Consequently the Creative Team entered their 2008 Sizzle Reel into the Ava Awards under the category of Special Effects and Animation.  Shortly before Christmas MirriAd received notice of the award which truly made everyone’s holiday season even grander.

“It‘s an extreme honor to receive a Gold Award especially for our first effort towards any industry accredited association” commented Allison Siena, Vice President and Chief Creative Officer of MirriAd “especially since Marketing and Communication Professionals make up a large portion of our client base”.  Allison also commented on how proud she is to share this honor with all her production departments which span internationally from New York to London to Mumbai, India.

The Ava Award is designed to pay tribute to the magnificent history of the audio-visual industry.
Winning an Ava Award gives recognition to the creative talent, firms, departments and/or clients that collaborate on outstanding marketing and communication projects.  The Ava Awards are administered by the international Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals. Although Ava is only 14 years old, the award grew out of a need to better represent the audio & video category of the Hermes and MarCom Awards. The Hermes and MarCom Award recognizes excellence in international marketing and design but with a strong emphasis on print and alternate mediums and only included a few audio and video categories.  Over the years members and entrants asked the association to start a competition that would be specifically geared towards video and its many uses: hence the Ava’s were created.

The Ava Statuette is an elegant woman holding the film reel aloft is a symbolic representation of our evolving craft. The statuette is created by the Entenmann-Rovin Company of Los Angeles, the same craftsmen that produce the Golden Globes Awards.

Embedded advertising provides a radical new way to monetise content for broadcasters. Chesta Shah Sengupta profiles MirriAd, whose patented ad insertion technology is creating waves in the industry.

Download Full Article (PDF)

Technology Strategy Board

12th January 2009, London, UK – MirriAd, the embedded advertising specialist, today announces it has been awarded a substantial grant from the UK Government as part of the Creative Industries Innovation Award. The new funding, provided by the Government’s Technology Strategy Board, will be used by MirriAd and its partners, TelecityGroup and Apical, to develop VIDEOSENSE™, the world’s first tool for intelligent automatic video analysis, and perfectly embedding brands (in context) into any online video.

The last ten years have exposed serious flaws in the industry’s approach to advertising, particularly online, where consumers have developed a very low tolerance for banners and pop-ups, which they routinely avoid and delete. Although MirriAd’s innovative embedded advertising solutions are already in use in Hollywood and Bollywood, and agreements are also in place with a range of key partners in the broadcast and content owner communities worldwide, this new project (which MirriAd co-funded) will mean the company now addresses all markets, including all online videos.

The grant enables the company to develop a solution that scans online video for suitable spots to automatically insert a branded image or advertisement, removing the complexity and need for advanced human skills and intervention. It is envisaged that the solution could be used to create an online trading community in which advertisers could select from a wide range of opportunities, provided by companies and individuals, to promote their brands.

Dr. Philip McLauchan, head of imaging technology at MirriAd comments; “This new technology essentially monetises video real estate. We will be offering advertisers space to insert their brand into video online that will then be played out over the Web with their brand inserted as if it was part of the original.” He continues; “Not only will it manage the online marketplace that advertisers will use, it will also be able to automatically insert a different brand reference depending on geography or demographic profile. This will allow advertisers to extend the revenue stream available for each piece of video.”

The solution will use NVIDIA’s Tesla™ GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) technology, which will increase the solution’s capabilities, and can be applied to graphics and financial services, along with high-performance computing tasks. Rob Coupland, Chief Operating Officer at TelecityGroup, the leading data centre provider in Europe, and the company that is developing the server cluster solutions for VIDEOSENSE, comments; “This collaboration with MirriAd provides TelecityGroup with a great opportunity to explore media content in high volume as well as to understand how high-performance computing clusters can be used to provide professional hosting services for our customers.”

