Child watching television*

“Numbers don’t lie,” said Dale Lockett, director of creative services at KHOU-TV, Houston.

He was referring to an online video ad tune-in campaign the station ran recently on its own and other websites. “Engagement rates,” Lockett went on, “were between 7% and 10%,” 40 to 50 times higher than the clickthrough rates he typically sees for banner ads.

KHOU is living proof that the barriers to promoting programs and newscasts on the Web have disintegrated. Recent advancements in dynamic video advertising technology have made running tune-in promotions online easy, fast, and cost-effective.

Easy

No need for already-overloaded creative services teams to design new video creative specifically for online distribution. Stations, networks, and syndicators can upload existing TV spots and easily re-purpose them for the web.

For example, by adding pre-designed, customizable interactive elements on top of the uploaded TV creative, broadcasters can:

• Build viewer lists and loyalty programs with lead capture.
• Generate and complement news content with in-banner polls.
• Provide real-time data updates through live Twitter and news feeds.
• Make it easy for viewers to share the ads through their social media accounts.
• Redirect viewers to videos featuring more in-depth content, such as anchor interviews, investigative reports, and more.

Fast

Timeliness is the key to successful tune-in promotions. Advertising morning or evening newscasts or prime time programs requires content that is updated sometimes on an hourly basis.

Lockett admits to being skeptical at first that online video ads could keep pace with the rapidly changing evening news topics. But, within a week, the team mastered the process and could switch out creative in a matter of minutes without having to re-traffick any ad tags.

In addition, features such as dayparting allow broadcasters to schedule a series of ads to run at specific times and days. By trafficking one ad tag, a station can schedule an entire week’s worth of promotions.

Cost-effective

Dynamic video advertising platforms make it easy for broadcasters to re-purpose creative originally designed for television to run online as interactive video advertising. This eliminates the high cost of developing separate creative to run on-air and on the Web.

In addition, stations and networks typically have their own web properties with display inventory that often goes unsold. They can fill this inventory with their own tune-in video ads to promote their valuable programming assets.

Because the ad tags are flexible enough to meet the requirements of virtually all ad networks, broadcasters can easily extend the promotions to run on any sites they have purchased as part of a standard media plan.

The time is now

Dynamic video advertising offers stations, networks, and syndicators the opportunity they’ve been waiting for: to easily and inexpensively extend their tune-in promotions online. The technology is in place. The time to act is now.

Learn more about dynamic video advertising.

*Photo credit: Aaron Escobar.

When it comes to ways to invest their online video ad dollars, advertisers have choices:

• They can follow the disruptive television model by including pre-roll video ads that viewers must watch to get to the video content they actually want to see.
• They can embed user-initiated video ads in banner ad spaces on websites that viewers have chosen to visit.

While some studies have found that only a small percentage of unique visitors actually watch video pre-roll ads to completion, both formats play an important role in a holistic online video advertising strategy.

Key to understanding the strategic role that in-banner video ads play is “user-initiation.” To use in-banner video to the best advantage, advertisers have to ask themselves a question: What is it that makes viewers actively choose to watch an ad online?

• Viewers recognize a familiar brand or product and want to know more.
• The creative and message (promotion, benefit, etc.) are too compelling to ignore.

How do these answers inform advertisers? An unknown brand trying to establish itself might not want to invest primarily in in-banner video. To build notoriety, the brand probably needs to be more disruptive than that. For established brands focused on increasing brand favorability and purchase intent, however, in-banner video just might be the ideal tool of choice.

By combining compelling creative with the interactive power of dynamic video advertising technology, established brands can invite viewers into an engaging, two-way conversation. Here are a couple of examples:

TV news tune-in promotion

A popular local TV station might increase program viewership by featuring in-banner video ads on its website that:

• Leverage existing creative.
• Are dayparted to promote programs shortly before they appear on air.
• Target viewers based on their geographic locations.
• Allow viewers to telescope to more detailed video content.
• Include live feeds of the station’s Twitter posts.
• Make it easy for viewers to share the video ad through their social media accounts.

