In this week’s Week in Review: YouTube introduces mobile live streaming, Time Warner revenues grow eleven per cent, Snap Inc publishes details of three billion dollar IPO. To receive a weekly summary of industry news and other VAN interviews and videos, sign up to the weekly Video Round-Up.
Top Stories
Vizio is Fined $2.2 Million for Sharing Consumer Data
Smart TV manufacturer Vizio were fined $2.2 million in the US for tracking what consumers were watching and transmitted that data back to its servers. The Federal Trade Commission and Attorney General allege that this was done without clearly telling consumers or getting getting their consent. On a second-by-second basis, Vizio collected a selection of pixels on the screen that it matched to a database of TV, movie, and commercial content. Vizio were able to track data regardless of whether it was transmitted via cable or broadband service providers, set-top boxes, streaming devices, DVD players, and over-the-air broadcasts. The FTC say Vizio captured as many as 100 billion data points each day from millions of TVs, which it sold to advertisers and others. Data aggregators were also found to be matching consumers’ IP addresses with individual consumers and households. Vizio’s contracts with third parties prohibited the re-identification of consumers and households by name, but allowed a host of other personal details – for example, sex, age, income, marital status, household size, education, and home ownership.
YouTube Introduces Mobile Live Streaming
YouTube is rolling out its new mobile live streaming feature to every creator with more than 10,000 subscribers and the remaining creators will have access soon. YouTube said that “It’s a launch that’ll put the power of live streaming in the hands of hundreds of thousands of talented creators,” and mobile live streaming has been built directly into the YouTube app, allowing users to go live simply by opening YouTube and hitting the capture button. YouTube have also updated their iOS app to allow for expanded support for lock screen Control Centre playback controls, as well as Apple Watch enhancements.
Snap Inc Publishes Details of Three Billion Dollar IPO, Embraces QR Codes and Cloud Services
Snap Inc, the owner of Snapchat, has published the details of its plans ahead of a $3 billion initial public offering in March. The number of Snap’s daily active users grew to an average of 158 million, however, its net loss widened to $514.6 million in 2016 from $372.9 million the year before. It was good news in the UK however as Snapchat’s UK user base expanded nearly 90 per cent to reach 11.2 million users during 2016. The means that roughly one-third of all UK smartphone users are using Snapchat. Instagram also saw its UK user base double during 2016.
Snap Inc, has released a license platform agreement it struck with Google for its cloud infrastructure services in its S-1 filing. The deal, which was completed on January 30th 2017, shows that Snap Inc committed to purchasing at least $400 million in cloud services for each of the next five years.
The Week in TV
Time Warner Revenues Grow Eleven Per Cent
Time Warner has seen a revenue growth of eleven per cent in the last quarter of 2016, according to their latest financial results. Time Warner chief executive, Jeff Bewkes, said: “All of our operating divisions increased revenue and profits while also making investments to capitalise on the growing demand for the very best video content and new ways to deliver it to audiences around the world.”
5G Could Rival Cable
TV and video delivery is likely to become a core capability of next generation 5G wireless services. Recent demonstrations have suggested that 5G will support 1Gbps data throughput rates, which could eat into the $500Bn global TV and video market currently served by cable, satellite, IPTV and terrestrial broadcast service providers.
Turner International Invests in Bigballs Media
The international arm of Turner has bought into Bigballs Media. This marks the first investment for the company’s new Digital Ventures & Innovation group.
TV Drives Over Three-Quarters of Trending Topics on Twitter
TV programs trend on Twitter during primetime hours, accounting for as much as 87 per cent of trending topics on a given night, a report from the Video Advertising Bureau has found. Overall, TV accounted for an average of 79 per cent of top trending topics in primetime, with 97 ad-supported TV programs and 437 unique TV topics from over 46 networks trending in the top 10.
Amazon Prime Pushes Revenue Over Twenty Per Cent
Amazon has seen sales push up by 22 per cent during the final quarter of 2016, with Amazon Prime being credited as the cause. Amazon’s original content was also seen as a bonus for the company. However, despite doubling the number of hours Prime subscribers streamed video and music in 2016, spending on original movies, TV shows and e-books is exceeding consumer engagement.
