YuMe Blog

The IAB announced today their Ad Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Certification. YuMe is proud to be among the first 17 companies to have completed the necessary steps to achieve certification. The process included assigning a compliance officer, completing a rigorous training and completing an internal audit to ensure YuMe was in compliance with the Quality Assurance Guidelines (QAG). The goal of this certification is to have networks provide standardized information, enhancing buyer control over the placement and context of advertising, ensuring brand safety for the marketer’s message. This is just one more step YuMe has taken to provide advertisers a brand safe environment for their video ads. To learn more about the guidelines and compliance seal, visit the IAB.

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Today we announced the 3.0 version of our ACE for Publishers (AFP) platform, which enables video distributors to streamline operations and better monetize online video content. As part of this announcement, we have also rebranded our premium video ad network as the Connected Audience Network; and we unveiled our Relevance Engine, which powers both AFP and the Connected Audience Network.

The YuMe Relevance Engine leverages key variables that matter to both consumers and advertisers: the content, the medium, and the location of the player on the webpage. In turn, AFP uses the YuMe Relevance Engine to help publishers create the most relevant advertising experience for TV brand advertisers. As a result, AFP enables video distributors to deliver advertising to targeted audiences in the most relevant context on multiple screens— computers, mobile devices, and connected TVs— enabling campaigns to be optimized across all devices and platforms.

ACE for Publishers has also introduced new features to facilitate sophisticated ad sales operations, including targeting and selling at different rates for all types of distribution and content categories. AFP 3.0 now helps customers to:

• Organize and target inventory and sell it in custom sales packages through our new inventory organization tools.
• Easily distribute the right videos to the right partners on the right screen and keep track of payments through our new syndication, bookkeeping, and reporting tools.

- Carrie Bourguignon

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Today we announced six new additions to our mobile team. The new hires hail from mobile video advertising network Transpera and include former Chief Product Officer and Transpera founder, Frank Barbieri, as Senior Vice President Emerging Platforms; Anshu Dua, Vice President Business Development Mobile, Tripp Boyle, Senior Director Mobile Sales, Sachin Gupta, Principal Engineer, Matt Knopf,  Senior Director Business Development Mobile and Krishna Kanagrayer, Senior Manager Business Development Mobile.

In addition, we also have two additional members joining our executive team – Bryan Everett and Ed Haslam.  Bryan joins us as EVP of Business Development, previously he served as executive vice president of business development at Kontera. Bryan will lead business development for YuMe, focusing both on the adoption of its ACE technology platform across web, mobile and connected devices, and the continued development of its premium publisher advertising network.

Ed joins us as SVP of Marketing. Prior to joining YuMe, Ed was co-founder and Vice President, Marketing at Groupon’s Ludic Labs, which developed the social media community, Diddit.com, and local commerce service, OfferFoundry.com.

- Molly Glover Gallatin

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Today we released two new white papers proving the increasing power of online video for ad campaigns.  The first white paper looks at viewers' attitudes and behaviors towards online video and TV.  Conducted with Frank Magid Associates some interesting learnings include the following:

• Online Video Content is on Par with TV:  Viewers' perception of the quality of video content online has improved and 50% of respondents felt they could find more exclusive content online than on TV
• Watching Online Video is a Daily Routine:  49% of respondents said they watch online video daily, with 7 hours being the mean time spent per week.
• Short-form Content Reigns Supreme Online:  70% of respondents said they primarily watch program clips that are shorter than 5 minutes in length.
• Online Viewers are More Engaged with Ads:  Multi-tasking is more pervasive when watching television ads than watching online video ads.

Our second white paper is based on research conducted with Nielsen that examines what happens when a TV budget is partially re-allocated to online video on YuMe's network.  Results showed the following:

• Total campaign reach increased with no additional spend
• Multi-platform exposure and performance increased dramatically as shift occurred
• Cost per thousand impressions (CPM) decreased significantly

For an in-depth look at both white papers, download here.

