In his latest blog post, Mark Cuban takes a look at the impact that Nielsen's release of commercial data has had on the discussion of how ads in videos should be priced.
He says "So riddle me this. If the Internet is the ultimate DVR for video, will advertisers put comparable pricing parameters on internet video that they are trying to put on TV DVR commercial viewing ? If they do, and only pay for videos viewed within 3 days of the video being posted, won't that put a huge crimp in the internet video business ?"
My basic reponse is that there's an apples and oranges comparison here. Videos are ran over and over again each day. Plus, because they're within an optimized webpage, they're looked up in a search engine. Thus, if the video concerns a Paris Hilton issue that is discussed on the TV news, the search for that will go up, and thus cause a new round of views for the applicable video.
For the video meter to stop running in this case would be unfair and not negotiable from the standpoint of the video producer. A commercial withing a video, or a sponsored video is part of the video. Thus, it "moves" with the video -- if the video is found on Mamma.com, the ad will be there, and so on.
This is an entirely new approach to commercial message distribution. I don't think one can compare it to current TV commercial economics. I also don't think advertisers really have a good clue what's going on in new media. Many of them can't even define Web 2.0
Showing posts with label Ads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ads. Show all posts
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Monday, March 12, 2007
Atlanta's MARTA Buses Glow In The Dark To Sell Ads
MARTA an innovator in advertising
Newest creation: Bus wraps that glow in the dark
By PAUL DONSKY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/13/07
One of the most aggressive advertising innovators in metro Atlanta isn't a Fortune 500 company or a scrappy Internet upstart. It's MARTA, the regional transit system, which is selling space on its buses, trains and rail stations with the gusto of a NASCAR racing team.
Ads are shown on video screens hanging from rail platforms and on televisions bolted inside buses and rail cars. Buses and trains have been wrapped to create rolling billboards touting everything from new condominium towers to bail bondsmen. The transit system was the first in the nation to place ads inside subway tunnels in a way that creates short moving pictures for riders in passing trains.
MARTA has wrapped buses and trains to create rolling billboards touting everything from new condominium towers to bail bondsmen.
John Spink/Staff
(ENLARGE)
Advertising produces about $5 million in annual revenue for MARTA, a small percentage of its $324 million operating budget, but its marketing director thinks itÕs an area poised to grow.
This month, MARTA is pushing the envelope again, becoming the first to wrap buses in ads made from a special material that glows in the dark.
Glowing buses? Subway movies? TVs on trains? Welcome to advertising, 21st century style.
Companies are finding they must try new marketing techniques to stand out in today's ad-saturated world, said Ken Bern-
hardt, a marketing professor at Georgia State University.
"The key is how do you get noticed, and doing nontraditional things is a very effective way to get noticed," he said.
Marketers say MARTA is a good vehicle for companies because the transit system's ridership skews young, the most coveted demographic for advertisers. And the 100,000 to 120,000 passengers who ride the system each day are a captive audience, with time to kill whether waiting for a train or riding on a bus.
Of course, MARTA isn't the only nontraditional place ads are showing up. They're being beamed onto TV screens mounted in elevators, posted above urinals in bathrooms and, increasingly, disguised as e-mails from friends and colleagues.
But in MARTA, marketers have found an eager participant in the new advertising game. Until recently, the transit system has been struggling to make ends meet and desperate for new revenue streams. The economic downturn after the Sept. 11 attacks eroded MARTA's primary income stream, sales tax collections, and pushed the system to think outside the box.
Unlike most transit systems, MARTA gets no operating money from the state. Advertising brings in about $5 million a year for MARTA, a relatively small percentage of the transit system's $324 million operating budget. But it's an area poised to grow, said Tony Griffin, MARTA's director of marketing.
"The revenue hasn't been what we hoped it would be, but we hope down the road we've opened up a nice revenue source for the future," Griffin said.
MARTA was the nation's first transit system to put television screens in rail cars, and remains the only system with electronic signs in all rail stations.
"MARTA is a leader in terms of trying stuff," said Wendell Reilly, CEO of Atlanta-based SignPost Networks, which is paying MARTA about $144,000 a year to hang digital display screens throughout the rail system.
MARTA doesn't sell ads, leaving that work to advertising and media companies who pay the transit system for the right to wrap buses and place video screens on trains and in rail stations. MARTA doesn't pay for the equipment but does receive a percentage of ad sales.
Griffin stresses that the video and TV screens do much more than show ads.
The rail station monitors, for instance, provide riders with a steady stream of news, from sports scores to local headlines, sandwiched between short ad spots. At the bottom of the screen, a new feature counts down the minutes until the next train arrives. The bus TVs air local news reports, entertainment programs and MARTA news.