US Broadband Households Cancel OTT Services
Nearly twenty per cent of U.S houses cancelled an OTT service during 2016 according to Parks Associates.
Global Home Video Spend Reaches $251 Billion
Households are spending more than ever before on video entertainment, Futuresource Consulting has found. In 2016, the combined home video and Pay-TV market totalled $251.5 billion, up by three per cent comparative to 2015.
The Week in Publishing
Facebook Favours Real-Time Content and Re-Ranks Video Engagement
Real-time content will take precedent over spammy, misleading or sensationalist posts on Facebook, as they change their algorithms to combat “Fake News”. Along with the timeline updates for news, Facebook have also updated their video rankings by using “percent completion” – the percent of each video watched – to allow Facebook to target users with videos based more on what they enjoy.
eBay Revisits Programmatic Week
‘Programmatic Only Week’ will be run by the advertising division of eBay during February in an attempt to help the industry fully embrace programmatic. The week-long event will see eBay serve only ads bought on a programmatic basis, and only accepting bookings made programmatically.
Huffington Post Experiments With Storybook Format
The Huffington Post has started experimenting with a Snapchat-like feature called “storybook”. The first version of storybook ran as part of an article on Lady Gaga’s latest tour and included 10 vertical images and motion graphics for viewers to swipe or click through. The feature was designed for the publisher’s mobile site but was also available on desktop.
News UK’s “Bridge” Moves Focus to Video, Mobile and Branded Content
The Bridge, the commercial arm of News UK, has appointed its first mobile, video and branded content leads in order to embrace their move to “lead” distribution off-platform. Part of this change will see the commercial arm of The Bridge shift its attention to off-platform distribution.
Fifty Per Cent of IT Professionals Consume B2B
Content consumption volume from IT professionals grew by 38 per cent in 2016, a report from NetLine Resource has found. The report showed that 54 per cent of the active audience consumed more than one piece of content. Further, eleven per cent of the active IT audience consumed more than 10 resources, averaging only eleven days between content requests.
Plex Acquires Watchup
Media player service Plex has acquired news streaming service Watchup. The move is set to open Plex up to Watchup’s 150 publishers and investors. Plex lets users stream their video, music, and photo collections to phones, tablets, streaming devices, games consoles, and smart TVs.
Video To Account for 78 Per Cent of Mobile Traffic
By 2021, more members of the global population will be using mobile phones than bank accounts, running water, or landlines, according to the 11th annual Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast (2016 to 2021). The report predicts that Mobile network connection speeds will increase threefold from 6.8 Mbps in 2016 to 20.4 Mbps by 2021.
Europe’s Virtual Reality Sector Grows to 300 Companies
Europe’s virtual reality (VR) ecosystem now consists of nearly 300 companies, according to the first European Virtual Reality landscape released by The Venture Reality Fund and France’s LucidWeb.
Video Production and Creation a Priority For Publishers
Nearly half of publishers cite video production and creation as a priority for 2017, according to data from Wibbitz. Publishers have gone from asking if they should be producing video to how often, as mobile, social, and cord-cutting audiences continue to increase.
Publishers Choose Mobile Web Over Apps For Video
Video viewership inside mobile apps has been going down for several years now, according to video tech firm JW Player. The report shows that in the last 10 months of 2016, the share of mobile video viewing occurring inside apps declined to 5 percent from 8 percent. With apps costing upwards of $500,00 pa companies are looking to utilise improving mobile web features.
Mobile Driving Content Transactions
A quarter of of video content consumers pay for streaming channels versus 41 per cent who purchase downloads, according to PayPal’s “Digital Goods Economy Survey”. The survey found that U.S consumers are most likely to watch movie/TV content on their smartphone.
Over Half Global Internet Traffic Doesn’t Come From Humans
More than half of internet traffic comes from bots, as bot traffic grew considerably in 2016. It’s been estimated that bots cost advertisers more than $7 billion in revenue annually.
