Online Video Advertising

The emergence of online video advertising is too big to overlook. Whether advertisers want to or not they're going to have to jump on the band wagon. In recent years it has become necessary to add a digital and/or interactive aspect to campaigns to appeal to a younger, more technically savvy consumer. In the article, "Are Skins, Bugs, or Tickers The Holy Grail of Web Advertising?," many of the newer ways to advertise online are discussed. One of these is Google's inclusion of content syndicated videos in their AdSense service (an example of this is located at the top of this blog). With this service creators choose what types of videos to embed in their sites and AdSense pairs it with an advertiser that has some sort of connection to the video and site. Ads appear at the top of the video player and as overlays during the video's play time. Although I think that this type of advertising is infinitely better than pre-rolled advertisements, I don't know how long it will be before consumers become annoyed by them as well.

Another new advertising option touched on in the article is the use of skins. An example of one type of skin is shown to the left. The ad is for the new Verizon Juke. Although the picture is kind of small you can kind of see that the ad incorporates the whole page with the right hand side housing a skyscraper type ad. Skins basically take up the background of a web page or site. Usually the whole color scheme of a site change to match that of the ads. If a skin is done creatively and placed on the right page I think that they can be very successful. I don't think someone would quit going to a website just because of a skin, especially if the ad doesn't change the overall content of the site.

Another interesting aspect of online advertising is that initially most online videos were user generated with poor production values, but now networks and production companies are uploading their content online. Because of this I believe many advertisers are willing to advertise online when they otherwise would have opted not to. Advertising online is a growing and important trend for advertisers. In July 2006 YouTube announced that users were watching up to 100 million videos per day. Since then Google Video, Funnyordie.com, as well as a plethora of other video sites have gained a loyal viewership, and I believe that number has not died down. It would be insane to ignore a popular trend, which I don't believe will die down any time soon.