The following video is an exerpt from an interview Daisy Whitney of Beet.TV did with Jayant Kadambi at our roundtable last week, addressing the increasing shift of TV content to alternative distribution channels and the challenges advertisers are facing.
Below is a recap of the “top 3″ challenges advertisers are facing:
Scale - TV advertisers are use to buying audiences at scale, but currently it’s hard for an advertiser to spend a lot online because there is not just one place advertisers can go. YuMe is building enough of an audience to help advertisers shift more TV dollars to online video.
Data - Everyone says they want data, but there is so much data that can be provided that it can be overwhelming. We can tell the advertiser anything they want to know, but its better if we know what their goals are, so we can provide the data that is important to them - engagement, clicks, video completion rate, etc.. Measurement of a campaign and its effectiveness can be very different per advertiser.
Format - Daisy asked “Is there a consensus on the best format?” As Jayant points out, video has a time component, which lends itself to multiple format types. What YuMe likes to do is let the advertiser run the campaign the way they want, encouraging creativity and getting them to try different executions. YuMe can then adjust in real-time based on performance.
A lot great content from last weeks event, you can watch the entire re-broadcast here.
We are very excited to announce that we have closed a $25 million round of funding today led by Menlo Ventures and including our existing investors - Accel Partners, BV Capital, DAG Ventures and Khosla Ventures. Joining our Board of Directors from Menlo Ventures is Shawn Carolan, who also sits on the board of Roku and has invested in IMVU, PlaySpan, PlayPhone and Siri. You can read all about our announcement in an article that appeared in today’s New York Times written by Brad Stone.
We had a great 2009, achieving significant revenue growth, reaching profitability and experiencing accelerated adoption of our video ad management platform “ACE.” Our ACE platform is unique in its ability to deliver qualified audiences at scale without wasting impressions, making publisher content more valuable and maximizing ad campaign performance for advertisers.
“Video is the largest advertising category on the planet and the shift from broadcast to Internet went into high gear in 2009,” said Shawn Carolan, Managing Director for Menlo Ventures. “As we evaluated all the video ad solutions on the market, we became convinced that YuMe has built the best technology in the industry in its ACE ad management platform, with its ability to optimize video advertising across all viewing environments, including IPTV, mobile and Web. The company already has demonstrated it is the market leader going into 2010 and this funding will help facilitate new technology offerings and additional expansion.”
We are very excited to announce that Scot McLernon has joined our team as Chief Revenue Officer. Scot has an amazing sales background, with over 15 years in the interactive media and advertising industry. McLernon built and led three successful web advertising sales teams, including at CBS MarketWatch, which was recognized by Forrester for highest revenue per sales person for four years in a row. While under his leadership, CBS MarketWatch won “best business and finance site to advertise with” and his sales teams earned the acclaimed ASPY award as Best Overall Sales Team on the web. Most recently Scot was President of Upstream Group, where he developed Habitat - the industry’s only combined training and networking event for sellers.
“Scot is an undisputed leader in online ad sales,” said YuMe CEO Michael Mathieu. “Having a person of Scot’s caliber join our team is a validation of YuMe’s strong position in the market and a huge boost to our team overall. Scot’s experience in driving sales and scaling business will help grow YuMe’s online video monetization efforts, strategy and value proposition.”
McLernon was on the Board of Directors for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) for five years and co-founded the Bay Area Interactive Group (BIG) in 2004, which educates and helps network the Bay Area’s interactive marketing community. Recognizing Scot’s accomplishments as an innovator and industry pioneer, he received the ad:tech Industry Achievement Award in 2007.
Check out MediaPost’s coverage of the announcement.
Today we announced a partnership with Hearst Magazines where we will be providing in-stream video advertising technology and sales for Hearst’s portfolio of web sites, including Cosmopolitan.com, GoodHousekeeping.com, RealBeauty.com and HarpersBazaar.com.