In addition, Dr. Michael Tusch, managing director of Apical Limited, the imaging technology company whose products enhance the performance of electronic imaging devices, comments; “ Our technology is designed to render video content  as naturally and vividly as possibly, based on models of human visual perception. We are excited to explore how it can be used to enhance the realism of MirriAd’s embedded content in a live streaming application over the Net. ”

Mark Popkiewicz, MirriAd’s CEO added, “MirriAd successfully takes the concept of product placement, the only advertising format that can’t be skipped by the viewer, and delivers a scalable and adaptable advertising solution that can be applied to any content, at any time and in any market. The end result benefits all – content free from annoying distractions, audience specific brand placement and a new means to monetise video assets.”
’’The opportunities for MirriAd are enormous and this innovation award allows us to further develop our technology so that we can take advantage of all markets, including online.”

- Ends -

For further information please contact:
Katharine (K) Simon or Ian Hood, Babel PR
E.      MirriAd@babelpr.com
T.      +44 (0) 20 7434 5550
W.     www.babelpr.com

About MirriAd Limited
MirriAd seamlessly embeds advertising into any video content, as if it was always there. The company’s solutions allow content owners, whether film, TV or online, to effectively monetise their assets and deliver a means by which brands can capitalise on the worldwide shift from the analogue broadcast model to multi-platform, on-demand digital video delivery.

MirriAd is the first and only company that has the ability to embed advertising, words, images and interactive hyperlinks cost-effectively, in small and large volume digital content and to a high quality on any platform using its proprietary ZoneSense™, technology.

MirriAd, based in London with offices in NewYork and Mumbai, is funded by venture capital funds including London Seed Capital, Oxford Technology Management and South East Growth Fund and by private investors led by Seraphim Capital.
For more information: www.mirriad.com

MirriAd was recently named in Library House’s MediaTech top 100 list, which lists Europe’s hottest private media technology companies, likely to have the biggest impact on the industry.

About TelecityGroup plc
TelecityGroup is the leading premium provider of highly connected data centres in Europe, offering a range of flexible, scalable data centre and value added services. TelecityGroup specialises in the design, build, and management of highly connected and secure environments in which customers can house their technical, web and internet infrastructure. Each of its data centres acts a connectivity and content hub facilitating the storage, sharing and distribution of data, content and media. Headquartered in London, TelecityGroup operates 20 network independent data centres across seven European countries. The data centres are located in prime positions for commerce and connectivity, including Amsterdam, Dublin, Frankfurt, London, Manchester, Milan, Paris and Stockholm.

Telecity Group is listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE: TCY)
www.TelecityGroup.com

About Apical Ltd
Apical is a specialist technology company dedicated to enhancing the performance of electronic imaging devices. Its technology helps cameras see the world like eyes, and enables displays to render imagery with highest quality under different viewing conditions.
The unique performance of Apical’s products derives from underlying algorithms, Retina-Morphic Processing, developed by Apical and based on research into how the human visual system processes image information. With this technology, it is now for the first time possible for imaging devices to apply this same kind of image processing. The results, we believe, speak for themselves.

Apical brings together expertise in:
- Digital and analog signal processing
- Image analysis and processing
- Software development
- Hardware design
- Neurology, neuromorphic systems and neural networks
- Intellectual property and licensing

Apical Limited is a privately-held company based in central London, UK.
www.apical-imaging.com

Future Media

In the 1980s the market was relatively simple to understand and limited to three main outlets – broadcast television, cinema and VHS tape. The content was all linear, the viewing experience passive and the advertising opportunities were well established. Fast forward to 2008 and the environment is very different but in many ways the advertising industry has failed to keep pace with the complexities.

Consumer consumption of video, in all its formats, has changed fundamentally in a very short space of time. Online is growing strongly, mobile is developing and the broadcast sector is being heavily impacted, both by these alternative platforms and the growth of digital video recorders that allow us to skip ads when we want.

Despite the changes, the advertising industry continues to persevere with the traditional 30 second ad slot in broadcast television and is continuing to push banners, overlays and pop-ups online despite these formats being almost universally unpopular. It’s not a terribly sophisticated approach and if not implemented very carefully, can do more harm than good to a brand.

