In this week’s Week in Review: experts fear the internet will use all our power supply, the MRC calls for the separation of mobile and desktop viewability standards and Reddit joins the video fold. For a weekly summary of industry news and other VAN interviews and videos, sign up to the weekly Video Round-Up.
Reddit Moves Into Video
Reddit is dipping into original video, where it can “control the conversation around marketing and also tap into more lucrative advertising formats”, reports The Verge. The videos will initially focus on the company’s AMA brand, the best loved of Reddit’s offerings, but “after that it will look to bring stories from users and forums to life.”
MRC Calls for Separation of Desktop and Mobile Viewability
The Media Rating Council has determined that while viewability standards for mobile and desktop should be kept essentially the same, impressions should be separated. The MRC recommends that mobile ad impressions be segregated from desktop ad impressions, since viewability is often more limited on mobile than it is on desktop.
Internet Will Use All UK’s Power Supply by 2035
The UK could be forced to introduce Internet rationing, following warnings it could consume the nation’s entire power supply within 20 years reports the Sunday Times. Experts say the UK is close to ‘filling up’ its network of optical fibres, with the demands of video-streaming websites like YouTube, iPlayer and Netflix putting an unprecedented strain on communications infrastructure. Industry figures will be meeting at London’s Royal Society later this month to discuss the impending ‘capacity crunch’ facing Britain’s Internet companies.
Number of Completed Marcoms Acquisition Deals Falls
The number of merger and acquisition deals in the Marcoms sector dropped during the first quarter of 2015, however the level of disclosed deal value grew to $3.9bn. According to Results International’s quarterly research, Dentsu led the way with nine acquisitions, followed by Publicis with four and Havas, WPP, Omnicom, Keda Group and MCI, each with three. Full service digital agencies were the most popular targets, followed by Mobile.
Snapchat Re-Thinks Discover Tab
Snapchat has revamped its Discover tab so that it reminds users of the availability of branded content. Users will be able to mark-up and send Discover snaps. Snapchat hopes the feature will revive Discover, despite its 30 to 50 per cent decline in users since January.
IBM’s Digital Marketing Future Includes Facebook Deal And Data Exchange
This week, IBM combined some of its marketing solutions with Facebook ad products including the CRM matching program Custom Audiences to enable features such as lookalike modeling. IBM also is expanding its Digital Marketing Network to create a customer data exchange that will incorporate demand-side platforms, data-management platforms and other social platform partners.
EBU Welcomes EC Digital Single Market Strategy
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has welcomed the European Commission’s strategy to create a Digital Single Market (DSM) between European Union member states. The move threatens the UK only availability of BBC iPlayer, but looks set provide access to European products and services.
Consumer Dominance Trumps Demographics Claims CBS
CBS claims to deliver more consumers across almost every product category than any other network. The single-source data from Nielsen and Rentrak connects purchase data and television data across consumer categories. The company claims it shows that advertisers can discount age-sex demographics as measures of consumer value, replacing them with the company’s more sophisticated targeting methods.
TV Becomes Major Driver of Social Activity
Traditional TV-watching has evolved to become a multi-screen social experience, says the ‘Social TV Research Study’ from ShareThis. TV conversations have migrated to social, with Twitter most popular during live broadcast time. Reality shows are most shared and, conversations online drive TV viewing.
More Than Half Brits ‘TV addicts’
Britain is having a love affair with TV, according to findings from UK DTT platform Freeview. The report, National Obsession: our relationship with TV, found that more than half (52 per cent) of the nation admit to being telly addicts. TV forms a solid, valued place in consumers’ lives, with a fifth saying they watch their favourite programmes out of habit and a third saying TV brings a sense of structure to their life.
Young Millennials Switch to Online Video, Ad Control Important
Young millennials are switching from traditional TV to online video according to Limelight Networks. Approximately 60% of 18-25 year-olds report watching at least 4-7 hours of online video per week. compared with less than 40% of those 18+. The survey also revealed how important control over advertising is to viewers, with 71% saying they’re OK with ads as long as they have the ability to skip them and 42% saying they’re OK as long as “I’m interested.” 60% of respondents found ads disruptive, with just 33% saying they’re OK.
Personalisation Key to TV Future
In an age of greater choice, consumers are finding it harder to find information about TV shows. Tailoring choice based on preference, location, time and target device are key to providing the right choices for them says a survey from ContentWise.
Four of the Top Five YouTube Channels are for Kids
Four of the five most popular YouTube channels in March are aimed at children, according to the latest chart from online video analytics firm OpenSlate and industry site Tubefilter.
AOL UK Hires Commercial Director to Further Aggressive Ad Push
AOL UK has appointed former agency sales boss Tom Hosking as its commercial director to lead the sales part of its play for a larger slice of advertising revenues.
Condé Nast Names Joy Marcus, Former Head of Dailymotion, General Manager of Digital Video
Condé Nast Entertainment has hired Joy Marcus, who previously ran the U.S. operations for video site Dailymotion, as exec VP and g.m. of digital video.
Vu Digital Launches V2D, Metadata Creation Tool
Vu Digital has launched its new Video-to-Data (V2D) platform that converts all elements of a video — including faces, logos and graphics — into metadata.
Cablevision ‘Interested’ in Partnering With Time Warner Cable
Less than two weeks after Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable ended, CEO of Cablevision Jim Dolan, hinted that his company, might make a good partner for TWC.
Google Battles ‘Ad-Injectors’
To battle the problem of ‘ad-injection’, Google has removed nearly 200 Chome extensions that affected millions of users with ad injections from the Chrome Web Store.
YouTube Opens Creators’ Studio in Berlin
YouTube Space BerlinYouTube has partnered with the MET Film School to launch a studio space for YouTube content creators in Berlin.
EU Box Office Numbers Up
Gross box office takings in the 28 EU Member States increased from this time in 2014 estimates the The European Audiovisual Observatory. This is 0.6 per cent higher than the previous year but still represents the second lowest level in the past five years.
Boxing Match ‘Pirated’ on Periscope
Rights-holders to the May 3rd boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao have forced recordings of the bout to be removed from the video streaming app Periscope.
Oculus Rift Begins Shipping in 2016
Oculus VR, the company behind the Oculus Rift headset, has announced that the technology will begin shipping to consumers in the first quarter of 2016 with pre-orders beginning later this year.
Amazon and JetBlue Team Up to Improve In-Flight Entertainment
Amazon and JetBlue have teamed up to allow travelers to stream Amazon shows and movies in-flight. Users would use the plane’s in-flight Wi-Fi and wouldn’t have to pay any additional fees if they are already Amazon Prime members.
Strategic Alliance to Deliver Chinese Government Owned TV Streaming Service
TV2U, Stereoscope Cloud and Vector International have formed a strategic alliance to launch a state-owned video streaming service in China, it is claimed the move will tackle piracy in the country.
Spain: Pay-TV ARPU Falls 6.3%
Spanish households spent 6.3 per cent less on pay-TV in 2014 with an ARPU than in 2013 or 2012 according to the latest figures from Ontsi, the Spanish Observatory of Telecommunications.
This week on VAN:
Page Takeovers Seeing 20 Times Average Display CTRs, read more on VAN
Thinkbox: Team Internet Would Be Best Served by Working with TV, read more on VAN
Ad of the Week, SAS, ‘We Dream in Foreign Languages’,
Åkestam Holst
Swedish airline SAS capture the magical feeling of travelling.
