For most serious brands video is a key marketing tool, but contextualising and placement present real difficulties because of the speed of video consumption and the seeming lack of analytical tracking available to keep tabs on its efficacy.
So will the placement of video ads in the online environment eventually become a programmatic exchange, where the trading of billions of advertising impressions to the right audience at the right time for the right price is automated?
This is already happening.
Since YouTube enabled the bulk of its video inventory for programmatic buying in 2011, online video has become one of the most important and profitable channels of digital advertising.
Many believe this has shifted the balance of power from content producers to the buyers, with the result that agencies are quickly becoming brokers both buying and selling content on behalf of their clients, with the result that higher volumes of inventory are being bought for lower prices via the open marketplace.
The approach, although highly effective, has led many advertisers to view programmatically traded advertising as suitable for remnant inventory alone, rather than premium – an image it needs to shed if the market is to advance to the next stage and assert itself as a branding medium.
As content producers we look forward to working with agencies and advertisers who see the online video, from premium content creation to strategic placement in the networks, either via programmatic trading or otherwise, as part of an indivisible process.