Political advocacy campaign

A well-established, issue-oriented organization might use in-banner video ads to publicize an event. Viewers of the video ads could:

• Sign up to attend the event.
• Contribute to the organization.
• Take a survey to help organizers zero in on the best speakers.
• See a map with directions from each viewer’s zip code to the event location.
• Make it easy for viewers to share the video ad through Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites.

Read more about how video ads can drive the best results online.

Get started today with your own in-banner dynamic video advertising campaign.

Addressable advertising targets viewers by location*

For decades, the cable industry has been working on a solution for dynamically targeting TV ads to specific regions, zones, and even households. What’s holding the industry back?

According to an article by Steve McClellan, this addressable type model turns the existing TV sales model on its head, leaving networks and other distributors concerned about how to fully monetize inventory. In addition, the technology is extremely complex and different hardware deployed by cable operators creates incompatibilities.

But national advertisers eager to take advantage of addressable advertising don’t have to wait. A simple solution is available now that allows these advertisers to dynamically deliver locally relevant video content to viewers in specific spot TV markets.

Dynamic online video ad technology makes it easy for national advertisers to re-purpose existing TV spots to run as in-banner video ads online. Locally relevant content, such as links to local websites and social media fan pages, sign ups that send leads to local email addresses, decision-tree videos that feature local employees, and more, can be delivered dynamically in response to each viewer’s zip code.

Example: National pizza chain

A simple example illustrates how elegantly dynamic video ad technology solves the addressable advertising problem.

Goal Run a national brand awareness campaign that also drives traffic into specific local franchises around the country.

Process Create an engaging 30-second TV spot that includes logos and messaging common across franchises. Within a day, re-purpose the spot to run as an in-banner video ad that includes three dynamically targeted calls to action:

• Find us!
• See Our Menu!
• Click to Order Now!

Results A Seattle resident and a Boston resident visit two local online publications and watch the in-banner video ad. When these viewers click:

• Find Us!, each viewer sees a map that shows directions from her own zip code to the nearest franchise.
• See Our Menu!, each viewer sees the menu for the local franchise with its pizza specials that cater to regional preferences.
• Click to Order Now! and fills out an in-video order form, the order is sent to the email address of the local franchise.

Ultimately, the cable TV industry will find ways to remove the procedural and technological barriers to addressable advertising. In the meantime, advertisers can take advantage of dynamic online video ad technology to run targeted national-local and regional-local campaigns.

Read more about solutions for dynamically delivering locally relevant video ad content:

• Interpublic Makes World Wide Web A Local Buy, Will Serve ‘Micro Targeted’ In-Banner Video Ads
• Geomentum, Mixpo Create Zip-Level Video Ads

*Photo from the Flickr collection of mag3737.

Mixpo technology uses campaign data to optimize automatically on the best performing ad*

How do you break down the barriers that stop advertisers from extending their TV advertising online? Make it familiar. Make it effective.

Familiar Build on what’s familiar by incorporating many of the techniques, such as dayparting and ad sequencing, that advertisers are already accustomed to using in the TV world.

Effective Advertisers new to online are unlikely to know how to take full advantage of the dynamic nature of online advertising and the ease with which performance can be tracked and measured. Building automatic optimization into the process of running live online campaigns not only delivers the best results. It also educates advertisers about the creative and calls to action that are most effective online.

Auto optimization defined

Auto optimization means randomly rotating different versions of an ad through the same Player. After a specified number of impressions, the platform automatically stops running all versions except the best performer.

Advertisers have control over various aspects of the auto optimization process, including:

• The number of versions to rotate.
• The creative and calls to action in each version.
• The number of impressions after which auto optimization occurs.
• The metric on which performance is judged (for example, view rate, clickthrough rate, or percent viewed).

Auto optimization applied

To illustrate how auto optimization works, here are three different examples of the process in action.

