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YuMe’s Connected Audience Network Awarded the Advertiser Perceptions Highest Rated Media Award for Advertiser Satisfaction
We are thrilled to announce that YuMe’s Connected Audience Network has been awarded the Advertiser Perceptions Highest Rated Media Brand for Advertiser Satisfaction in the U.S.
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This year’s Advertiser Perceptions Highest Rated Media Brand Awards were based on an average of the Advertiser Intelligence Reports (AIR) Waves 15 and 16 ratings (Spring and Fall 2011) survey of thousands of media decision-makers, both marketers and agencies, who advertise with the leading print, television, digital, ad network and mobile media brands. The opinions of those surveyed provide the basis for insight metrics used to gauge media brand and company performance. The awards recognize media brand achievement in categories such as brand strength, sales knowledge, customer service, and advertiser satisfaction.
We believe this recognition is a strong validation of how our technology-driven Connected Audience Network coupled with our world-class customer service delivers unmatched advertiser satisfaction. YuMe’s Connected Audience Network delivers all 8 essentials elements for successful video advertising on all connected screens – PCs, mobile devices and connected TVs.
When it comes to YuMe’s world-class customer service promise, our Innovation Lab thrives to deliver the best video advertising performance for each and every advertiser we partner with and combines YuMe’s unique technology with best-practices from thousands of video advertising campaigns we have proudly run for world’s largest brands.
That is how we deliver ultimate customer satisfaction. Innovation never stops here at YuMe and such recognitions definitely fuel us to raise the bar by knitting technology, research and brilliant minds here at YuMe.
We also would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our advertisers. At the heart of our success are our clients and we’re extremely thankful for your business.
Scot McLernon – CRO
Funnel Cake, Cheese Steaks, and Ad Impressions
“TIME!” The judges voice rang out like a fire drill to the dizzied contestants. Faces were flush, hearts raced, and competitive juices were soaring. Some were injured, but they had pressed forward through blazing heat and tense moments. Like true gladiators, they persevered, and pressed on to the final moments of battle.
World Cup final you may ask? Lakers vs. Celtics for the NBA title? No, but close. This was the 2011 Iron Chef Challenge hosted by YuMe, and the kitchen scene was like a battle field in Braveheart. The Northwest sales reps gathered their most fearless clients to the Blue Ribbon Cooking School in the East Lake district of Seattle for a night of stove tops and wine, to see who could impress in the confines of the kitchen. After being divided into two teams, and being assigned two separate proteins (steak and shrimp respectively), the two teams jumped right into strategy and planning.
Each team was responsible for laying out a main course, side dish, and a dessert, so you had to take into account time, resources, the skill sets of your team members.
Within only moments it seemed, the teams had broken up into miniature cooking staffs, fighting their way through giant buckets of salt, flour, and any other unique ingredient they could grab before the opposition could make a move. Both teams quickly compartmentalized into prep groups, focusing on different aspects of the meal. As the clock ticked, both teams leveraged the experience of Blue Ribbon’s own masters of culinary arts to guide the teams through the menus they had planned. As each team’s meal began to take shape, you could see leaders emerging on both sides, and the participants true competitive nature was starting to show.
When Blue Ribbon manager (and judge on the evening) Mike Duppenthaler called for time, we all knew we had put everything into it. Team steak concocted “Seattle” Cheese Steaks, a dedication plate to their Philly predecessor. As a side, it was homemade tator tots. Dessert was carnival style funnel cake, infused with pumpkin spice, and topped with raspberry compote and crème fraiche. Team shrimp made hand rolled ravioli, filled with the shellfish and garnished with a fantastic cream sauce. Stuffed mushrooms and a chocolate pudding finished it off, and made for a difficult decision for Judge Duppenthaler. When the funnel cake was deemed the best dessert Blue Ribbon had ever seen, team steak knew that victory was theirs.
All in all, it was an amazing time had by all. As if it were any of our home kitchens, it was good wine, good friends, and a night of memories we won’t soon forget. But if we do forget, we’ll have this video to remind us:
YuMe’s Iron Chef Challenge in Seattle
Vote for YuMe to speak at SXSW Interactive
Here at YuMe we love video, but we really really love video that comes from the web, mobile devices and connected TV. All of our services involve video. Our team is often in videos to talk about video (look to your right). We’ve done tons of research on video, with studies on video viewing habits, the best way to advertise with video and the best way to attract advertisers with your video. You get the point…
So, we’d like to put something out there. TV Is Dead. Video Advertising is Alive & Well.
We know there’s research that shows TV viewership is up, and that it’s still the best way to reach a mass audience. But how many people are actually “watching” TV when they watch TV? Did you know that 60% of viewers don’t focus on the TV, usually because of their cell phones? This is the future of video entertainment, and YuMe is at the forefront of it.
SXSW interactive is an annual festival challenging its attendees to envision the future of innovative technology. Is there a better group of people to talk to about the future of video?
We’re asking everyone to go to YuMe’s SXSW Panel Page and vote for us to speak on the future of video entertainment. On that website you can see a description of our panel, a list of questions that will be answered and get a link to some of that great research we mentioned before. Afterall… We really love video.
Slacker Radio Selects YuMe’s ACE for Publishers Platform
Today we announced that Slacker Radio, a top digital radio service, has selected our ACE for Publishers (AFP) ad management platform to manage ad serving, ad management, ad source mediation and inventory monetization across all platforms – online, Apple iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad), Android devices, Blackberry smartphones and more.