- Molly Glover Gallatin

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We are hitting the road next week as we kick off our 6 city roadshow, visiting Dallas, LA, San Franciso, Detroit, Chicago and NYC.  We will be unveiling research conducted with Frank Magid & Associates and Nielsen that addresses the impact of TV + online video and the changing video landscape.

Key questions that will be addressed include:

• What are the specific implications to a TV plan as online video is added to the mix?
• What are the latest audience trends and insights related to online video consumption?
• How best to leverage online video now that video convergence is a reality?

Below is the when and where for each market.  To RSVP and learn more, click here.

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Today we launched 3 new video ad units. The first, Lights Out, creates a semi-transparent gray out of the site, emphasizing the pre-roll and companion unit and creating a theatre-like viewing experience. Viewers can reverse this effect at any time while the ad is running by clicking on the “Lights On/Off” watermark. Lights Out simulates a page take-over, making it ideal for advertisers who are interested in creating strong brand awareness.

The second, SideKick, was launched with our advertising partners Frasier Communications and FIRST5. SideKick is a pre-roll that has design elements, either animation or audio cues, synchronized with the companion banner.

The third unit, Expanded View, is a pre-roll framed with a border image for the duration of the ad. Once the ad ends, the branded frame disappears. Expanded View provides a strong branding impression by allowing an advertiser to further extend its message and branding experience beyond the confines of the video player.

You can see the new units for yourself in our Ad Gallery.

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Today we released our Video Ad Metrics Report for the third quarter of 2010. This latest report outlines key data and trends seen for in-stream video advertising across YuMe’s premium ad network from January through September, 2010. Some interesting findings include the following:

• Video completion rate for pre-roll grew to 75% in Q3, up nearly 10% from 2009 and continuing an upward trend seen all year. 
  • 15-second pre-rolls continue to be the most common ad length, representing 59% of pre-roll volume.
  • Completion rates in Q3 for the 25-49 age group are especially strong with a more than 20% increase from Q1 to 68%.
  • Women have a higher video completion rate at 75% versus 69% for Men.

• Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) marketers dominate the online video advertising volume with 32% of all spending year to date. Auto and Entertainment trail with nearly equivalent spends of 11% each.

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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.

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Online video would appear to be a powerful brand-building tool, much like its offline counterpart, TV. More and more people are watching video online. Studies by Nielsen have shown that online video performed better than TV across every brand metric and for every vertical, and that campaigns combining online video and TV ads improved recall and likability for all verticals. While it’s clear that brand advertisers need to leverage online video in order to effectively reach their audience, they have yet to fully embrace the medium due to a lack of efficacy metrics.

We firmly believe in the power of online video, so we decided to team up with BBE and ScanScout to promote the launch of HoodieBuddie, the world’s first hooded sweatshirt with ear-buds built into the drawstrings. With Vizu’s help, we have proven, once and for all, that brands can be built online using nothing more than in-stream video advertising.

Awareness and purchase intent results from Vizu.

Read the case study to check out the results of this unique, brand-building campaign.

And if you’re going to be at ad:tech NY, come hear more details this week at “The Future Track” presentation: Video Everywhere—Deep Brand Integration in Online Video, on Thursday, November 4, at 11:45AM.

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We are very pleased to announce that we have officially launched our new ACE™ for Advertisers solution. ACE for Advertisers is the first end-to-end, buy-side video ad management system architected to serve the needs of media agencies, advertisers and agency trading desks.

It is a layered offering with an enterprise-class solution and professional services suite, giving advertisers and agencies complete control over a digital video campaign’s entire lifecycle.

Some of the perks include the means to:

• Create private ad networks and purchase premium inventory at scale from direct publishers or any video ad network or exchange, including YuMe’s own premium ad network.
• Streamline processes for media planning and buying, ad trafficking and creative management, ad serving and optimization, and post-campaign analytics.
• Deliver video ads to online, mobile and connected TV devices.
• Leverage data and insights from YuMe as well as in-house or third party providers for accurate audience targeting capabilities.
• Utilize our ad operations, creative, data, integration, and research services to ensure success.
• Optimize ad spend across publishers, ad networks, and exchanges.

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