Retailer: Optimize on view rate

A workout equipment retailer promoting a semi-annual sale wants to move as much merchandise as possible by attracting people into the store. The retailer comes up with a couple of different StartFrames (the image viewers see before they play a video ad) to determine which attracts the most views.

• Version 1 describes the sale this way: Semi-annual Sale! All inventory discounted.
• Version 2 describes the sale this way: Merchandise must move! First come, first served!

After the two versions rotate through the same Player for 75,000 impressions, Version 2 has the highest view rate. The platform automatically stops running Version 1.

Auto dealer: Optimize on clickthrough rate

An auto dealer wants to generate more local leads and get more car buyers into the show room. The dealer wants to test two different calls to action:

• Version 1: Sign up for a test drive!
• Version 2: Schedule a test drive today!

After the two versions rotate through the same Player for 100,000 impressions, Version 1 has the highest clickthrough rate. The platform automatically stops running Version 2.

Political campaign: Optimize on percent viewed

To garner votes as the election nears, a political campaign wants voters to view as much of the candidate’s message as possible. The campaign develops two versions of a video ad that approach the candidate’s platform in different ways.

• Version 1 presents the message by attacking the candidate’s opponent.
• Version 2 ignores the opposition and focuses on the candidate’s five-point program for change.

After the two versions rotate through the same Player for 50,000 impressions, Version 2 has the highest percent viewed. The platform automatically stops running Version 1.

More Information

New to Mixpo? Explore our website today to learn more about dynamic video advertising.

Read a MediaPost article about Mixpo tools that move TV ad budgets online.

Mixpo customer? Learn more now about optimization by signing in to your account, opening the Client Resources home page, and then searching for “auto optimize.”

*Photo taken by bionicteaching.

Use ad sequencing to tell stories*

Consumers typically progress through a single TV program or a series of episodes in a linear fashion. Advertisers have taken advantage of this linear progression to build brand awareness and tell stories through ad sequences.

For example, Budweiser served a progression of popular beer ads to football fans watching the Superbowl. Taster’s Choice promoted its coffee using an ad sequence that traced the progress of a developing romance. The Energizer Bunny sequence not only won a best-commercial-of-the-year Obie award but also resulted in Energizer pulling ahead of Duracell in sales.

Because ad sequencing works on television, advertisers who extend their campaigns online want to tap into that same sense of motion and momentum. But, they face a challenge. How is it possible to capture the repetition and story-telling potential of ad sequencing on the Web, an inherently non-linear medium?

As part of its goal to remove barriers to online video advertising, Mixpo recently released its Dynamic Suite. Included in the Suite is a message sequencing tool that provides advertisers with one of the easiest, most effective ways to deliver in-banner video ad sequences on the Web.

Ad sequencing described

With Mixpo’s user-friendly ad sequencing tool, advertisers can:

• Build in a progressive viewing experience by basing ads that a consumer sees on ads that same consumer viewed or encountered previously (through an impression).
• Fine tune that experience by controlling the number of impressions or views that trigger the delivery of a different ad.
• Set up as many ad sequences as necessary to deliver the optimal brand awareness or story-telling experience.
• Preview the ad sequencing experience to make sure it performs as expected before the ads go live.

Ad sequencing applied

Automotive: From the general to the specific

An auto dealer runs a sequence of ads based on views. Consumers who have actively chosen to view a general video ad about the new hybrid SUV will automatically be shown a more detailed ad about some of the model’s hottest features.

Retail: Upping the incentive

A sporting goods retailer runs a sequence of ads based on impressions. Consumers who have been exposed twice to a startframe that shows a re-designed elliptical machine will see a new startframe on their third visit that offers a 10% discount coupon to first-time customers.

More Information

New to Mixpo? Explore our website today to learn more about dynamic video advertising.

Mixpo customer? Learn more now about ad sequencing by signing in to your account, opening the Client Resources home page, and then searching for “sequencing.”

