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Posts Tagged hulu
VAST, VPAID, VAUGHAN*
Posted by vaughan in regular, technology providers on September 8, 2009
via Admonsters
The IAB in the US has been working with some of the luminaries of the the online industry to try and make standards available which help the whole video advertising value chain to get along in the hope that this will allow the market to move on with technology discussions and move us forward to discussions of the creativity that the formats should allow.
Why are standards important? Without them the whole business just becomes too complicated to be worth it, with them the efficiency increases – campaigns online quicker, creatives better able to use the channel, reports more consistent and containing better data. This is a benefit for advertisers looking for the lost or dispersed TV audience, the media owners who are hoping to maximise the payback on their content and the agencies who try to deliver better results every time.
In order to make it as easy as possible – VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) makes it easy for an ad-server to deliver an ad into a player, the response from the ad-server follows a standard format to let the player know what is coming – is it linear or non-linear, will there be a companion banner, etc.
VPAID (Video Player Ad Interface Definition) makes it easy for the video player to understand how it is supposed to work while the ad is playing so that the content isn’t compromised and also tells the ad what size it needs to be to maximise the use of the space available.
Many of the large online video technology companies are involved in the development of the standards such as Freewheel, Eyewonder, DoubleClick and Eyeblaster along with the video media owners Turner, Hulu, MTV and Google. Hopefully the Digital Video Committee can keep the momentum that they have been building and get everyone along for the ride.
*As for VAUGHAN (Video Advertising’s Ungainly Group Hug Afficianado + Note-taker) – I have trademarked it but will licence it to the IAB when they run out of others. (Gag suggested by a certain Mr Philpot – now of AdForm)
YouTube jumps into the Pool
The Pool is a group of publishers (MSN, Hulu, CBS) and advertisers who have been corralled by Vivaki – the Publicis enterprise. Their aims are to figure out how video advertising can be standardised across multiple platforms and how the process can be streamlined. Without doubt their aims are worthy, media agencies and publishers alike want this market to grow and to be successful, is this the best mechanism for achieving that? Well that rather depends on how much other agency groups will sit up and take notice of what they are doing. After all if Vivaki do create some ’standards’ how much notice will Omnicom, Group M or Aegis take of them?
The Internet Advertising Bureau has been working with technology providers, publishers and agencies to define the Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) and the Video Player Ad Interface Definition (VPAID), these standards are designed to make it easy for agencies to buy across multiple publishers. The second version of the VAST standard is already under discussion which should hopefully formalise some of the woollier areas of the first attempt. If the technology providers such as DoubleClick, Eyewonder, Eyeblaster et al can help the publishers that they work with to adopt the standards then this should naturally lubricate the market.
Of course the Pool has one advantage over the IAB’s efforts. Vivaki buys advertising space and therefore has some teeth with which to persuade the relevant parties to get involved and to collaborate on developing the formats and standards that will make life easier for the advertisers. The IAB relies upon the musketeer attitude of all for one and one for all in the hope that those involved see the value of making the market grow.
How it will all pan out remains to be seen but the general direction of these efforts is a positive one.
The TV business needs to adapt to survive
If you are relying upon the ostrich business model and you work for a traditional media company then you might well be facing your final days according to Henry Blodget on Silicon Valley Insider
Following a chat with a pal of mine who has had several years of happiness in the TV industry – the times they are definitely a changing. If the TV companies don’t adapt to the changes in availability of content then they won’t be the kings of the advertising dollars that they are used to being for much longer.
