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Google has made it known to the market for a very long time that they’re in the business of organizing the world’s digital information for people to access via their online properties. What they don’t trumpet as loudly is that they’re also in the business of becoming “the” one-stop shop advertisers can go to for text ads, radio ads, news ads and now with the acquisition of DoubleClck: display ads.

Even though DoubleClick stopped being an ad network and focused on becoming a technology solution for publishers interested in running their own advertising platform through its technology partnerships, the DoubleClick acquisition provides Google with direct access to deep-pocket advertisers that spend their ad dollars mainly on brand or display advertising. In 2006, display advertising represented about half of the overall online ad spending. If this is an area where Google still needs to make improvements, the DoubleClick acquisition makes perfect sense. Why try to grow the business when they have the financial muscle to buy it.

In the chess game of corporate strategy, Google’s move can be categorized in many different ways. On the offensive side, they’re positioning themselves to grow their display side of the business which just so happens to be the bread and butter of Yahoo and MSN. On the defensive side, the acquisition keeps DoubleClick off the hands of their archrivals. Regardless of how the acquisition is viewed, only time will tell if it’s going to yield a positive effect on Google’s bottom line.

If you are interested, a great resource for tracking this issue is John Battelle’s Searchblog, go here to monitor the conversation.

American Airlines announced a new Web site last week with a goal of appealing to female travelers. Instead www.aa.com/women has rankled many a savvy business woman and skeptical blogger alike. American Airlines seems to have stumbled right out of the gate with the choice of lavender–as opposed to their traditional blue–for the site’s color-scheme. The color has since been changed–tag lines such as “Separate but lavender” were arguably not the sort of attention the airline was hoping would spread across the Internet in the wake of their announcement. But their attempt at niche marketing on the Web has so far produced more ire than excitement in the very niche the company is targeting.

In the NY Times article: “Maybe a Lavender Web Site Wasn’t How to Attract Women” one of the female executives quoted asks, “Why does AA feel that female travelers need things explained to them that male travelers don’t? Are we that dumb? That inexperienced in the ways of air travel?” Other remarks in the article and in the blogosphere at large were equally scathing. While some neutral reactions have surfaced, no one appears particularly taken with the new site.

As one blogger on www.blogher.org points out, the airline wants to hear feedback–but the changes she and other female travelers really want require more money than a change in the site’s color scheme or a list of “insider tips” on air travel. An American Airlines representative is quoted on www.blogher.com saying, “We had to start somewhere. There’s more to come.” Until then, I think I will stick to visiting their regular site.

Advertising Age has an article this week “Beyond Pre-Roll: New Options That Could Help Monetize Online Video” that discusses the Web’s lack of an equivalent to TV’s 30-second ad spot. The article touts this lack as “arguably the biggest question hindering the growth of the online video ad market.” And yet finding a one-size-fits-all advertising model for online video–as varied as it is–may not prove the best answer. While consumers may willingly accept the limited commercials that interrupt their viewing of network TV shows—considered premium content–online, some companies believe consumers will respond more positively to non-interruptive ads when it comes to other online content such as shorter video clips and user-generated content.

These companies focus on the idea that opt-in advertising should be contextually relevant. Their ads do not interrupt, therefore annoying viewers far less; rather they entice consumers to click through if the Web publishers get their targeting right.

In order to make marketers happy opt-in ads will truly need to appeal to the consumer to a much higher degree so that the viewer chooses to interact with the ad. The creativity that goes into designing such ads will therefore be as important as getting ad/content context right. Whereas the consumer is accustomed to passive consumption of an interstitial ad, it takes a bit more intrigue to get us to move that mouse away from the play/pause button to the realm of the interactive, click-through ad.

A recently released Millward Brown study encourages companies to increase their spending on Internet ads. The CTV-1 study, conducted by the Millward Brown Futures Group, started off a series of investigations into digital media. Millward Brown uses the term CTV in these studies to describe consumer-controlled television/video viewing. The long term goal is to explore digital media’s impact–both potential and realized–on branding.

