VideoEgg

New Life For Old Ads

By kderkacz on Jul. 01 2008

Refashioning display inventory for content distribution...and brands

News of a Google powered Seth MacFarlane content syndication play hit the NYT today. Syndicating content across the Google Content Network is not news. MRC and others have been experimenting with the idea for more than a year. We ran a similar program with Motorola and the Burg (http://www.theburg.tv/) across our network more than a year ago (http://videoegg.com/press/ve_theburg9). Crackle (www.crackle.com) has been pushing content paired with ads through social nets like Hi5 for a while. What makes this different is "Seth power" and presumably large ad deals that will bring the ad units-cum-content players to far more sites and to far more viewers across the Google network. The move reflects some significant changes that are being played out in the online ad world and are worth taking a closer look at.

Advertisers and content owners will look to turn 300x250s into expandable video experiences. Old ad real estate becomes a window into a new rich media world. Environments (ie sites, games, apps) that can deliver consumers into these experiences efficiently will be worth more (see previous post). Page based inventory is going to find new demand as a starting point for short media / video experiences – and brand advertising.

These innovations will deliver new learning about content's role in ad effectiveness. Think about this deal in particular. Rather that utilizing the Google network as display inventory to deliver the ad experience, Seth’s short two-minute content is used as a carrier. This probably makes sense to some brands, particularly if Seth is going to make the ad or integrate the brand into his content. But with a lot of mouths at the trough - the publisher, Google, MRC and Seth - impressions will be a way, way more expensive. Remember, one user in twenty will watch the content at best, that inventory then becomes ad inventory. The math gets challenging.

Google already maintains massive real estate positions across with net with Ad Sense. Widgets and soon display inventory will fortify the network. This is an important experiment. A robust content distribution layer would make it even more formidable. It will get harder to out monetize them in an effort to access distribution.

Posted by Troy Young