from Cobalt! They provide marketing solutions to a majority of US automotive dealers and manufacturers helping them to achieve aggressive online-offline goals and drive increased awareness, engagement and showroom visits through Cobalt’s Digital Advertising Packages (DAP), a localized, and optimized surround sound online marketing platform with ease-of-use and scale that is unmatched in the industry.  Mixpo and Cobalt are natural partners as both companies specialize in creating valuable local marketing and engagement at scale.  Mixpo’s SmartVideo platform integrates seamlessly into Cobalt’s platform thereby extending dealer personalization and optimization features into highly-scalable video ad executions as was the case with support for driving showroom traffic for the Chevy Cruze last year.

All the best to Cobalt for a great conference!  Be sure to visit them to learn more!

This brief report is a snapshot of what’s happening in the broadcast and cable industry as it relates to using online video ads to build programming awareness and increase viewership. This primer offers advanced insights that might prove interesting even to veterans.

Forward-leaning broadcasters and programmers – and, more specifically, the marketing leaders who own promotion – have already incorporated online video advertising (and have embraced the associated interactivity and localization capabilities) into their marketing mixes. The pioneers have blazed the trail. There is now the opportunity to follow a guided path established by others.

Learn more about:

• Reasons to incorporate online video ads into your marketing mix
• Current industry best practices
• Measuring campaign impact
• Impact of context on success
• Online video ads and mobile habits

Download The New Normal for Promoting Tune-In report from Mixpo. Let us know what you think about the report with a tweet to @mixpo or a comment here.

Measuring clicks for direct response campaigns is straightforward.  Measuring performance based on brand impact is still a challenge.   Today we are announcing Mixpo BrandMeasure: in-video quantitative surveys that help advertisers determine ROI on brand campaign investment.  Advertisers can leverage these new capabilities for:

• Brand pulse.  Get a snapshot of attitudes towards a brand.  What is a brand’s baseline awareness?  What level of favorability do customers feel towards the brand?  Which traits do they most closely associate with the brand (quality, speed, affordability, etc.)?
• Uplift.  See what the delta is between those who viewed a video ad and those who didn’t.  How effective was the ad at changing brand perception?  Did it perform well against prior campaigns?
• Competitive benchmarking.  Create surveys to learn how a brand stacks up against competitor brands.
• Market research.  Gain feedback on product ideas.  Find out what customers appreciate most about products or want improved.
• Campaign optimization.  Realize insights to refine and optimize your creative mid-campaign.

Key verticals can benefit from incorporating Mixpo BrandMeasure into their campaigns: 

• Political:  Conduct polls, determine candidate popularity, measure voter stance on issues in real-time.
• Retail & CPG:  Determine impact of different ads on consumer interest, preference, and purchase intent.
• Auto:  Get insights into consumer perception of your car models, conduct competitive assessments, measure awareness and purchase intent.
• Broadcast & Entertainment:  Quantify impact of campaigns on audience intent to watch or audience willingness to recommend shows to friends.
• Dining:  Garner menu ideas, understand and analyze consumer attitudes, determine campaign impact on awareness and intent.

Example executions below:

  

Survey Execution Examples from Mixpo BrandMeasures

Mixpo BrandMeasure differs from other brand survey tools in several key ways:

• The surveys are incorporated directly into the video ads
• There are no additional fees for the use of the service
• The tool works in any ad format – in-banner, in-stream, mobile

BrandMeasure necessitates at least one million impressions to achieve statistical significance (not because of a minimum spend requirement), although advertisers are welcome to utilize BrandMeasure for smaller campaigns.

For brand uplift testing (measuring impact on those who saw the ad versus those who did not), 10% of video ad impressions will need to be dedicated to placements that show only a survey – no creative.

- By Kate Reinmiller, VP, Client Operations

The technical ability to incorporate rich, interactive overlays into video ads isn’t new –it’s to be expected. Yet, advertisers still cite difficulty of implementation, lack of real-time reporting, and inability to port overlays cross-device types (computer, tablet, smartphone) as impediments to scale adoption.