Slacker Radio provides music lovers with access to the Slacker music library, which includes over 150 curated genre stations. In addition to its own website and mobile applications, Slacker recently announced that they will be powering AOL Radio content and ad operations in order to increase reach for advertisers on the Slacker properties.
“At Slacker, we are committed to providing music lovers with highly personalized music online, via connected home devices or on-the-go with easy-to-use Slacker Personal Radio mobile applications,” said Jonathan Sasse, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Slacker. “We believe that YuMe’s AFP platform, combined with our world class radio service, is a winning combination that enables us to monetize content and consumer relationships across every platform.”
We are excited about Slacker Radio adopting AFP and welcome them as well to our Connected Audience Network family!
Online Video Boosts Brand Recall
eMarketer published a recent study conducted by Yahoo! that demonstrates the strong impact online video has in driving brand recall. In the study, Yahoo! found that video viewers recalled seeing pre-, mid-, and post-roll ads more often than any other display ad type. And, most importantly, more than half (53%) of respondents who recalled seeing some advertising remembered viewing these ads in-stream. The following chart shows how pre-roll compares to other ad formats and significantly out-performs banner ads.
What was the effect seen for pre-, mid- and post-roll ads in drving brand awareness? As highlighted below, 48% of respondents remembered the brand or product and 20% took action as a result of the ad.
YuMe Acquires Appealing Media and Announces the Launch of YuMe Europe
We are excited to announce that we have acquired Appealing Media, a premium mboile video advertising company and a leader in the UK market. Appealing Media currently serves customers such as ESPN, IPC Media, Bauer Media, and Universal McCann and we are thrilled to have Owen Hanks, Appealing Media’s founder and CEO, join us as General Manager Mobile – Europe.
The Appealing Media team are experts on mobile video and this acquisition allows us to expand our technology footprint into Europe, starting in the UK, leveraging Appealing Media’s momentum and growing across Europe.
Appealing Media is also an award winner, taking home the Grand Prix award at MobiTech Europe in 2010.
As stated by our CEO Michael Mathieu in the announcement, “As smartphone and tablet adoption takes off, the mobile video market will grow considerably both in complexity and reach. And the advertising on these platforms needs to be relevant and smart, especially for premium brands. We are excited to open our first office in the UK and welcome the executive team of Appealing Media to YuMe.”
Read more about the announcement here.
Movin’ On Up!
Our team in Chennai, India continues to grow and just this week moved into a new office. It’s a big change from our previous office, which was getting very cramped! Check out our new space, as well as members of our creative services team, which supports our video ad network sales team with the design and development of custom ad placements, like InSynch and Triple Play, as well as our Ad Operations, Flash and IT Ops teams getting settled and enjoying their new space.
More Mobile Video Solutions
Today we announced the release of our iOS software development kit (SDK) in addition to two new mobile ad units. While we are very pleased to help advertisers achieve high brand exposure and audience engagement through the full-screen mobile video experience offered by our new Mobile Billboard and Mobile Connect ad units, we are particularly excited about our new SDK—which enables publishers to serve ads that are customized to the experience of viewing video directly in mobile apps on iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches.
- Bundle mobile video inventory with online inventory for direct ad sales and seamlessly serve directly sold video campaigns into all mobile devices.
- Target specific mobile devices to serve directly-sold campaigns.
- Sell custom ad units to advertisers looking to engage consumers on their mobile devices.
- Maximize yield, increase fill rates and eCPMs, and fully monetize mobile inventory by working with multiple mobile video ad networks, including YuMe’s premium video ad network.
Party Like A Rock Star – SFBig’s Battle of the Bands
We sponsored SFBig’s Battle of the Bands event Wednesday night at the Great American Music Hall, which was a fantastic event filled with great music! The event was emceed by Hooman from Alice at 97.3, who did a fantastic job peddling our YuMetini, a.k.a. an apple martini. The event was not only a ton of fun, but also helped raise money for an important cause – the San Francisco School District’s Department of Visual and Performing Arts.
The four bands who battled it out Wednesday night were: Chief Enablers, Lovebutter (representing Universal McCann), Rainbow Brite & The Flaming Cobra Death Skulls (representing Adify) and Slipstream Sparrows (representing Butler Shine, Stern & Partners and MRM). The winner of a HUGE trophy and Flip cameras, courtesy of Cisco, went to Lovebutter. Check out our photos from the event.
We’re supporting OSMF and Sorenson 360
Today we are happy to announce that we are now supporting publishers who choose to use the Sorenson 360 online video platform, or to build their video players using Adobe’s new Open Source Media Framework (OSMF). By ACE-equipping their Sorenson 360 or OSMF players, publishers can choose to use the ACE Ad Management System to take control of their video ad operations, or to monetize their videos through our premium video ad network. We believe that publishers should be able to manage their video advertising through one simple interface without worrying about where and how they will be able to distribute their videos—that’s why we’re constantly working to make sure that publishers can ACE-equip all of their video players no matter what technologies they choose, and no matter what viewing devices they distribute their content to, from PC to mobile to IPTV. If you’d like to see an ACE-equipped Sorenson 360 player in action, check out the live demo here. You can learn more about the Open Source Media Framework here. Click here if you’d like to learn more about ACE or become a YuMe publisher.
