Posts Tagged ‘p’

Common Video Advertising Formats & Methods – An Overview

For any advertising method to be effective, it has to have a target audience that is consuming the medium with which the advertising is attached to. That being said, advertisers are starting to realize that online video advertising is now an effective method to attract large relevant audiences. Online video consumption has grown tremendously in the past few years and as a result, video sharing and video search companies are poised to reap the benefits of video advertising.

Because of the keen interest of the advertisers towards the online video segment, many video sharing sites have been encouraged to come up with different formats for the placement of video advertisements. The quantum of investment in this segment has fueled innovation of the methods in which video sites are deploying online video monetization and advertising programs. In-stream (pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll) advertisement formats have been in existence longest and have produced a good share of revenue for online video content producers.

Pre-Roll Ads – In this format of advertising, the advertisement clip is inserted before the actual video and while playing the video, the advertisement clip is played first and the viewer is compelled to watch the advertisement before the start of the real video file.

Post-roll Video Ads: In post-roll ads, just like pre-roll, a 15 or 30 sec clip is streamed at the end of a video itself. This is usually launched in conjunction with pre-roll as well as often times, the advertiser never gets their ad seen as users most often only watch part of the video.

Mid-Roll Ads – This advertising format is where the clips are included in the middle of the videos so that the viewer goes through the video advertisement if he is curious enough to see the remaining part of the video, this format is also very popular with many of the video sites.

As stated earlier, due to the demand, many of these video websites have begun to test and offer new, innovative ad solution for video. One of these experimental format is the In-Player ad: With in-player ads the player skin itself can be used to place relevant images or text content for the advertiser so that the ad is displayed for the entire time that the video is played.

One of the most promising video advertisement formats is contextual advertising which attempts to match advertisements with the most relevant content and visa-versa. This ad itself can take of various different forms, in-video banners, lower-thirds, and contextual text overlay advertisements. The nice thing about this particular method is that it does not disturb the viewing of the video and it responds only when the viewer clicks on it.

Of all the various experiments with contextual video advertising, one format has taken off and has even become the standard video advertising format that YouTube and many other sites have adopted instead of pre-roll ads. This format is known as the Overlay ad and it is basically a contextually relevant text ad that is shown in a portion of the player and does not annoy users as much as in-stream advertising.

I have given you a brief overview of the most common formats of video ads that are being tested and utilized at the moment. That being said, with growth being what it is, and video discovery as new as it is, we will certainly see many different companies innovating in regards to developing new and exciting formats for online video advertising.

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06

05 2009

Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Now In Blu Ray

Since the Hobbit movies by Peter Jackson won’t be out for a while, it’s a good time to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy again. The theater is where most people saw it for the first time, then we all had to get the DVD’s, and then of course we had to then have the extended directors edition.

The marketing professionals are good at what they do as they’ve been successful in getting the public to purchase this trilogy three times. So here comes another occasion to purchase, it’s the Blu Ray version, which fans everywhere will want, but this is not the extended version. If you don’t care about such things as extra footage go ahead and buy it, but your original DVD trilogy would be just fine if you didn’t want to lay out extra money.

Those of us who’ve bought three times may wait on this one and get the extended version on Blu Ray. They will release it and it’ll probably get released during the opening date of the first Hobbit film. I’ll invest in the trilogy then as the Blu Ray will be exceptional in looks and sound, plus seeing all the furry Hobbit feet will be very satisfying for us nerds who never get enough Lord of the Rings.

There was some extra content in the original releases but nothing like the extended versions. They had so much more content that fans of the books wanted to have on the movie. The fans had a picture in their heads from reading the books and they wanted to see if it translated the same as the directors version.

Peter Jackson is a huge fan of the series and showed that in his detailed and loving adaptations that he brought to the screen. I am sure that the level of detail and expertise will be given to the Hobbit movies, but until then, keep watching the extended directors version that you have and wait for the Blu-ray version next year. If you have to see this version in HD, rent it from the store or borrow it from your less informed friends.

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01

05 2009

Street Fighter

With all the different fighting games that have been released over the years, and on countless systems, it is hard to pick the best of the best. One of the series that has stood out above the rest is Tekken. The Tekken series has gotten better and better each installment. There has just been an arcade release of the seventh installment in Japan and will be coming stateside very soon as well as to our home consoles. In the mean time, we will have to get our fighting fix with the new Street Fighter game.

Street Fighter 4, released on both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, has been getting rave reviews from numerous gaming publications. Even more important than the publications is the fans approval of the game, since the fans of the original games love this installment it can be considered a success.

Fans have started falling in love with the characters all over again. All of the original are back with a few new news in their mist. Along with the characters, all their signature moves have followed as well. The series really hit its stride with the second installment of Street Fighter, which was released into arcades in the early nineties. Due to the popularity of the game many sequels were made, as well as live action movies. Although the movies were not a huge success, the gaming fans enjoyed watching their favorite characters and moves come to life.

With the latest installment, although the graphics have been updated, they kept it looking close to the original. The characters look new again, but maintain their classic appeal. The fighting feels new, but yet familiar and anyone who has played the other games will be able to jump right into the action.

Another great feature, besides playing with a friend next to you on the couch, you can hook up to the Internet and play against challengers from all around the world. It is a great way to test your skills and it is easy to find a competitor that will challenge you, but is on your same level as far as skills. I hate losing a hundred times in a row, but it is also no fun to win a hundred times in a row.

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30

04 2009