To address these challenges, Mixpo today launched SmartVideo Frameworks, customizable video ad components that enable advertisers to easily overlay rich interactivity, which can be personalized in real-time based on audience, and yield detailed performance data and insights.

Compelling video ad overlays increase consumer engagement and positive brand impact.  Last year Microsoft Advertising, for example, conducted a six month longitudinal study (here) of 20 campaigns to test the impact of ad engagement on brand:

 Microsoft Advertising has proven the importance of online advertising for brand advertisers by demonstrating a clear link between online ad engagement and measures of positive brand impacts.

As far as online measures of brand engagement were concerned, higher dwell scores [read: active video ad engagement] leads to:

• More branded searches.
• More traffic to the brand site.
• More engagement at the brand site.

 An additional case study with a high profile Technology advertiser further demonstrated

that a campaign with dwell scores 50% higher than average delivered significant uplifts in key offline brand metrics. The measures that showed increases included brand awareness, brand favorability and purchase intent.

Interactive overlays for video ads are not new for the industry or Mixpo. The unique, incremental benefits of Mixpo’s new SmartVideo Frameworks are that they:

• Provide quick-start templates for specific industries.  Political campaigns, for example, need to change ads quickly for real-time response without sacrificing visual impact and engagement.  Retailers want to update video ads with weekly circulars, coupons, and special offers, but want the ability to plug and play instead of getting bogged down with time-intensive creative.  TV broadcasters need to update topicals same day – news and talk programs change content daily if not multiple times a day.  Advertisers need quick turnaround that doesn’t sacrifice rich visuals that increase dwell scores.

• Can be personalized in real time based on audience.  Mixpo SmartVideo Frameworks’ overlay elements can be changed based on location, gender, age, and interest.  National auto OEMs often want to drive traffic to thousands of local dealerships.  SmartVideo Frameworks can be configured to automatically show different dealer hours, locations, and inventory based on viewer location.  They enable retailers to show different coupons by region or different products based on age, gender, and/or behavior.

• Generate real-time reporting for each individual overlay element.  Advertisers want to know more than just click through rates – they want to know details about specific interactions.  Political campaigns, for example, don’t just want to know the number of clicks to their websites; they want to know what percentage of viewers posted their ads to Facebook or clicked to find a map to the nearest polling locations.  CPGs want to know how many consumers browsed through the recipe library embedded in the video ad.  Broadcasters know what percentage of viewers clicked to play additional program previews and clips.

• Supply brand impact results.  Advertisers can see quantitative impact awareness, perception, and intent.

• Deliver automatic multivariate testing and optimization.  Different aesthetics, overlay elements, and messaging will yield different results.  While it’s possible to leverage prior learning to determine which alternatives to use based on desired outcome, there’s no crystal ball that will tell advertisers up front what will optimize results – i.e. whether overlay X versus overlay Y will driver greater engagement.  Mixpo Frameworks automatically perform A-B testing (or A-B-C-D…) and change impression mix based on which execution is having the greatest success.

• Offer Flash and HTML5.  Mixpo provides advertisers the ability to run video ads across multiple screens – computer, tablet, smartphone.   

Our new SmartVideo Frameworks make it easier for advertisers to add rich overlays to their video ads to increase brand engagement.  Mixpo’s reporting tells advertisers which overlay elements are performing best.  We provide the option of personalizing the content of overlays based on audience profile for greater relevance.  And our ads continue to run as both Flash and HTML5.

With SmartVideo Frameworks, Mixpo continues to add in-demand capabilities to its one-stop solution for smarter video ads.

-By Walter Harp, VP, Product Marketing

In a recent article, published by Radio & TV Broadcast Report, I shared several key insights our company has gained over the last few years working with local stations and broadcasters on promoting their tune-in shows using online video advertising.

Here is an excerpt:

It’s no secret TV viewers are not only time-crunched, but also multi-tasking across multiple devices while watching their “must see” programs. In fact, according to Nielsen, 40% of smartphone and tablet owners use their devices while watching TV.

Most stations continue to promote their line-up through a mix of on-air spots, radio, and even out of home (OOH) advertising. However, stations can not afford to overlook advertising that reaches the other screens capturing the minds and eyeballs of its target audiences.