*Photo taken by Jill Clardy.

Target audiences through dayparting*

Advertisers want to extend their TV campaigns online, but often fear the expense and labor involved in creating or editing video for online audiences.

To remove barriers to the TV-online transition, Mixpo not only makes it easy to re-purpose existing TV creative for use on the Web. Our platform also incorporates tried-and-true TV programming strategies, such as dayparting, into our dynamic feature suite.

Dayparting enables advertisers to deliver content at a specific time of day or day of the week, when it is most likely to be relevant to particular viewers.

Dayparting described

Advertisers accustomed to running dayparted campaigns on television will find it easy to take advantage of this feature on Mixpo’s platform. Using an intuitive interface, dayparting is simple to implement and supports:

• Running different ads during select dayparts, with no limit on the number of dayparts.
• Setting up customized dayparting schedules for different days of the week.
• Copying schedules from one day to another.
• Previewing dayparts to ensure functionality before the ads go live.
• Trafficking one master ad tag that controls an entire dayparting schedule.
• Generating custom reports that track the individual performance of each dayparted ad.
• Changing creative or adjusting daypart times mid-campaign without re-trafficking any ad tags.

Dayparting applied

Here are a few examples of how dayparting can help your ad campaign:

Fast food: The right message at the right time of day

To bring customers into the store, a restaurant can run its breakfast burrito ad from midnight to 10am, its tuna melt ad from 10 am to 2:30 pm, and its four-piece chicken dinner ad from 2:30 pm to midnight.

Tune-in: The right message on the right day of the week

To queue up viewer interest and drive viewers to its nightly broadcast, a TV station can run ads a few hours in advance of air time that preview the most exciting news segment.

More Information

New to Mixpo? Explore our website today to learn more about dynamic video advertising.

Mixpo customer? Learn more now about dayparting by signing in to your account, opening the Client Resources home page, and then searching for “dayparting.”

*Image taken by David Sky

From Aunt Owwee's Photostream on Flickr

Seasons present opportunities. They present all of us with opportunities to celebrate. And, because we celebrate, they present marketers with opportunities to connect with customers.

A recent ClickZ article by Robin Neifield, CEO and cofounder of NetPlus Marketing, a top 50 interactive agency, lists a number of tips advertisers can use to “maximize the opportunity [seasonal advertising] presents.”

In this post, we’ll use five of Neifield’s tips to demonstrate how advertisers can take advantage of dynamic video advertising to gain a year-round seasonal campaign edge.

Grow your customer base

As Neifield points out, many seasonal holidays put consumers into a buying or gift-giving mindset. While this increased receptivity may make them more likely to play your video ads, you need to take full advantage of their presence once you get them watching.

An excellent way to convert seasonally-motivated first-timers into loyal customers is to give them something of value, something they can use. One of the best ways to do that is to integrate a printable coupon or giveaway into a video ad. For example:

• A delicatessen before Labor Day: Capitalize on picnic season by including an exclusive printable buy-1-sandwich-get-1-free coupon available only to video ad viewers.
• Kitchen goods store before Thanksgiving: Include, in a video ad featuring a cookware sale, a printable cranberry sauce or stuffing recipe from a well-known chef.

Grow your customer email list

As you attract the seasonally-motivated to your video ads, give them an incentive to join your email list. For example:

• National auto manufacturer with a spring sale on several new models: Drive new customers to local dealers by including a geotargeted Sign Up For A Test Drive! overlay in a nationally-branded video ad. The sign-up email messages are sent automatically to each viewer’s local dealer.
• City-wide pizza chain: Generate orders and grow customer lists by including Order Now for $5 Off! lead capture overlays in a video ad. By geotargeting the ad by zip code, automatically direct orders (and leads) to the franchise closest to the viewer.

Learn more about your customers

Take the opportunity to learn from as well as sell to seasonally-motivated viewers by including real-time surveys in your dynamic video ads. Giving customers a chance to weigh in builds relationships and brand loyalty and helps advertisers improve their offerings.