Sidney Daniels, 48, a regular MARTA bus rider, said he likes the feature.
"It's entertainment," he said. "It's convenient to everybody."
Advertising on MARTA has worked well for one small Atlanta company, Free at Last bail bonds, which has been putting its logo on MARTA buses since November 2005.
Business has gone up, prompting the company to sign a second yearlong contract. About half of Free at Last's marketing budget is now spent on MARTA bus ads, said Jennifer Greene-Dallam, the company's CEO.
The ads are successful because it takes little effort to watch a bus rolling by, she said.
"The Yellow Pages, you have to actually open the book," she said. "Hopefully, you've seen our bus running on the streets. It's brand recognition."
Until the 1990s, MARTA took a restrained approach to advertising. Buses completely wrapped in ads didn't become common until just before the 1996 Summer Olympics.
MARTA's advertising thirst does have limits. MARTA has no plans to sell naming rights for a rail station. Liquor ads are not permitted, either.
The subway tunnel ads remain a pilot project. No plans are in the works to make the ads a permanent part of MARTA's arsenal, officials said. The lone subway ad in place, for Lexus, is scheduled to be removed within three months.
At least one MARTA board member, the Rev. Walter Kimbrough, says he'd like to see the system stop wrapping buses.
"If you see a MARTA bus that is wrapped, you don't really know that it's a MARTA bus," he said, noting that suburban bus systems have begun running in downtown and Midtown in recent years. "There will be markings on it, but you really have to look for that. And the uniformity is gone."
Reilly, the SignPost CEO, says the 145 digital screens he's installed in MARTA rail stations reach about 300,000 individual viewers each week — a figure measured by Arbitron, the same agency that monitors radio station listenership. If SignPost was a radio station, Reilly boasts it would rank among the top 10 in metro Atlanta.
To attract viewers, SignPost broadcasts news and information in 10-minute loops and developed the "next train" feature, what Reilly calls his "killer app." Short ads are shown every 10 to 20 minutes. The information's providers include CNN, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Reuters. SignPost gets the information free, while the content providers are able to spread their brand name to MARTA riders.
"What we're trying to do is give the MARTA rider the same thing that the automobile rider has, which is a radio," Reilly said. "It's visual radio."
Newest creation: Bus wraps that glow in the dark
By PAUL DONSKY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/13/07
One of the most aggressive advertising innovators in metro Atlanta isn't a Fortune 500 company or a scrappy Internet upstart. It's MARTA, the regional transit system, which is selling space on its buses, trains and rail stations with the gusto of a NASCAR racing team.
Ads are shown on video screens hanging from rail platforms and on televisions bolted inside buses and rail cars. Buses and trains have been wrapped to create rolling billboards touting everything from new condominium towers to bail bondsmen. The transit system was the first in the nation to place ads inside subway tunnels in a way that creates short moving pictures for riders in passing trains.
MARTA has wrapped buses and trains to create rolling billboards touting everything from new condominium towers to bail bondsmen.
John Spink/Staff
(ENLARGE)
Advertising produces about $5 million in annual revenue for MARTA, a small percentage of its $324 million operating budget, but its marketing director thinks itÕs an area poised to grow.
This month, MARTA is pushing the envelope again, becoming the first to wrap buses in ads made from a special material that glows in the dark.
Glowing buses? Subway movies? TVs on trains? Welcome to advertising, 21st century style.
Companies are finding they must try new marketing techniques to stand out in today's ad-saturated world, said Ken Bern-
hardt, a marketing professor at Georgia State University.
"The key is how do you get noticed, and doing nontraditional things is a very effective way to get noticed," he said.
Marketers say MARTA is a good vehicle for companies because the transit system's ridership skews young, the most coveted demographic for advertisers. And the 100,000 to 120,000 passengers who ride the system each day are a captive audience, with time to kill whether waiting for a train or riding on a bus.
Of course, MARTA isn't the only nontraditional place ads are showing up. They're being beamed onto TV screens mounted in elevators, posted above urinals in bathrooms and, increasingly, disguised as e-mails from friends and colleagues.
But in MARTA, marketers have found an eager participant in the new advertising game. Until recently, the transit system has been struggling to make ends meet and desperate for new revenue streams. The economic downturn after the Sept. 11 attacks eroded MARTA's primary income stream, sales tax collections, and pushed the system to think outside the box.
Unlike most transit systems, MARTA gets no operating money from the state. Advertising brings in about $5 million a year for MARTA, a relatively small percentage of the transit system's $324 million operating budget. But it's an area poised to grow, said Tony Griffin, MARTA's director of marketing.