Relaxing the Rules

The one enduring success of video advertising has been product placement. In the UK, paid-for product placement is currently banned on broadcast television, but with the value of the traditional 30-second advert diminishing, ITV executive chairman, Michael Grade, is once again calling for the ban to be relaxed. He recently claimed that media regulator Ofcom’s current code is “complete nonsense” (C21media.net, 4th November) and his comments come as the Department for Culture Media & Sport consults on a potential relaxation of the regulatory environment.

It seems that the biggest problem with product placement in the UK market is that many fail to understand how it could be used without compromising quality and user experience i.e. integrating brands into video in a relevant way and potentially enhancing core content with an added dose of realism. After all, which British high street is devoid of branded shop fronts? If done with sensitivity to the content in question (and is transparent to viewers) product placement maintains the flow of the programme, places the product in question in an appropriate setting, and builds brand awareness. The evidence is in the growth in this sector of the market with analysts predicting a compound annual growth rate of 33.7 percent and an expected worldwide value exceeding US$14Bn by 2010.

In fact, product placement is an established and growing market in broadcast television in a wide range of markets around the world. No-one can argue that the brand alignment of Ford’s new ‘Ka’ with the Bond girl in ‘Quantum of Solace’ will do the brand any harm, but the process wouldn’t have been without its risks for the company. The difficulty is that until recently paid-for product placement had to be undertaken at the time of production, making it highly inflexible and costly. Ford would have needed to give MGM/ Sony Pictures details of the model to be featured, along with their campaign angles as far back as the release of ‘Casino Royale’. In addition, they would not have had access to the script to know exactly when the car would appear, or indeed even if it would appear in the final edit.

Furthermore, the life of the placement will be limited both in terms of duration and geography. Should the film be re-released ten years from now, the ‘Ka’ featured isn’t likely to be the model Ford would choose to represent the same quirky values. The potential rewards for film tie-ins such as this are high, but the uncertainty and risks are many.

The digital product integration opportunity

We now have the tools available to remove all these obstacles. The embedded advertising industry can now deliver sophisticated product placement strategies that enable brands to see where and how their product will appear in advance. Brand insertion opportunities can be automatically identified in video assets (from user-generated content to Hollywood blockbusters), and suitable digital images can be seamlessly incorporated. The result for brand owners is that their products appear as if they were part of the original production whether as a physical object such as a car or cereal packet, a still image on a billboard, or as a video, and can be swapped out and replaced as needed.

The 30-second advertising slot hasn’t died because it works and it’s easy to implement. Seamless and editorially relevant product integration simply complements this by approaching the target audience from a different angle. So by using digital product integration that expands the reach and relevance of the brand, an embedded advertising platform, integrated within the sales and content pipeline, may just deliver the sophistication the market now needs to fully exploit its video assets. It has the potential to satisfy all of the players in this increasingly complex game – relevant and valuable brand association for advertisers, much needed revenues for content owners and broadcasters, and an uninterrupted viewing experience for consumers. What’s to argue with?

Comcast Networks and MirriAd now means advertisers can get straight to the eyeballs of the consumer with new product and brand placement opportunities available on E!, Style, VERSUS, GOLF CHANNEL and G4. The deal takes advantage of patented technology developed by embedded advertising specialist, MirriAd, and will see product placement and promotional messages digitally inserted into existing video content as if they were included in the original production.

Comcast

In an environment in which television audiences now have access to digital video recorders that allow them to ‘skip’ traditional advertising slots, Comcast Networks recognises that new approaches are required to put advertisers in touch with consumers. MirriAd’s embedded advertising technologies and expertise deliver that new approach by exposing brands to their target audiences in an environment in which the viewer is fully engaged. An advertiser’s presence can’t be skipped, but instead of detracting from the core content, they are fully integrated to maintain an uninterrupted viewing experience.