Twitter Attracts 31 Million Unique Viewers to Live Premium Video
Twitter has seen 600 hours of live content from partners streamed across about 400 events, with 31m unique viewers attracted to live video. Twitter found that the first three seconds of video doesn’t need audio to capture attention and drive response, as personal relevance and memory encoding were at the same level whether sound was on or off.
Ad Spending on Local Video to Expand $5 Billion
By 2021 ad spending on local video is set to grow by $5bn. “Programmatic is Coming to Local TV in 2017” predicts that spending on local video to target audiences will grow to $37.6bn.
Twenty-Two Years’ of YouTube Content From GoPro
GoPro’s revenues for Q4 have risen 23.6 per cent, below analyst estimates. Video uploads with “GoPro” in the description or as a keyword, were up 35 per cent year-on-year in 2016.
2016 VR Investment Hits Record Level
With a full twelve months of real-world performance since the VR/AR market launched in 2016, a report from Digi-Capital has found that $2.3 billion was invested in the market during last year. Investors gave VR video companies over one dollar of every ten dollars invested.
Only Eight Per Cent of Brands Intend to Use VR for Advertising
Under half of U.S online adults have never heard of VR headsets and only slightly more said they don’t see a use for VR in their lives. A separate study has also shown that only 8 per cent of marketers are currently using VR in their advertising, and 35 per cent said they either have no intention to use VR or have reservations about it.
Baby Boomers Invest More Time in Social Media Than Millennials
The “Baby Boomers” control 70 per cent of the disposable income in the US, according to the Culture Vulture: 2017 Trends Report from Mindshare North America. The report shows that Baby Boomers see themselves as ‘middle-aged millennials’ as they invest more time in social media, the gig economy and e-commerce.
IAB Japan Launches
The IAB has agreed a licensing deal with the Japanese Interactive Advertising Association (JIAA) to form the first IAB Japan. The deal represents the first time the IAB has had an official partner in Japan, the third largest ad market in the world.
Mobile Gaming Generated More Revenue Than Movies
Global movie box-office films didn’t generate as much revenue as mobile gaming during 2016, a report from SuperData Research and Unity Technologies has found. In 2016, the global mobile market generated $40.6bn in revenue on the back of 18 per cent annual growth, where global movie box-office revenue was ranked at round $38bn.
The Week in Ad Tech
Investment in Digital Advertising Varies In Asian Markets
The investment in digital advertising varies significantly in the East Asia region, according to an IAB Singapore and eMarketer report. In Singapore to date, ad spend on traditional media has been dominant but in 2017, digital will account for 23.8 per cent of media budgets.
V-Nova Acquires Faroudja Enterprises’ Patent Portfolio
Video compression solutions provider V-Nova has completed its first acquisition, by purchasing the full global patent portfolio of video imaging specialist Faroudja Enterprises. V-Nova hopes to expand and strengthen the breadth of its existing patent portfolio.
Qwilt Launches Open Edge Cloud Platform
Qwilt has launched a new Open Edge Cloud platform that enables a high quality streaming experience for consumers at scale through a managed platform and an open API for commercial CDNs and publishers.
IRIS.TV Expansion Pushes Video Ad Views
During 2016 IRIS.TV expanded across eleven countries and saw the volume of video views moving through its personalisation engine grow by 700 per cent from the start of the year. IRIS.TV’s ten largest customers averaged a 400 per cent increase in video views over the year.
The Week for Agencies
Kantar Media Acquires Newsaccess
Kantar Media has acquired Newsaccess, the Irish multi-channel media monitoring company. With the acquisition, Kantar Media hopes to enhance its reputation, PR monitoring and evaluation capabilities.
People Wouldn’t Care if Three-Quarters of Brands Disappeared
Consumers have said they don’t care if nearly three quarters of brands vanish, according to Havas. The Meaningful Brand Survey shows that 75 per cent of people expect brands to make more of a contribution to well-being and quality of life yet only 40 per cent of people believe brands are actually doing so.
