Online Video Advertising

Thanks to broadband, watching video online is becoming a routine activity for most internet users. Over 50% of internet users watch at least once a month, a bit more than 25% watch at least once a week, and a hard core 5% watch daily (OPA 2005). We expect consumers will watch more as video becomes available and video sharing expands.

What are people watching? AccuStream iMedia Research tells us that the music is the most popular streaming video content category, followed by news, internet TV, sports, entertainment, and movies (Palumbo 2006). (See Figure 5.4.)

Figure 5.4. Music and news are two of the most popular streaming media viewed by consumers.
Source: AccuStream iMedia Research, reported in Palumbo 2006.

As we write, video advertising is sizzling, going from a rarity to a staple offering from consumer-oriented online networks, such as AOL, and downloadable as podcasts from iTunes and related services, as well as being obtainable from user-generated video sharing sites like YouTube, from television network websites, and from emerging B2B networks like ScribeMedia.

Video advertising started with preroll and postroll advertising. The latest advance is embedding video in rich media units. Embedded ads offer several advantages over preroll ads: namely, their placements are more flexible, they don’t require separate players that need ...

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