“Successful content production and broadcast today demands fresh thinking to address a rapidly changing environment. In this new digital age, in which the viewer is increasingly in control, we need to investigate fresh ways to deliver the advertising opportunities that underpin the industry” said Dave Cassaro, President of advertising sales at Comcast Networks. “Traditional advertising still has its place but MirriAd’s innovative embedded advertising solutions enable us to realise new revenues from brand owners, without compromising the viewing experience.”

MirriAd CEO, Mark Popkiewicz, commented, “Product placement has traditionally been implemented pre-production and that approach is complex, expensive and uncertain. Nevertheless it is an advertising model that has always had the potential to produce significant returns for brands, content owners and broadcasters. MirriAd removes the complexity, expense and uncertainty by allowing for the identification, preview and assessment of opportunities prior to the relevant brand references being inserted. It is a sophisticated approach for what is an increasingly sophisticated broadcast and advertising environment.”

For further information please contact:

Katharine Simon or Ian Hood, Babel PR

E.       MirriAd@babelpr.com
T.       +44 (0) 20 7434 5550
W.      www.babelpr.com

About MirriAd Limited
MirriAd seamlessly embeds advertising into any video content, as if it was always there. The company’s solutions allow content owners, whether film, TV or online, to effectively monetise their assets and deliver a means by which brands can capitalise on the worldwide shift from the analogue broadcast model to multi-platform, on-demand digital video delivery.

MirriAd is the first and only company that has the ability to embed advertising, words, images and interactive hyperlinks cost-effectively, in small and large volume digital content and to a high quality on any platform using its proprietary ZoneSense™, technology.

About Comcast Networks
Comcast Networks is comprised of distinct channels that appeal to the passionate viewer looking for the best in entertainment, sports, lifestyle and children’s programming. Its core networks include E!, VERSUS, GOLF CHANNEL, Style, G4, and Select On demand for Video On demand and HD programming through VERSUS / GOLF CHANNEL HD.
For more information: www.comcastnetworks.com

Wilkinson has held senior executive positions in some of the leading advertising and media companies in the US including PVI Virtual Media Services, video ad management company BlackArrow Inc. and Time Warner subsidiary HBO. Prior to joining MirriAd, Wilkinson was CEO at etc.tv, the Canadian advertising on demand network which has delivered campaigns for major brands including General Motors, Ford Motors of Canada, Unilever, Procter and Gamble.

Wilkinson will report to MirriAd CEO, Mark Popkiewicz who said; “Denny’s wide ranging experience in the content and advertising market has given him huge insight into the potential opportunities for MirriAd. In particular, his US knowledge and expertise that he has developed over 25 years will be invaluable in developing the MirriAd business in one of the key worldwide markets.”

“The advertising and broadcast industries are struggling to make the established advertising models work in this digital age”, commented Wilkinson, “We have to accept that the consumer is increasingly in control of the viewing experience and able to avoid traditional advertising. MirriAd’s technology and solutions take account of the new industry dynamics by placing advertisers back in touch with their audiences whilst maintaining the uninterrupted viewing experience that the consumer clearly wants. That is a compelling proposition and one I am looking forward to implementing.”

For further information please contact:

Katharine Simon or Ian Hood, Babel PR

E.       MirriAd@babelpr.com
T.       +44 (0) 20 7434 5550
W.      www.babelpr.com

About MirriAd Limited
MirriAd seamlessly embeds advertising into any video content, as if it was always there. The company’s solutions allow content owners to effectively monetise their assets and deliver a means by which brands can capitalise on the worldwide shift from the analogue broadcast model to multi-platform, on-demand digital video delivery.

London based MirriAd is the first and only company that has the ability to embed advertising, words, images and interactive hyperlinks cost-effectively, in small and large volume digital content and to a high quality on any platform using its proprietary ZoneSense™, technology.