“As the popularity and consumption of streaming video content continues to thrive, the digital team at Hearst is focused on helping its loyal advertisers take advantage of this engaging and dynamic communications medium,” said Chuck Cordray, SVP and general manager of Hearst Magazines Digital Media. “With the help of YuMe’s video ad technology, we’re able to ensure that our visitors are presented with the most relevant advertising messages and that we realize maximum revenue opportunities across all of our online media properties.”
Check out the story that Mark Walsh of MediaPost wrote.
Tune in and watch our roundtable live at yume.com or beet.tv on Tuesday, October 20th from 3-6 p.m. ET. Hosted by Charles Tillinghast, President & Publisher of msnbc.com and featuring panelists from Adobe, Time Inc., CBSNews, GroupM, the Wall Street Journal, Ogilvy, Transpera and more.
Moderating the sessions will be Rafat Ali, editor and publisher of paidContent, Kevin Delaney, Sr. Deputy Managing Editor of the WSJ.com, and Advertising Age’s Michael Learmonth.
A big thanks to Andy Plesser of Beet.tv and the gang at MSNBC.com for helping me pull together such a great event. Check out the agenda and don’t forget to tune-in!
We announced today our new video ad unit called PowerRoll DataConnect with advertising partner Land Rover, the luxury carmaker. PowerRoll DataConnect is a video ad that is enhanced with an interactive overlay or graphics (GIF, JPG, or Flash) on top of the video ad, making it more relevant, informative and engaging. The new DataConnect feature provides the ability for advertisers to pull in an xml data feed, like auto retailer locations, and in real-time display this information to viewers who are watching the pre-roll. You can see a demo of this ad unit on our ad gallery. You will see that if you enter your zip code the 3 closest retailers will be displayed within the player. It’s a great example of how a pre-roll can be localized to the viewer.
Gavin O’Malley of MediaPost did a great article on this, check it out.
Yesterday we had our second annual Bar Game Olympics in NYC at Slate. We had a great turnout from our ad agency clients who competed in Foosball, Pool and the all time favorite - Beer Pong. The winning agency for the event - OMD! Below are a few pictures from the event.
Today thePlatform, the leading white-label video management and publishing company, announced a partnership with us. YuMe is now part of what they call their “Framework” program. What does this mean? Our ACE video ad platform has been fully integrated into their media publishing system (mps), so their customers will now have access to our unequaled video ad serving and management platform that enables publishers to maximize revenue generated from their video inventory.
Per Marty Roberts, thePlatform’s VP of Marketing, “In an increasingly robust online video environment, media companies want the flexibility to integrate and test new technologies that best suit their business needs without worrying about compatibility issues. Our role is to make online video publishing a seamless process for our customers and allow them to easily publish their content regardless of the technical requirements.”
We announced today a unique partnership with AutoTrader.com Access, AutoTrader’s ad network, for behavioral targeting. This is a unique alliance because it is the first time a leading automotive site and video ad network and technology company have aligned to reach auto intenders as they are engaged in watching video content.
AutoTrader.com will be the first automotive site and reseller of behavioral targeting across YuMe’s premium video ad network.
“The marriage of our in market data with YuMe’s video ad network will help us deliver more value to those advertisers who want to reach qualified audiences and maximize their campaign ROI,” said Anne Steinhauer, AutoTrader.com vice president of national accounts, who oversees AutoTrader.com Access.
This partnership will benefit advertisers who are looking beyond endemic auto sites to retain or create awareness for their brand, and in turn increases the monetization of video inventory for the publishers that are part of our video ad network.
We are very excited to announce today that we have been selected by msnbc.com to act as the exclusive ad serving platform for its embedded video players. YuMe will also sell ad inventory in the players helping to monetize premium online properties like TODAYshow.com and Nightly.msnbc.com, home to “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.”
“From the moment we rolled out embedded video, consumers all over the web have been discovering and experiencing all of the great video content that msnbc.com has to offer,” said Kyoo Kim, VP of Sales at msnbc.com. “By tapping into YuMe’s targeting and ad optimization capabilities, we can monetize those video experiences. And marketers, who previously shied away from viral video, can now associate themselves with msnbc.com’s quality, trusted content and take advantage of viral distribution.”
Below is an example of the msnbc.com embedded player.