In dynamic video ads, advertisers can incorporate surveys into their video content. Survey results are available in real time. Questions can be updated on-the-fly, and updates go live immediately. For example:

• A politician during primary season: Learn which issues your supporters care the most about.
• A coffee chain at the beginning of summer: Discover how to expand your seasonal beverage lineup (iced tea? blending fruit drinks?) by polling potential customers for their preferences.

Adjust your creative and messaging

Seasonal marketing succeeds or fails on the ability to switch creative and messaging on a dime. Quick shifts, Neifield says, from non-performing to high-performing elements can mean the difference between “acceptable and exceptional performance.”

With dynamic video ads, advertisers can change creative and messaging in real time.

• Want to change a holiday weekend offer the second the Labor Day weekend ends? Edit the text on an overlay.
• Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is on the way. Replace the stuffing recipe overlay with the frosted cookies one.
• Not getting the survey response you expected? Change the call to action.

These, and most other, modifications go live immediately without re-trafficking any ad tags.

Accelerate your optimization schedule

Neifield advises advertisers to accelerate their optimization schedules—if they can afford it. With dynamic video ads, cost simply isn’t an issue.

In a dynamic video ad platform, it’s easy to copy video ads, modify the versions, and rotate them randomly through the same Player.

This gives advertisers a couple of convenient, cost-free optimization options:

• Manually optimize: Remember the kitchen goods store? The store might rotate three ad versions with three different printable recipes through the same Player. As viewers gravitate toward the most popular recipe, the store stops running the other versions.
• Auto optimize: Remember the auto manufacturer with the geotargeted video ad? The manufacturer might create 2 versions of the video ad, each with a different start frame (start frame is the creative viewers see before they play a video ad). With auto optimization enabled, the video ad with the worst views-to-impressions rate is automatically dropped after a specified number of impressions.

The flexibility and interactivity that dynamic video ads offer make them the perfect vehicle for advertisers who want to realize seasonal digital success all year long.

More Information

Explore our website today to learn more about dynamic video advertising.

For Mixpo customers: Learn more about using the features described here by signing in and visiting the Client Resources home page.

Using geotargeting, GSG was able to expose primary voters in 2 similar-sized media markets to different media. Palm Springs voters were exposed to both television and online advertising. Santa Barbara voters were exposed to television advertising only.

By surveying voters in both markets before the campaigns began and then again on election night, GSG was able to compare lifts in favorability, recall, and vote share.

The results, as described below, show that voters exposed to both the Chris Kelly television and online ad campaigns felt more favorably toward the candidate than voters exposed only to the television campaign.

As one component of the 200 million impression campaign, Mixpo partnered with GSG to run targeted video ads on local lifestyle and news websites. Two video ad examples are also included below.

Online advertising increases favorability

Likely Democratic primary voters who were exposed to both television and online advertising viewed Chris Kelly more favorably than voters who were exposed to television advertising only.

Total users favorability comparison

Online advertising makes an impression

The increase in Chris Kelly’s favorable ratings was driven largely by frequent internet users, who were more likely to be exposed to the online advertising campaign.

Frequent Internet Users favorability comparison

Online advertising moves target voters

The online advertising campaign was especially effective in reaching key target audiences, including older women 55+ and white women.

Older women and white women who were exposed to both television and online advertising were more favorable toward Chris Kelly, more likely to recall having seen, read or heard something about Chris Kelly and more likely to vote for Chris Kelly than their counterparts who were exposed to television advertising only.

Overall favorability comparison for target voters

Chris Kelly Xspots

These 2 Xspots illustrate the range of possibilities available to advertisers through Mixpo’s dynamic video advertising platform.

300×250 Xspot

728×90 leaderboard display ad that expands into an Xspot.

More information

Online advertising is effective for political campaigns. And barriers to online advertising are disappearing, making it a perfect time for politicians and advocacy organizations to jump in.