MirriAd is funded by venture capital funds including London Seed Capital, Oxford Technology Management and South East Growth Fund and by private investors led by Seraphim Capital.
For more information: www.mirriad.com

MirriAd was recently named in Library House’s MediaTech top 100 list, which lists Europe’s hottest private media technology companies, likely to have the biggest impact on the industry.

Endemol Logo

MirriAd’s patented ZoneSense™ solution will be used to insert simple branded objects such as props, backdrops and signage, or sophisticated dynamic ads incorporating video and interactive elements, into video content. The brand references are seamlessly embedded and appear as if they had been incorporated in the original production. Embedded advertising provides broadcasters and advertisers with an entirely new way to expose brands to target consumers. It creates a compelling advertising environment in which the viewer is fully engaged. The brand references can’t be skipped or ignored – they are an intrinsic element of the viewing experience, rather than a distraction.

Endemol India’s head of corporate development & strategic business development Ankush Patel, commented, “Traditional product placement is a very well established and successful model in the Indian broadcast market but it is time consuming, the returns are difficult for advertisers to assess in the pre-production phase and the value inevitably diminishes over time. In contrast, embedding advertising within existing content takes us to a higher level of sophistication and removes the uncertainty and expense associated with the established model.

“MirriAd’s technology enables placement opportunities to be identified automatically and gives advertisers complete control over where and when their brand references appear. Furthermore, they have the opportunity to time insertions according to campaign requirements, just as they would with ‘slot’ based advertising.”

“Endemol’s credentials in the Indian market are very well established,” said Mark Popkiewicz, CEO of MirriAd. “Its ‘Bigg Boss’ and ‘Fear Factor’ productions are the flagship content that have taken Viacomm18’s ‘Colors’ channel to the number two spot in India in just ten weeks. That sort of success, and their established relationships, make Endemol the ideal partner to bring embedded advertising to one of the biggest broadcast television markets in the world.”

MirriAd’s unique ZoneSenseTM technology allows any video to be automatically scanned for suitable advertising zones. These zones are then tracked frame by frame for the duration that they are visible, being tracked for motion, blur and brightness for every pixel within the frame. Any brand or image inserted into one of these pre-tracked zones inherits all of the same blur, reflection and brightness attributes of the original material, making the insertion look real and as though it was part of the original shoot.

Advertisers can view an inventory of video files looking for the video, or set of videos, that best meets their campaign needs. Using MirriAd’s highly secure online services an advertiser may select their preferred zones, insert their brand images and view a low quality stream of the embedded advertising video before they commit to a final, high quality version.

For further information please contact:

Katharine Simon or Ian Hood, Babel PR

E.       MirriAd@babelpr.com
T.       +44 (0) 20 7434 5550
W.      www.babelpr.com

About MirriAd Limited
MirriAd seamlessly embeds advertising into any video content, as if it was always there. The company’s solutions allow content owners to effectively monetise their assets and deliver a means by which brands can capitalise on the worldwide shift from the analogue broadcast model to multi-platform, on-demand digital video delivery.

London based MirriAd is the first and only company that has the ability to embed advertising, words, images and interactive hyperlinks cost-effectively, in small and large volume digital content and to a high quality on any platform using its proprietary ZoneSense™, technology.

MirriAd is funded by venture capital funds including London Seed Capital, Oxford Technology Management and South East Growth Fund and by private investors led by Seraphim Capital.
For more information: www.mirriad.com

MirriAd was recently named in Library House’s MediaTech top 100 list, which lists Europe’s hottest private media technology companies, likely to have the biggest impact on the industry.

About Endemol
Endemol is a global leader in entertainment programming comprising an international network of companies that spans 25 countries on five continents.

We produce premium entertainment for the world’s major broadcasters, creating content that plays across a range of media platforms including television, mobile phones and the Internet.

This includes scripted (drama, comedy and soap operas), non-scripted (reality TV entertainment, game shows and talent shows) and digital media (online games, tailor made shows for mobile, video clips and streaming etc).
Endemol’s companies around the world have creative teams that are continuously developing new formats and entertainment brands, which are shared across the Endemol network.

