RAMP-The Content Optimization Company

Here in the United States, television has—we hope only temporarily—lost its spark. Back in November, the Writer’s Guild of America went on strike after it was unable to reach an agreement with The Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers. No new shows are being written meaning that many television programs are in danger of going “dark”—some are there already. I know I am certainly getting tired of re-runs and I was already sick of reality shows. How soon will we start signing up for more Netflix deliveries and tuning in online for our primetime entertainment? Pushing advertising dollars online, whether in the form of video or display ads, could provide advertisers with a new user base as they look for ways to reach consumers and tap into the $7 billion online video search and advertising market.

But successful online advertising takes more than a conversion of 30 second TV spots repurposed and redirected onto the Web. This week Burst Media, an online advertising network, released a survey that reiterated the growth in online video viewing across demographics while also highlighting low consumer acceptance of video ads. Numerous studies have charted the growth in video viewing online and research increasingly evinces consumer hesitation about viewing online video ads.

Ads, by their very nature, are disruptive. The good news from the Burst survey is that about 53.6 percent of online video viewers recall seeing in-stream – either pre-, mid-, or post-roll – ads attached to some form of web programming. Unfortunately, more than three-quarters (78.4 percent) of respondents said in-stream ads are intrusive and fully one-half (50.4 percent) say these ads disrupt their Internet experience.

The bad and the worse: the Burst survey found that one-half (50.7%) of respondents stop watching an online video once they encounter an in-stream advertisement. Ominously, 15.3% of respondents report they immediately leave the website once they encounter an in-stream advertisement in an online video. And in-stream advertising does not always make a lasting impression. In fact, two-thirds (69.1%) of survey respondents say they pay about the same or less attention to in-stream video advertisements than they do to standard creative units on the same page.

The Burst study should force advertisers, agencies and publishers to take notice as it juxtaposes the growing consumption of online video with the dissatisfaction consumers feel when content is interrupted by streaming ads.

“Online video is clearly in demand by web viewers,” said Jarvis Coffin, CEO of Burst Media.

“However, marketers need to tread carefully with online video advertising. It’s pretty clear from our research that most online video consumers are not yet willing to sit through advertising to get the content they seek. For online video advertising to be truly effective, advertisers must approach it with a consumer’s mindset, and recognize that what might be right for one segment could fail with another.”

The time for online video ads is now; video ads that respect and target consumer preferences so that users are willing and even eager to view them. Whatever the outcome of the writer’s strike, online video is winning an increasingly central role in consumer engagement with media. Content producers and media companies must make their video content more discoverable and accessible to consumers if they hope to capitalize on this trend. In doing so, they will make the shows and clips more valuable to advertisers, perhaps enticing those advertising budgets away from stalled television series and into the online realm.

The blogosphere has been abuzz lately over the new JJ Abrams produced movie trailer currently running before Transformers in theatres. In a rare and unprecedented move, the trailer presented no title for the movie, only showing a release date of January 18, 2008. However it is known that production crews are referring to the movie as “Cloverfield”.

The trailer is as shocking as it is mysterious, beginning with Manhattan revelers at a going away party and ending with some sort of massive explosion levelling skyscrapers and actually beheading the statue of liberty. There are many theories about what the movie is about, some suggest an alien attack, others believe it may be some sort of sea monster or even a continuation of the JJ Abrams produced series, Lost.

Whatever the case, JJ Abrams and company are already mounting quite a successful viral marketing campaign that has many scratching their heads. It has been reported that slusho.jp is one incognito site connected to the movie with more predicted to be on the way. Members of the marketing and advertising industry are already praising this campaign for its cleverness are no doubt interested to see if this unique campaign will translate into dollars at the box office.

Live Earth was a 24-hour, 7-continent concert series that took place on 7/7/07. The concert series brought together more than 100 music artists and 2 billion people in hopes of generating a global environmental movement. The eight official concerts took place in New York, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg and Hamburg.

What was unique about Live Earth was the unprecedented global media structure which covered all media platforms from TV, to radio, to Internet and wireless channels. By 3 p.m. EDT, MSN had received a total of more than 10 million video streams and Live Earth could claim the most simultaneous viewers of any online concert ever. Yet 7/7/07 should prove just beginning for Live Earth; on-demand footage of all performances, artist interviews, and backstage footage remain available from the eight official concerts at LiveEarth.MSN.com for the next several weeks.

Those involved in the production of the Live Earth Concerts desire to create an impact beyond typical entertainment; the end goal is to create an engaged, environmentally aware global audience. Kevin Wall, founder and producer of Live Earth contends:

“By providing the opportunity to view the shows in their entirety online, coupled with our unique solutions campaign we’re able to communicate this message on a mass-scale in a way that engages people and inspires them to act.”

Two weeks ago NBC and Arby’s restaurant announced the launch of their new site www.lunchbreakshow.com. This site is one of the recently proliferating ventures seeking to bring together traditional TV and the Internet. NBC’s approach uniquely targets the nearly 60% of United States office workers who spend their lunch breaks at their desks, according to a study by Kelton Research. Office workers also make up a relatively affluent target group and are therefore potentially valuable customers to advertisers who take advantage of Web sites that entice workers on the job.