The CTV-1 study compared the effect of 30-second ads when viewed during TV shows at air-time, time-lapsed via DVR and on demand at the networks’ Web sites. While the advertising performed positively in all three viewing situations, the online viewers demonstrated a higher level of engagement–making brand consideration and favorability far more likely. The support behind this conclusion comes from the observation that online viewers were 53 percent more likely to pay attention to ads than their live TV-viewing counterparts. As for DVR, we all know how easy it is to fast forward through the ads thus bring an hour long show down to a convenient 45 minute viewing time.

Because the same ad is played 3 or 4 times when a show is viewed online, this group of viewers demonstrated ad recall at four times the rate of those in the air-time TV or DVR groups. Consumer engagement seems to be key–while ads aired on regular TV led to 54 percent brand awareness and 18 percent brand recall the online ads trumped at 82 percent awareness and 77 percent recall.

This entry is a follow up to the previous one I wrote last week titled: What’s Worth More: Online Eyeballs or Digital Media Content written right about the time the drums of war between Google and Viacom were being heard ’round the world. As the whole world knows by now, Google finally got sued over its subsidiary’s (YouTube) claimed copyright infringement of Viacom’s content. Many experts in the field had anticipated that YouTube would eventually get sued (including Google…the company set aside a couple of hundred million dollars as part of the YouTube acquisition to fight copyright infringement litigation) for allowing its users to upload video content on the site, with little to no screening of the content to make sure such content truly belongs to the user uploading “the stuff”.

What’s a kicker to me is that both Google and Viacom were rumored to be in serious negotiations to put Viacom’s content on the YouTube site, in exchange for some type of revenue guarantee by Google, just before it fell apart last week. Google is known in the search industry for paying top dollar to partners to become their exclusive provider of Web Search solutions (that includes web search and sponsored listings), see Google press release Time Warner’s AOL and Google to Expand Strategic Alliance. It’s not hard to imagine that Viacom tried to arm wrestle Google and get them to agree to some outrageous revenue guarantees in exchange for Viacom’s content.

If that’s how the negotiations between these two companies happened, well I don’t think Google was ready to open its wallet and sign that big fat check as they’ve done in the past. In the absence of a negotiated agreement, often times companies resort to suing other companies claiming all sorts of outrageous violations to see if one sticks in front of a judge. In the case of Viacom, I find it hard to believe a judge is going to buy their claim. Viacom’s lawyers and executive team rolled the diced to go for the big pay check. In the end, when all this mess is settled, I think they’re going to wish they had taken Google’s offer, whatever that was.

Once enigmatically entitled “The Venice Project,” Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis’ Joost has begun stirring things up in the television industry, on the internet, and in the exciting, less chartered territory where the two inevitably–and sometimes uncomfortably–collide. Joost is the newest service from the innovators who brought the world KaZaA and Skype. As the recent deal with Viacom illustrates, Joost attempts to solve the conundrum of uniting television and the internet while benefiting consumers and content owners alike.

Two of the enticing aspects of Joost–particularly when compared with YouTube–relate to copyright and advertising revenue. These are the areas which make Joost most appealing to Big Media companies like Viacom, Inc. Unlike YouTube, Joost only allows copyright owners to add their content. Also distinct is the revenue sharing that Joost offers to partners like Viacom for ads played with their content.

It will be interesting to see what impact Joost has on the developing relationship between television and internet. Perhaps the television industry, more comfortable with Joost’s copyright protection and revenue sharing for their content, will be more willing to think outside the literal and proverbial box as they search for new ways to bring programming and advertisements to consumers.

The answer to this question depends on who you ask. If you were to ask an online viewer, he or she will most likely tell you video ads should be no longer than 10- to 15 seconds in length, and that they should also be very relevant to the content viewed (see PodZinger Market Research Study, 11/20/06, “Video Ads Should Be Short, Relevant”).
But if you’re an advertiser who’s main interest is to create deep awareness of your products or services and excellent brand recognition, most likely you’ll want the video ads to run for as long as possible (at least 30- to 45 seconds) to get your message across, and a positive ROI. After all, most online video consumers prefer to watch video ads than having to pay a fee to view the content. (see Advertising.com 02/06/07 “Online Video Study”).
So who’s right as to how long video ads should be? The answer to this question should become clearer in the months to come as more and more advertisers begin to test the waters placing video ads on across websites like PodZinger, YouTube and Google Video just to name a few. User tolerance, or intolerance of ads for that matter, will become present as content viewing patterns on video websites remain the same or begin to drop as users begin defecting to other sites that do not server as many ads.