Over the last five years we have on average created approximately 100 new formats each year. Endemol now has a library of over 2200 non-scripted formats and more than 200 scripted titles. For more on Endemol’s output visit the Endemol Sales website.

Endemol is owned by a consortium consisting of Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, Mediaset Group and Cyrte Group.

Media Tech 100 Logo

MirriAd has been recently named in Library House’s MediaTech top 100 list, which lists Europe’s hottest private media technology companies, likely to have the biggest impact on the industry.

For further information please contact:

Katharine Simon or Ian Hood, Babel PR

E.       MirriAd@babelpr.com
T.       +44 (0) 20 7434 5550
W.      www.babelpr.com

About MirriAd Limited
MirriAd seamlessly embeds advertising into any video content, as if it was always there. The company’s solutions allow content owners, whether film, TV or online, to effectively monetise their assets and deliver a means by which brands can capitalise on the worldwide shift from the analogue broadcast model to multi-platform, on-demand digital video delivery.

MirriAd is the first and only company that has the ability to embed advertising, words, images and interactive hyperlinks cost-effectively, in small and large volume digital content and to a high quality on any platform using its proprietary ZoneSense™, technology.

Oxford Technology

14th October 2008, London, UK – MirriAd, the embedded advertising specialist, today announces the completion of a £2 million, second round of funding, designed to accelerate the deployment of its innovative advertising solutions in major markets around the world. MirriAd’s major existing investors each participated in the fund raising and were joined by Oxford Technology Enterprise Capital Fund (OTECF) which made one of its most significant investments to date.

MirriAd’s solutions have now been adopted in both Hollywood and Bollywood and agreements are also in place with a range of key partners in the TV and online content owner community worldwide. The new capital allows the company to power its intellectual property and technology development and support sales activity in New York, London and Mumbai.

The last ten years have exposed serious flaws in the industry’s approach to video advertising, both on television and online.  Multi-channel television and devices such as the Sky + box, which allow consumers to skip advertising, have diminished the value of the traditional ’30 second slot’ in traditional broadcasting and it is a format that has never had a place online. Unfortunately consumers have a very low tolerance for the alternatives – banners, pop-ups and overlays – which they routinely ignore or avoid.

MirriAd’s solution delivers a new advertising service that embeds advertising imagery into the content that is contextual and drives positive emotions from audiences. The imagery embedded can take the form of simple branded objects such as props, backdrops or signage to sophisticated dynamic ads with interactivity such as moving ads on plasma screens. Brand references appear as if they were filmed in the original production and they can be audience specific according to a range of variables including platform (e.g. traditional broadcast, Web or mobile), geography, date and demographic profile.

Speaking on behalf of OTECF Michael Penington commented, “This is the right time for MirriAd’s technology and business model to help content owners and advertisers to address the dynamics facing the world of advertising.’’

Mark Popkiewicz, MirriAd’s CEO added, “MirriAd successfully takes the concept of product placement, the only advertising format that can’t be skipped by the viewer, and delivers a scalable and adaptable advertising solution that can be applied to any content, at any time and in any market. The end result benefits all – content free from annoying distractions, audience specific brand placement and a new means to monetise video assets.”

’’The opportunities for MirriAd are enormous and this latest capital injection allows us to rapidly develop existing and new business in Europe, North America and Asia.”

For further information please contact:

Katharine Simon or Ian Hood, Babel PR

E.       MirriAd@babelpr.com
T.       +44 (0) 20 7434 5550
W.      www.babelpr.com

About MirriAd Limited
MirriAd seamlessly embeds advertising into any video content, as if it was always there. The company’s solutions allow content owners, whether film, TV or online, to effectively monetise their assets and deliver a means by which brands can capitalise on the worldwide shift from the analogue broadcast model to multi-platform, on-demand digital video delivery.

MirriAd is the first and only company that has the ability to embed advertising, words, images and interactive hyperlinks cost-effectively, in small and large volume digital content and to a high quality on any platform using its proprietary ZoneSense™, technology.

