With its ability to bring television-like experiences
to the Web, streaming video is generating a lot of excitement in
some circles. But, for the advertiser, there's one main problem.
So far, there aren't a whole lot of places you can deploy ads around
video content. Audio, because of its smaller bandwidth requirements,
is a bit more advanced, but video content just hasn't become pervasive
yet.
That's why some players in the streaming media space are looking
to video to spice up "traditional" advertising units like the
banner ad, as well as skyscrapers and the other new Interactive
Advertising Bureau (IAB) interactive marketing units
(IMUs).
Usually, the video is just one part of a larger ad unit, and
often the user is given control over the audio and video portions.
There's been quite a bit of controversy in the industry over whether
audio and video should start automatically when a page is loaded,
given that audio can be very intrusive -- especially when viewers
at work are suddenly met with a blast of sound as they load a
page. Some argue, though, that it takes something as dramatic
as that to capture users' attention, given that people often seem
to ignore banner ads.
The IAB, with its just-released voluntary guidelines for the
use of rich media, has come out in favor of user control, discouraging
the automatic start. "Video banners, skyscrapers, banners, shouldn't
be starting the video play until the user interacts," said Nate
Elliot, rich media manager at DoubleClick and
co-chair of the IAB's rich media task force.
Specifically, the guidelines say: "A banner may play audio and/or
video content after a user clicks on it and should display a visible
'stop' or 'pause' button once the audio/video begins."
Given that most every vendor will allow advertisers to choose
the level and type of interactivity provided to the user, there's
still the question of what technology provider to choose.
"If someone came to us and said 'who should we use?'" said Elliot,
"we would point them to look for certain characteristics."
First, you'll want to take a close look at examples of the video,
over several different types of connections if possible -- slower
and faster modems, as well as broadband. Most of the companies
providing this type of technology have their own proprietary compression
algorithms, and some are better than others. You may not be able
to tell a difference here, in which case you can look at other
factors.
Secondly, you'll want to know how the video is played. Does the
user have to download a plug-in to see it? If it uses a Java player,
how big is the initial download? How big is the player? Make sure
you know how many people will actually be able to see the video.
The capabilities of browsers differ, and consumers using
America Online, especially, are often limited in what
they can view. Additionally, some corporations have firewalls
that limits employees' use of Java.
Thirdly, you'll want to consider whether the technology has "sniffing"
capability -- can it detect a connection speed, and feed the video
accordingly? How does it handle low-bandwidth situations? Does
it send an alternative video with a lower frame rate, cache the
video file, or provide a .gif as an alternative.
Next, there's the question of acceptance. After all, there's
no point in creating an ad if no one will run it. In this time
of economic difficulty, Internet publishers have grown more willing
to run more adventurous creative, but there are still technological
restrictions.
And speaking of economic difficulty, there's the big consideration
-- price. All things being equal, look at how much it's going
to cost you to run the ad. How much will it cost to come up with
creative? How much will the company charge for serving the ad?
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