Hires of the Week
Periscope’s Kayvon Beykpour Takes On Twitter’s Live Video
Periscope chief executive Kayvon Beykpour is now in charge of Twitter’s live video products, on top of his existing duties at Periscope. The move comes a year after Beykpour was promoted to Twitter’s executive team.
Vox Media Names First Coo As Focus Turns to Video
Trei Brundrett has been named as Vox-Media’s first chief operating officer. Brundrett has been credited with taking Vox Media through its rapid expansion. In addition, Lauren Rabaino steps into a new position as Executive Director of Operations, where she’ll work as a leader on the growth and development team, as the company looks towards a focus on video.
Sizmek Appoints Executive Chairman
Dr. Mark Grether has been appointed Executive Chairman of Sizmek. Most recently, Dr. Grether was the cofounder and global Chief Operating Officer of WPP’s Xaxis.
B2B Gyro Appoints Global Chief Digital Officer
Liam Blackwell has been promoted to Global Chief Digital Officer at B2B ideas shop, Gyro. Liam Blackwell will oversee the development and fluency of Gyro’s digital products and services across its 16 offices worldwide.
303 MullenLowe Appoints New Marketing Manager
The former chief executive of Interactive Advertising Bureau Australia, Alice Manners, has been appointed to run the media operations for 303 MullenLowe in Perth. Alice Manners will assume the role of managing partner of media for the full-service advertising agency.
Vevo Appoints Chief Sales Officer
Vevo has appointed Kevin McGurn as Chief Sales Officer. Kevin McGurn comes to Vevo from Fullscreen, where he was Head of Sales.
Group M’s [m]Platform Appoints New MD
Mindshare UK chief operating officer Paul Rowlinson is to take up the role of managing director at Group M’s data and ad tech unit mPlatform.
Johannes Larcher Joins SubVRsive
Johannes Larcher has been appointed as CEO of VR company SubVRsive, after an investment from WPP.
IAB UK Appoints Advisor For Advertiser Engagement
The Internet Advertising Bureau UK has appointed Roisin Donnelly to spearhead its advertiser engagement work. Until eight months ago, Donnelly was P&G’s top marketer in Northern Europe, and her role in the IAB is set to “promote and simplify digital for marketers.”
Partnerships of the Week
Cheetah Mobile Appoint SpotX to Rep Video Inventory Globally
Cheetah Mobile, a leading global mobile app developer, has appointed video inventory management platform, SpotX, to help monetise video in its global suite of apps on iOS and Android devices.
Think Jam and Intermission Collaborate in Marketing and Entertainment Drive
Video production company, Intermission, and entertainment-marketing agency, Think Jam, have launched a new business partnership and will each take an equity share in each other’s business. The businesses will initially be aligned through the UK entertainment landscape, with expansion plans underway for the US.
Nokia and Sky Team Up to Enhance VoD
Sky is using Nokia to deliver its Velocix Content Delivery Network (CDN) for high-speed video and data services for its UK customers.
Rubicon Project and Integral Ad Science Collaborate to Deliver Viewability
Integral Ad Science and the Rubicon Project have paired to reassure marketers who are increasingly demanding of media space bought using programmatic technologies. The collaboration means that advertisers working with Rubicon can now be served with a viewability score, provided by IAS.
Weve and AOL Join Forces For Mobile Insights
AOL and Weve Insights, which is part of O2, have formed a new strategic alliance through Axonix’s technology, to help advertisers target and reach customers better. Weve Insights will be integrated into all of AOL’s media properties and the ONE by AOL programmatic platform using Axonix technology.
The Week on VAN
Tremor Video’s CEO Bill Day Steps Down, read more on VAN
Mobile Video is Still Very Much a Greenfield Opportunity, read more on VAN
AppNexus Sign 260 Publishers in Bid to Challenge Facebook and Google, read more on VAN
Ad of the Week: The Ordinary, Great Ormond Street Hospital, AMV BBDO
When is a rainy day like Disney World? When it’s being dreamt of by a seriously ill child. GOSH’s humbling ad reminds us of what their patients are missing out on day to day.
