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| KAISER KUO Group director, digital strategy, Ogilvy & Mather Beijing |
STEVE BLAKEMAN |
PUSHKAR SANE |
NO |
YES |
YES |
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“While I haven’t seen what the ads will look like, it’s hard for me to imagine that the contextual matching engine will deliver ads so relevant to video content that they’ll entice viewers to click away. Most people watch internet video for its entertainment value and will see ads as a distraction at best, or a downright annoyance at worst. If the ads are unobtrusive, they’ll be ignored, and if they’re not, then they haven’t served their purpose anyway. I’ve seen similar products on offer. For example, one called AdPLY by PLYmedia inserts keyword-triggered clickable ad overlays in videos. But even when the trigger terms are matched based on actual speech, the relevance wouldn’t compel me to click. AdWords works because users are actively looking for information when they’re conducting searches. AdSense, whether on text or video sites, will tend to generate much less click-through, and clicks that are much less apt to result in real leads.” |
“Google is smart enough to know that as the way we use the internet rapidly evolves, it needs to be prepared with increasingly innovative ways to reach consumers.
AdSense for Video may only represent a fraction of its revenue initially, but I suspect it will form a substantial proportion of it over the next few years, alongside other initiatives such as Google audio, print and TV ads. Developing video has been a priority for Google since it bought YouTube in 2006. That, coupled with the advent of mobile internet with speeds approaching or potentially surpassing broadband, plus the launch of Google Android, will inevitably lead to an explosion in internet usage, especially uploads and downloads. That is clearly a major factor in their decision to go live. For the moment, the service is restricted to the US and publishers who can serve more than one million video streams a month. But I don’t expect those restrictions to last long. It wll probably go global sooner rather than later.” |
“Google weaving text ads into video content offers advertisers some definite advantages. First, it will allow them to use a well-established AdSense network to aggregate long-tail video content. Second, it will help them move away from the forced-exposure, pre-roll advertising that is currently happening on many video sites. The service will enable copy customisation based on type of content, user profile, user behaviour and more. It will also help rotate multiple copies at very little incremental cost. And all this can potentially be monitored through a single platform. Google needs to ensure the contextual relevance of these text ads, otherwise users will start ignoring them. I think it is a good platform for advertisers to experiment and learn. If it works, they’ll put more dollars behind it. If it doesn’t, they’ll pull the plug. Only time will prove whether Google makes a success out of this initiative, but I see no reason why advertisers should stay away from it.” |
