Archive for November, 2008
To the Victors Go the Spoils
Last Thursday evening, at the newly opened Lucky Strike Lanes in Manhattan, Mindshare World celebrated recent their victory at the YuMe Bar Game Olympics event in style. Over 30 Mindshare employees came out to enjoy the open bar, buffet and 4 lanes of bowling in a private lounge courtesy of YuMe as the grand prize for their Bar Game Olympic victory. An impromptu game of Name That Tune also took over, as guests were challenged to name the artists of the songs playing on sound system, with the first person correctly identifying the artist of the song playing giving out a drink to the person of their choosing. Despite the challenging economic times we’re in, it was great to be able to kick back, enjoy some drinks and let off some steam with a great group of agency folks.
- Gian Lombardi
RockBand Wonders
YuMe hit the ‘Big Windy’ this month…
With a Nintendo Wii in tow and harvest tables in row, YuMe had a great party for Chicago’s Zed451 on Clark and Huron for Chicago agenices and clients on November 4th. Although we had several games in hand at the event, the most popular game by far was ‘RockBand.’
With the talent that was on display, we had several people in attendance who brought out their inner-rocker and brought down the house. (It’s amazing how Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So” and Bon Jovi’s “Wanted, Dead or Alive” brings out the hidden talent in us all.)
Stay tuned for future Chicago events, and please be there for future funk and circumstance. Remember people, YuMe keeps it sharp, classy, and with elegance in Chicago.
Keep it up…
- Bret Dougherty
Ad-Skipping
Recently, there was an article that caught my interest in Ad Age “As the Ratings Fall, Networks Take on Ad-Skipping,” regarding the skipping of online adverts (or rather, the lack thereof). The article basically goes on to say that even though TV consumers are used to skipping or at least having the ability to fast-forward adverts, the same shows online don’t offer that privilege.
As I’ve mentioned on these pages before, I simply don’t understand this behaviour. People’s habits vary on an individualistic basis. Online ad technology allows adverts to be customised to the user, to the show, to whatever. Just let the user do what they want, allow ads to be skipped. If someone doesn’t like a particular ad, then show a different one. If they don’t like pre-rolls, show a watermark / bug or an overlay / post-roll. Forcing the same thing down every viewers throat just doesn’t seem like it’s cricket.
Also, there seems to be this great angst over how many adverts can be shown online. Rather than guess, let’s show a bunch and see what happens to the viewer interest and engagement. This isn’t that hard folks.
- Jayant Kadambi
Research Studies
I’m all for research and science. We need lots of it in the advertising business; so that we can replace guesswork and trial and error. And the nasty reputations that come along with the combination of media planners, publishers and ad networks using instinct to make plans, rather than hard data. Often-times it’s not their fault. The science is not ready, especially in video advertising, being that it’s a nascent market.
So, I read this article on Online Ad Clicker Demographics recently and they report the percentage of people in various age and income brackets that click on ads. It was interesting to note that younger people were more likely to click on a video advert than a banner, but as they grew older, the propensity to click on an video advert declined to mirror that of other ad units. The report goes on to find similar trends when comparing income. People earning less than $50K a year, click far more on video adverts than on display, but as they earn more, they fall into line with the other ad units.
So, video ads are more engaging for younger and lower-income people and as engaging for everyone else. Imagine what you’ll get if you’re an advertiser and the video adverts are actually contextually matched to the content with the sophistication that 10 years of display advertising has brought. As I’ve pointed out on these pages before, online video advertising is still very young as an industry. I’ll bet when this survey is run again in 2 years, video is clearly more engaging across all demographic types. Assuming it’s done correctly.
- Jayant Kadambi