This past week’s Advertising Age article entitled: “NBC Wants ‘SNL’ to Be Part of Your Lunch Break” places thelunchbreakshow.com at the intersection of online video and prime time TV–a new media frontier. As the popularity of Web video grows, so too does the amount of high quality content available to users on the Internet. Networks such as NBC then undertake the task of reshaping their product just enough so that it retains its “prime time” quality while attracting consumers with the clever, pithy content they want to email to friends and coworkers. NBC Universal’s chief digital officer George Kliavkoff expects the site to have a relatively slow start and “grow through word-of-mouth,” which for Web video translates into the viral spread of video deemed worthy of a user’s extra seconds spent clicking the “email to a friend” button.

Some of the adjustments necessary for translating network TV-programming to Web video involve editing and shortening to create clips suitable for online consumption. Others, like the “boss button”–which fills a user’s computer screen with a spreadsheet at the panicked click of the mouse–acknowledge that enticing office workers to “play” while at work is somewhat risky business.

Yet NBC and other networks believe that for workers glued to computer screens 8 or more hours a day, the risk of their boss catching them enjoying some of that screen time as they finish their Arby’s sandwich is one they are willing to take.

This week marked the 11th annual Webby Awards, presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS). With 550 members consisting of Web experts, business figures, visionaries and creative celebrities, the IADAS presents awards in myriad categories to honor excellence on the Internet. As The Wall Street Journal describes, the Webbys “Celebrate sites that pave important paths to the internet’s next phase.”

This year saw the addition of Online Film & Video Awards, evidence of the recent explosion of video on the Web. The Webby Awards have certainly evolved since their inception in 1996, and the changes reflect “the tremendous growth of the Internet as a tool for business and everyday lives,” as the Webby Awards site states.

The Hollywood Reporter’s article, “Webby Awards celebrate original content” points out the distinct situation for ambitious content creators as they work to balance monetizing and maintaining control of their product online. For the Web is a unique realm in which content producers can “retain a greater control over their product than almost any artist-distribution combination in the industry.”

Yet Web popularity does not automatically translate into profit. While Webby Awards and praise are well and good, content creators are still looking for simple solutions to the question of online monetization. Webby’s executive director David-Michel Davies believes that the relative novelty of online video coupled with producers’ desire to turn a profit will create “a massive transformation in how content is created and consumed.”

Check out the Webby Winner’s Gallery for a glimpse into the Webby Awards 2007.

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.

(when video attacks is a recurring feature that exploits the embarrassment of others in a world where everyone and their uncle owns a camcorder)

Today’s submission isn’t even in English, but you do not need to understand the language to see the humor. Our lottery hostess with the most-est is doing her best to maintain her composure when the ball machine (got a better name for it?) has a major malfunction, however she seems at a loss for words.

Airplanes have always captured the imagination of children and adults alike from around the world. Today, Americans imagination will be captured by Airbus’ super jumbo A380 which is scheduled to land in New York J.F. Kennedy airport this afternoon with more than 500 passengers on board. Airbus is betting BIG money this super plane will become the darling of airlines from around world in years to come, to move more passengers over longer distances in what’s becoming a crowded and not so friendly skies.

To lure airline customers, Airbus is packing the A380 with all sorts of amenities, and flexible plane configurations to expand or decrease the economy section. Do you want a full-service bar, TVs on the back of every seat or showers for first-class passengers? Not a problem…the A380 is configurable enough to suit customer’s needs. It is this same customers need that have pushed out the delivery date of the 1st commercial A380 by at least two years, since wiring of the plane has had to be reconfigured to accommodate all those amenities promised to customers. Whether or not the A380 super jumbo ever makes a dime for its parent company, Airbus, many people like me can’t wait for the opportunity to fly on the A380, and marvel at all the technology and space that it offers to passengers. There’s no doubt this plane will redefine aviation in the years to come once it becomes fully operational.

Video: Airbus A380 Superumbo

airbus a380 This 29HD Network feed includes the best of all 29HD Network - Gadjit Guide-Airbus A380

The 2007 Grammy Awards took place this Sunday with the reunited Police kicking off the evening of awards and entertainment. Other performances included Beyonce Knowles, Best New Artist winner Carrie Underwood, Hip-hop duo Gnarls Barkley, and The Dixie Chicks–winners of both Album and Song of the Year. Check out the video of their award-winning song “Not Ready to Make Nice” below.

dixie chicks not ready YouTube.com: pazu7 - Dixie Chicks – Not Ready To Make Nice

You can find video clips of your other favorite Grammy-winning artists on www.podzinger.com

A few weeks ago I announced the ability to search YouTube material on PodZinger. Now I’m very happy to announce the creation of a new Poker channel within our Youtube content, joining the existing sports, anime, and entertainment channels. Now all of you poker fans out there can search all relevant poker material within our YouTube content.

Many of you may be wondering why we are grouping content into channels when tags already exist? The answer is simple really. Using our speech recognition and natural language technologies , PodZinger can actually take into account what was said and its context when determining a category to which it belongs. This often proves to be more specific and reliable than simply relying on a few creator submitted tags for classification (whom may be tempted to add erroneous tags to show up in more results). Full text search opens up a world of content like never before, and now we can offer more specific search results within channels that appeal to certain enthusiasts.

Stay tuned for more channels to come!