Learn more today about the Mixpo solution for politics.

The Old Spice Guy, Isaiah Mustafa

When it comes to raising awareness, Wieden+Kennedy’s Old Spice Guy campaign was an enormous success.

Building on the appealing “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” TV spot featuring Old Spice Guy Isaiah Mustafa, W+K launched a 3-day social media blitz. In response to thousands of questions submitted on Twitter, the W+K team published 183 video responses on YouTube that received almost 40 million views.

But, with the addition of dynamic video advertising, could the campaign have been even better? Here’s a description of the road that W+K might have taken.

Extend the TV campaign online

In response to data showing that brand and message recall is twice as effective when using both TV and online, W+K allocated 10% of the P&G Old Spice TV budget to online.

The majority of Americans simultaneously watch TV and surf the web. Fifty-four percent of these multi-taskers say the Internet is their primary focus. Heeding these trends, W+K realized that adding an online component would increase the campaign’s reach without increasing its budget.

To implement the online part of the campaign, W+K:

• Re-purposed the “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” TV spot to run online as in-banner video ads.
• Managed the media for the online campaign so the video ads would run on premium websites frequented by the target audience – women 25 to 45 years of age. For example, the ads might run on sites like Cafe Mom and the entertainment sections of the local online newspapers and magazines.
• Tracked the performance of the ads and optimized the ad content and placement in response to the performance data.

W+K also saw their online video ad strategy as an important complement to the anticipated social media blitz.

• Nothing beats a YouTube channel for a low-cost, high-impact way to build brand awareness. Whether a viral hit actually increases product sales is another question. With their proven ability to drive purchase intent, online video ads served as the perfect complement to Mustafa’s YouTube video responses.
• W+K was delighted to have a home for the footage they shot but never used in the response videos. They channeled that extra footage into follow-up video ads that ran across the same properties where the original re-purposed TV spot ran.

Build momentum

Because their video ads were dynamic, W+K easily used its online campaign to stoke enthusiasm for Old Spice Guy and increase overall campaign momentum.

• Auto optimization W+K created different versions of the original “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” video ad. Each version had a unique StartFrame, the image viewers see in the Player before the video plays. The StartFrames, of course, featured Old Spice Man in different poses with different props. W+K rotated the versions through the same Player. After a specific number of impressions, the low performers automatically stopped running, leaving only the best performer live. W+K was interested to see that the best performers varied by placement domain.
• Fresh content When the social media blitz began, the online video ads easily kept pace. W+K refreshed content and calls to action daily and even hourly without re-trafficking any ad tags.
• Live feeds To integrate video ads into the rapid question-response flow, W+K included a live Twitter feed widget in their video ads. As they viewed the ads, viewers kept up with the latest question submissions.

Increase engagement

Because their video ads were interactive, W+K was able to maximize its online campaign to drive purchase intent as well as brand favorability. For example, from within its Old Spice video ads, W+K:

• Offered discount coupons Viewers clicked printable coupons available only through the online video ads.
• Offered signed Isaiah Mustafa photos Viewers opened custom lead capture forms to request photos through email while P&G grew its contact lists.
• Included Facebook and Twitter icons Viewers clicked icons to go directly to the Old Spice Facebook and Twitter pages.
• Promoted social media sharing Share links allowed viewers to easily share video ads with their friends and followers.
• Redirected viewers to the Mustafa response videos After the social media blitz began, W+K added redirect actions to the video ads. This gave viewers the option to watch Mustafa’s response videos without ever leaving the original ad. As new responses became available, W+K easily swapped in the new videos without re-trafficking any ad tags.

Ah, what might have been. As our hypothetical scenario shows, dynamic video ad campaigns have the power to extend TV campaigns and complement and augment social media blitzs. Start your own campaign today.

Mixpo is pleased to join the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) as a general member.

We look forward to participating with other industry leaders on IAB councils, committees, and working groups to make the processes associated with buying, planning, and creating interactive media better and simpler.