"The revenue hasn't been what we hoped it would be, but we hope down the road we've opened up a nice revenue source for the future," Griffin said.
MARTA was the nation's first transit system to put television screens in rail cars, and remains the only system with electronic signs in all rail stations.
"MARTA is a leader in terms of trying stuff," said Wendell Reilly, CEO of Atlanta-based SignPost Networks, which is paying MARTA about $144,000 a year to hang digital display screens throughout the rail system.
MARTA doesn't sell ads, leaving that work to advertising and media companies who pay the transit system for the right to wrap buses and place video screens on trains and in rail stations. MARTA doesn't pay for the equipment but does receive a percentage of ad sales.
Griffin stresses that the video and TV screens do much more than show ads.
The rail station monitors, for instance, provide riders with a steady stream of news, from sports scores to local headlines, sandwiched between short ad spots. At the bottom of the screen, a new feature counts down the minutes until the next train arrives. The bus TVs air local news reports, entertainment programs and MARTA news.
Sidney Daniels, 48, a regular MARTA bus rider, said he likes the feature.
"It's entertainment," he said. "It's convenient to everybody."
Advertising on MARTA has worked well for one small Atlanta company, Free at Last bail bonds, which has been putting its logo on MARTA buses since November 2005.
Business has gone up, prompting the company to sign a second yearlong contract. About half of Free at Last's marketing budget is now spent on MARTA bus ads, said Jennifer Greene-Dallam, the company's CEO.
The ads are successful because it takes little effort to watch a bus rolling by, she said.
"The Yellow Pages, you have to actually open the book," she said. "Hopefully, you've seen our bus running on the streets. It's brand recognition."
Until the 1990s, MARTA took a restrained approach to advertising. Buses completely wrapped in ads didn't become common until just before the 1996 Summer Olympics.
MARTA's advertising thirst does have limits. MARTA has no plans to sell naming rights for a rail station. Liquor ads are not permitted, either.
The subway tunnel ads remain a pilot project. No plans are in the works to make the ads a permanent part of MARTA's arsenal, officials said. The lone subway ad in place, for Lexus, is scheduled to be removed within three months.
At least one MARTA board member, the Rev. Walter Kimbrough, says he'd like to see the system stop wrapping buses.
"If you see a MARTA bus that is wrapped, you don't really know that it's a MARTA bus," he said, noting that suburban bus systems have begun running in downtown and Midtown in recent years. "There will be markings on it, but you really have to look for that. And the uniformity is gone."
Reilly, the SignPost CEO, says the 145 digital screens he's installed in MARTA rail stations reach about 300,000 individual viewers each week — a figure measured by Arbitron, the same agency that monitors radio station listenership. If SignPost was a radio station, Reilly boasts it would rank among the top 10 in metro Atlanta.
To attract viewers, SignPost broadcasts news and information in 10-minute loops and developed the "next train" feature, what Reilly calls his "killer app." Short ads are shown every 10 to 20 minutes. The information's providers include CNN, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Reuters. SignPost gets the information free, while the content providers are able to spread their brand name to MARTA riders.
"What we're trying to do is give the MARTA rider the same thing that the automobile rider has, which is a radio," Reilly said. "It's visual radio."
Monday, January 15, 2007
CBS Has Only Sold 70 Percent Of Super Bowl XLI Ads - Mediaweek
January 15, 2007
By John Consoli Mediaweek
NEW YORK -- The Super Bowl has become a super pain for the broadcast networks to sell.
Case in point: CBS this year. With just three weeks to go until kickoff, the network has sold slightly more than 70% of the in-game commercial units. And with a total of 58 spots, the network still has about 16 slots available.
With so much potential revenue and prestige at stake—CBS could take in as much as $140 million on the three-hour game alone, in addition to millions from the six hours of pre-game programming—the three weeks prior to kickoff can generate severe angst for sales teams facing fourth and goal.
One media agency executive described this current Super Bowl selling season: "CBS is definitely in hustle mode, trying to come up with any innovative way possible to move those in-game units."
As the cost of a 30-second spot rises each year, so does the pressure on advertisers to come up with innovative and creative spots that will be talked about and acted upon by the 78 million viewers who tune in. The growing popularity of polls such as USA Today Ad Meter, which have consumers rate the in-game commercials the next day, has become a major factor in the decision-making process of advertisers as to whether or not they should create a spot and run it in the Super Bowl.
One network sales executive, who has sold past Super Bowls, said the next two weeks are crucial for CBS to get a bulk of the remaining units sold before Feb. 5. "It's OK to go into the week before the game with three or four units left, but it can be a real problem if you have more than that," the exec said.