Forward-looking networks and syndicators are investigating, purchasing and placing video ad buys to get in front of mobile audiences and, if you haven’t, it’s time to align your media plans with today’s media consumption habits.

You may be asking, “why video ads instead of display?” According to eMarketer, video ads are 60% more effective at building awareness than banner ads; consumers who watch video ads are far more likely to remember shows, channels, and times. Also, video ads are a “gimme” in terms of workflow because banners require separate creative effort.

Video assets – for example a: 15 preview for an afternoon talk show – can be instantly transformed into an ad using video ad production platforms. If you’re producing a promotion for on-air, it’s a bonus to use the same promo online – with a sprinkle of interactivity and localization.

For more of this article, including five tips on how best to use online video to promote tune-in, visit the RBR site.

Our friends over at ClickZ just published the latest in the Digital Politics guide: Political Video Advertising 201.

This guide is a free resource with insights from top digital political experts using online video ads today. Inside, there are insights as to why political advertisers are using video, tips for maximizing video advertising performance, and more.

Contents include:
• The Rise of Political Video Advertising
• Video Persuades, and Much More
• Video Ad Formats and What They’re Good for
• How Much Does This Stuff Cost?
• Video Ad Glossary, case studies, etc.

Features insights from top digital political ad experts from both sides of the aisle:
• Michael Beach, founder, Targeted Victory
• JB Britten, digital media director, Smart Media Group
• Eric Frenchman, chief Internet strategist, Connell Donatelli
• Jeff Jacobs, president and creative director, NextGen Persuasion
• Eli Kaplan, founding partner, Rising Tide Interactive
• Josh Koster, Partner, Chong + Koster

Why not take a look for yourself? Download from ClickZ.

Missed ClickZ’s Digital Political Guide 101? Learn more.

IAB standards for video ads have gained wide adoption over the last few years:  VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) for flat in-stream video and VPAID (Video Player Ad Interface Definition) for interactive video.

VAST supports linear video ads (pre-, mid-, post-roll) and non-linear ads (overlays during content).   This standard is simply a list of components that a video player uses to display and manage tracking metrics for a video ad. The template operates as an XML “wrapper” to deliver flat video ads (simple video with no additional features or functionality) or VPAID-enhanced video ads with interactive elements.  Without this wrapper the standard way an ad was delivered and played within a player wouldn’t exist.

VPAID is a detailed definition of the communication between an ad and a video player that controls player behavior. A VPAID ad is served within the standard VAST wrapper with an interactive file (typically a Flash-based .swf) instead of a standard non-interactive video file (typically an .mp4). This VPAID-enhanced .swf enables the entire video player screen to be an interactive canvas and include interactive elements such as pausing the video, clicking on coupons, and interacting with dynamic overlays.

VAST plays a crucial role in the simplification and monetization of in-stream video advertising.  The current VAST standard, VAST 2.0, enables video ad platforms to serve much more than simple video files, it also:

• Includes an optional companion ad to serve along with the in-stream ad
• Allows for flexibility in the format of a video ad to deliver a  simple or interactive experience
• Contains options for reporting on video metrics (impressions, clicks, duration, etc.)

While this functionality is great, the rapid progression of this ecosystem has outpaced current standards. That is why the next wave of standards needs to go further in addressing the following areas:

• Video ad and video player compatibility across the ecosystem by :
  • Enhancing campaign speed to market using clearly defined rules for VAST and VPAID compliance to avoid errors and bad viewer experiences. Existing standards are often viewed as an optional check list, resulting in a wide range of compatibility issues across video players
  • Maximizing the potential of the creative executions with advanced definitions of player capabilities that improve a player’s ability to detect and play the richest version of an ad, especially when multiple ads are served within a VAST tag
• More content monetization options by providing standards that outline how to run multiple linear ads in a row without content interruption
• More market transparency by expanding standards to ensure players have the ability, when data is offered by a player’s host site, to pass back placement information on site location, player type, and more where a video ad has been played

What do you think should come next?  Feel free to comment below or tweet us @mixpo.