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21 March
2008 Important
Lessons For Online Video Advertisers An inside look at
online advertising from Slingo.com,
a top casual game site, reveals some important
lessons for online video advertisers. If you thought
there was a lot of video content online now, you
haven't seen anything yet. More than 154 million
Americans will watch online videos this year.
According to eMarketer, that's a 12.1% increase
from last year. But are these online video ads
really engaging consumers? Most advertisers
are still experimenting with video advertising and
rightfully so, according to a recent study by
Burst
Media,
which surveyed more than 2,600 online users in
December 2007. Half of the respondents (50.7%) stop
watching an online video once they encounter an
in-stream advertisement. The benefits for watching
online video advertising need to be greater in
order to engage viewers and be more
successful. The type of
content an online consumer is viewing has a lot to
do with the success of a video campaign, according
to Steve Silberberg, head of ad sales development
for the digital interactive entertainment company,
Slingo, Inc. "When video ads are served in front of
non-video content, like an engaging casual game
from Slingo, the online viewer has a much bigger
stake in the overall experience, because the payoff
to the end-user after the video ad has played is
higher." Online video ads
generally do not offer a big enough reward in
exchange for the user's time; most online pre-roll
ads are followed by similar content, video content
following video content, that often does have a
strong payoff. For a two-minute video, a
thirty-second pre-roll advertisement is one-fourth
of the total experience, which is too much for most
viewers, especially online where everything is so
fast-paced. The potential payoff to the online user
needs to be bigger for them to put up with that
level of intrusion. The online medium is very
different from television where viewers are
watching half-hour or hour-long shows with an
average advertising pod of four to five minutes on
prime time television. If the payoff is
big enough for the user, with more engaging
content, the effectiveness of the ad goes through
the roof. Each and every Slingo free game begins
after a pre-roll video ad, and more people are
willing to watch it because they know that the free
casual game they will play as soon as the ad is
over will truly engage them. The average Slingo
game player spends over 10 hours playing free games
on Slingo per month. That equates to an average of
100 video ads every month delivered to a highly
targeted engaged audience. Merry Poppings,
the latest free game from Slingo that is preceded
by a video ad, is a great example of maximizing the
combination of video ad content with casual game
content. This Slingo.com casual game consists of
two play modes, the midway mode and the sideshow
mode. In the midway mode, the casual gamer can play
up to 10 levels, where each level of the popular
online game is separated by a pre-roll ad
intermission. In the sideshow mode, a pre-roll ad
intermission is broken up into seven-minute game
play intervals. Anyway you play it, from an
advertiser's or a casual gamers' perspective,
there's a reward - to an advertiser, it's
engagement; to a gamer, it's a free
game. The key
demographic for online casual gaming is a virtually
untapped market - women aged 35 to 65. Frank N.
Magid Associates, a world leader in research-based
consulting, published findings on the favorite
leisure activities of women in a recent article in
Advertising Age. The study reveals what Slingo.com
has known for over 10 years - that playing free
games online is one of the top leisure activities
of women aged 35 to 65, which is the core
demographic of Slingo. According to the
Magid study, casual games are the third-favorite
activity of all women. The results are especially
revealing when the study looks at women 55 to 64,
in which casual gaming is second only to watching
TV. (Source: National Online Magid Media Futures
Survey, March 2007). With Slingo's ad model of only
one video ad at a time, online viewers are willing
to wait and, more importantly, to watch online
video ads, as opposed to watching a TV show where
they usually change channels and surf during a pod
of six or seven commercials before their program
returns. |
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