Streaming Media - August/September 2007 - (Page 38)

video when viewers are finished watching the video they came for. One last aspect of being online you should consider, according to Hallerman, is that online may be a more appropriate venue in which to experiment and take risks, although he is careful to point out that your online video advertising campaign approach depends to some extent on the type and size of your business and your particular audience. “Once the audience has seen an ad, they just turn off readily even if it’s flashing on the screen. [You want to try] something to get their attention, remembering that with online video, it’s a better place for experimentation than television. Consider being more edgy, because a lot of the audience for video online of any age is more willing to accept it,” he says. Keep it Short for Most Ads When it comes to online video ads, the general rule is to keep them short and respect the viewer. Hallerman says that advertisers are still trying to figure out what length people expect and will accept. Publishers will try to limit ad length, he predicts, but consumers have to understand there is a clear trade-off that in order to get higher-quality video, they need to sit through ads (just as they have for years on TV and increasingly at the movie theater). Jupiter’s Elliott agrees, saying, “[Ads have been] part of the bargain for the last 100 years.” There is general agreement to keep ads to around 15 seconds for a pre-roll, but you also have to balance the length of the clip against the length of the ad, according to Glickman. “If you put a 30-second ad in front of 40-second content, you are going to piss users off,” Glickman says. He says he is actually pushing the 15-second ad as the standard for the in-stream space. When it comes to rich media—ads that roll over the content—these ads are intrusive by their nature, but Glickman says there are rules you can follow to limit the annoyance. “You need to make sure the user can get away from it by having a clear and functional Close button. All ads should auto track and auto disappear after a period of time,” he says. Tremor sets these ads for 5 or 6 seconds, but he suggests a maximum of 10 seconds’ display time before they disappear for these types of ads, explaining that you have to be sensitive to the user experience. Finally, he says, when running in-stream banner ads, you want the ad to run silently with user-initiated audio and a Stop button so viewers can stop the video if they wish. online video advertising Long-Form is OK for Marketing Ads One clear exception to all of these rules about brevity is when you run longer-form marketing ads. In this case, you may still want to break the video into digestible chunks, but the length can be longer than a straight advertisement might be. Reinstein explains 38 STREAMING MEDIA August/September 2007

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Streaming Media - August/September 2007

Table of Contents Sweet Sixteen Letters to the Editor Technology and Business Trends IBM Takes Webcasting to the Desktop ROI in the EDU Bank Serves Espresso, Enterprise Video Online Video Advertising: Hit or Miss MLB’s Foul Bawl A Crash Course in Flash Video Newspapers in Multimedia Metamorphosis Webcasting Large Entertainment Events: Seeing Through the Hype Webcasting With Windows Media Can’t Start A Fire . . . A WiMAX Primer Mobile Video at Last Telestream Episode Pro Grass Valley ProCoder 3 Silverlight Is No Flash Killer

Streaming Media - August/September 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.