The closer to game day, the more the ad community is in the driver's seat as far as trying to price down the spots because the network cannot sharply lower prices without running the risk of alienating clients who came in early and paid more.
While the remaining spots are mostly in fourth quarter and early birds most likely are in the first half when the attention level is usually higher, no advertiser, regardless of placement, is going to be happy seeing a straggler get in the game at a deep discount.
"There are always Super Bowl units still available at this point, but this year there seem to be more left than the norm," said one media exec, echoing the viewpoint of many contacted for this story.
But John Bogusz, CBS evp-sports sales and marketing, and Tony Taranto, svp of NFL sales at CBS, both insist the network is right where it was sellout level-wise when it televised the Super Bowls in '01 and '04.
"It is getting to be a harder sell, and we do wish more advertisers would embrace it for what it is and take advantage of the huge audience it draws," said Bogusz, acknowledging the harder slog to sell out. Added Taranto, "Advertisers should realize that in addition to the in-game units, those ads are going to be replayed all over the Internet in the days and weeks following the game. Awareness levels for those ads rise every year."
But that heightened awareness of the commercials—not the price tag per spot, which this year ranges anywhere from $2 million to $2.6 million depending on pod location and quantity bought—can be the problem, according to media agencies charged with buying Super Bowl spots for clients.
"The decision an advertiser faces is not a price dilemma," said Marc Goldstein, CEO at media agency MindShare. "The reason advertisers may not go in is because of creative issues. No one wants to run an old commercial in the Super Bowl, so you have to go out and spend money to produce a new one. And the advertiser wants to make sure that this commercial does well in all the recall and opinion polls the next day. Many advertisers feel if they do not have a new product to launch, it is not worth the risk."
By John Consoli Mediaweek
NEW YORK -- The Super Bowl has become a super pain for the broadcast networks to sell.
Case in point: CBS this year. With just three weeks to go until kickoff, the network has sold slightly more than 70% of the in-game commercial units. And with a total of 58 spots, the network still has about 16 slots available.
With so much potential revenue and prestige at stake—CBS could take in as much as $140 million on the three-hour game alone, in addition to millions from the six hours of pre-game programming—the three weeks prior to kickoff can generate severe angst for sales teams facing fourth and goal.
One media agency executive described this current Super Bowl selling season: "CBS is definitely in hustle mode, trying to come up with any innovative way possible to move those in-game units."
As the cost of a 30-second spot rises each year, so does the pressure on advertisers to come up with innovative and creative spots that will be talked about and acted upon by the 78 million viewers who tune in. The growing popularity of polls such as USA Today Ad Meter, which have consumers rate the in-game commercials the next day, has become a major factor in the decision-making process of advertisers as to whether or not they should create a spot and run it in the Super Bowl.
One network sales executive, who has sold past Super Bowls, said the next two weeks are crucial for CBS to get a bulk of the remaining units sold before Feb. 5. "It's OK to go into the week before the game with three or four units left, but it can be a real problem if you have more than that," the exec said.
The closer to game day, the more the ad community is in the driver's seat as far as trying to price down the spots because the network cannot sharply lower prices without running the risk of alienating clients who came in early and paid more.
While the remaining spots are mostly in fourth quarter and early birds most likely are in the first half when the attention level is usually higher, no advertiser, regardless of placement, is going to be happy seeing a straggler get in the game at a deep discount.
"There are always Super Bowl units still available at this point, but this year there seem to be more left than the norm," said one media exec, echoing the viewpoint of many contacted for this story.
But John Bogusz, CBS evp-sports sales and marketing, and Tony Taranto, svp of NFL sales at CBS, both insist the network is right where it was sellout level-wise when it televised the Super Bowls in '01 and '04.
"It is getting to be a harder sell, and we do wish more advertisers would embrace it for what it is and take advantage of the huge audience it draws," said Bogusz, acknowledging the harder slog to sell out. Added Taranto, "Advertisers should realize that in addition to the in-game units, those ads are going to be replayed all over the Internet in the days and weeks following the game. Awareness levels for those ads rise every year."
But that heightened awareness of the commercials—not the price tag per spot, which this year ranges anywhere from $2 million to $2.6 million depending on pod location and quantity bought—can be the problem, according to media agencies charged with buying Super Bowl spots for clients.
"The decision an advertiser faces is not a price dilemma," said Marc Goldstein, CEO at media agency MindShare. "The reason advertisers may not go in is because of creative issues. No one wants to run an old commercial in the Super Bowl, so you have to go out and spend money to produce a new one. And the advertiser wants to make sure that this commercial does well in all the recall and opinion polls the next day. Many advertisers feel if they do not have a new product to launch, it is not worth the risk."
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