One of my colleagues recently shared with me a news article from the WSJ that puts into perspective how the internet, once again, creates a level-playing field for advertisers that want to reach the much desired Super Bowl viewer demographic without the need to take a second mortgage on your home to pay for the ad.

Which Super Bowl Ad do you think is the funniest?
Online web destinations like AOL, iFilm, USAtoday.com and Yahoo have taken Super Bowl commercials and created mini-websites that let online users view the Super Bowl ads, and vote for the one they think is the funniest or most memorable. If you stop to think for a moment, the likelihood that a person who watched the Super Bowl and missed an ad either because the hamburgers on the grill were catching on fire, or because the Pizza delivery guy arrived just at the moment the ad was about to be played, is actually pretty high. Thanks to the Web, these individuals will have a second chance to view the Super Bowl ads, and in the process, generate millions of online ad impressions that are ready to be filled with ads. As an advertiser who wants to reach the Super Bowl audience, but does not have the cash to dish out $2.6 million dollars for a 30 second spot (that’s what CBS is charging on Super Bowl XLI,) you can tap into the aftermarket. This is the golden opportunity you’ve been waiting for!

On the Web, the Super Bowls ads undergo a transformation, a virtual one at least, in that they go from being a 30 second spot and transform into online content that can be viewed and shared with millions of people online. So to think that you’ll be advertising on an advertisement is the wrong way to look at it. It is an opportunity that only comes once a year, and the best time to get into it is right after the big game has taken place, and a new team has been crowned as the champ of America’s newest and greatest past-time.

PodZInger’s own Jeff Baer, attended and was a presenter at this event held February 24th. Jeff is manager of co-brand and advertising solutions for PodZinger and an MIT alum.

This from Jeff:

“Last nights’ event, ‘Video Podcasting, Is it For You?’, at MIT was a lot fun…great group of folks in that are members of the “Software and Advanced Computing” group of the MIT Enterprise forum of Cambridge.

Steve Garfield (Rocketboom and http://stevegarfield.com), Peter Marx (audio and video production consultant to legal and education industries), and yours truly each presented our businesses with respect to the topic of the night “Video Podcasting: Is it for you?”

Steve talked about blogging as a pre-cursor to VLog’s, and demonstrated just how easy it is to do this live for the group. Using his digital camera, Mac, and a network connection, he added a video clip of the event to his Vlog.

Some very good questions were raised with lively discussions, including:

What is the difference between YouTube and Video Podcasting

Digital rights…how can I protect content that I create to share?

Does anyone offer “video search” based on image recognition?

Who pays for the hosting (in the case of blip.tv, not the content creator!)

And an interesting one.. Isn’t the name “PodZinger” denote podcasting, when in reality you work with all multimedia?

Discussion revolved around new information technology as liberating for the human race e.g. printing press, radio, tv, internet, etc. The rapid rate of current technological change ultimately enables the masses to create and consume media. That in turn drives more “freely available” information to the consumer that is in fact paid for through advertising. Much of the debate came from the type of advertising – pre-roll, sponsorship, prodcut placement, combinations of these, etc. and what will be the most effective for the consumer and the advertiser. One thing I think we can agree on is that these are early days for online video and ways to monetize it. Hang on! It’s going to be one heck of a ride!”

David Hallerman, senior analyst from market research firm eMarketer, recently published a report on the Internet Video Audience. In the report, Hallerman covers the number of Internet video viewers, audience demographics and how people watch video online. For advertisers and content creators this information is invaluable, as consumers can now watch TV or other videos through YouTube or DVRs without the interruption of advertising.

In the beginning of the report Hallerman poses the question, “Can Internet video ads be as effective, or even more effective, than TV commercials?” It is obvious that here at PodZinger we think the answer to that question is a resounding yes.

Some of PodZinger’s recent market research findings are cited in the report, including what video content consumers watched the most. To see all of PodZinger’s findings in detail, visit the November 20 posting, “Market Research on Online Advertising.”

If you’re interested in reading more of Hallerman’s Internet Video Audience report, you can buy it online at: http://www.emarketer.com/SiteSearch.aspx?arg=Internet+video+audience.