MirriAd, based in London and offices in NewYork and Mumbai, is funded by venture capital funds including London Seed Capital, Oxford Technology Management and South East Growth Fund and by private investors led by Seraphim Capital.

For more information: www.mirriad.com

IBC

The consumption of video, in all its formats, has changed fundamentally in a very short space of time. In the 1980s the market was relatively simple to understand and limited to three main outlets – broadcast television, cinema and VHS tape. The content was all linear, the viewing experience passive and the advertising opportunities were well established.

Fast forward to 2008 and the environment is very different but in many ways the advertising industry has failed to keep pace with the complexities.

It’s worth looking at the way the average 15-year old boy accesses video today for pointers to what is happening in the market. He may well switch on the television but even in that environment he’s likely to pre-record using a digital video recorder (DVR). It’s likely he’ll also be accessing video on a computer, watching short form video on YouTube, long form via the BBC’s iPlayer, web TV on Joost or music clips direct from MTV’s web site.

It doesn’t stop there – his Wii or Xbox also lets him access a variety of video services and his portable games console and mobile phone will be stuffed full of video. His experience is characterised by choice – he chooses what to watch and when to watch it and he chooses the access device (fixed, mobile or a combination). It couldn’t be further from the traditional broadcast model in which the content owner and broadcaster effectively control the experience

So how has the advertising industry responded? Not surprisingly it has persevered with the established 30-second slot and for good reason. The traditional broadcast model has life left in it but the returns are diminishing as consumers skip ads using increasingly capable DVRs and move to other, user interactive, platforms on the internet. The 30-second slot has no place on the web and instead advertisers focus on pre-rolls, banner ads, overlays and pop-ups. They each have varying degrees of success but all detract from the core content and are universally unpopular as a result. What the industry needs is a way to target consumers on their platform of choice, at their time of choosing and in a format they find acceptable – a sophisticated solution that maintains the viewer’s immersion in the core video asset but which also allows that asset to be monetised through unobtrusive brand promotion.

The obvious answer is to make increasing use of product placement strategies to integrate brands in the original video content. If properly implemented it’s highly effective and results in viewers making the desired brand associations without their viewing experience being compromised. The evidence is in the growth in this sector of the market with analysts predicting an annual compound growth rate of 33.7% and an expected worldwide value exceeding US$14Bn by 2010.

Embedded Advertising

Unfortunately the established ‘physical’ product placement model has none of the flexibility of the other advertising models. It’s complex, costly, time consuming and needs to be implemented when the video asset is produced. Worst of all, in a market in which popular content is reused in a variety of formats and platforms, and over a number of years, physical product placement is in the core asset for good. The value of the placement diminishes over time and may be completely inappropriate in certain circumstances.

A new ‘embedded advertising’ industry is now developing to address these issues and it promises to bring sophisticated product placement strategies to a much wider market. It’s now possible to automatically identify brand insertion opportunities in existing video assets (from user generated content to Hollywood movies) and to seamlessly insert brand references as if they had been incorporated in the original production.

Those brand references may include physical objects such as vehicles, or, for instance, still or video images on a billboard and on many platforms they can be fully interactive (’see it, click it, buy it’). The advantages are numerous and significant because the exercise can be carried out at any time and brand insertions can be geography, demography and platform specific.

Embedded advertising has the potential to offer the best of both worlds. It utilises an established and successful format that can’t be skipped by viewers and yet doesn’t inhibit their immersion in the core production. It provides content owners with a fully integrated and scalable means of monetising existing video assets and delivers a flexible solution to advertisers that allows them to address an increasingly fragmented market.

The 30-second slot isn’t dead yet because it works and it’s easy to implement. We also know that product placement works. Expanding its reach and application with an embedded advertising platform, integrated within the sales and content pipeline, may just deliver the sophistication the market now needs to fully exploit its video assets.

View original article at IBC.org