Visible World, the company that is renowned for creating the technology that enables TV advertisers to deliver customized spots to various audiences, launched a broadband application late last year. Advertisers can now deliver customized video ads to consumers, which enhances the targeting function of broadband video advertising.
Andy Sheldon, Visible World’s VP broadband & wireless, explains how the company adapted its technology to broadband video advertising and provides examples of how advertisers are using it.
iSPOT: Give us background on how Visible World is used by TV advertisers.
Sheldon: Visible World has been in existence for almost seven years and has developed a technology and process for developing many versions of a video advertising message, which can get delivered on more and more granular targeting capabilities. We have focused on both network and cable delivered TV and have an ability to target by region, with cable companies to target by DMA and sub DMA and most recently we implemented a household advertising solution which is in trial with Cablevision in Nassau County where we deliver TV advertising down to a TV set top box.
We produced a set of tools that lets advertisers and agencies visualize what their ads will look like when there are multiple versions that can be applied. We created a Story Maker tool, which is a story boarding tool. You can segment a creative treatment into three areas: the hook, the offer and the call to action. The story boarding tool gives you a way to visualize the process. You can have 25 opening hooks, 15 middle offers and 140 calls to action to meet the right audience at the right time with the right message.
Once they sign off on overall creative treatment, the production company starts work in the traditional way and at the same time the advertiser provides a set of business rules that govern when opening segments can be viewed with any of the offers and calls to action. It’s a data business management rule that says this version of the creative can be seen by these people. The production is sent to Visible World and we massage it and run it through the business rules logic and test every version of the ad to make sure it will play correctly. Then we distribute the ads through our distribution partners and they get put onto cable system or TV station plans and they play out. We are widely deployed–70% of TV viewing households can see a Visible World Intellispot.
iSPOT: How have you adapted the TV model to broadband?
Sheldon: In the fourth quarter last year we launched the new group that’s focused on extending the product capability and network solution into the broadband environment. We’re enabling advertisers to target their ads down to individual browser base. We use the same methodology to produce the commercials and we convert the various elements into Flash and we have an application programming interface that publishers will use to integrate into our ad serving solution. The basic operation is as a consumer you visit the publisher’s website and click on the video Flash player, which opens up with a pre-roll. We take the targeting parameters they provide and assemble the most appropriate commercial based on those parameters and we stream that ad back to the player so the consumer can see it. It’s seamless to the consumer, they get to see a more relevant and timely ad.
iSPOT: How do you target the ads?
Sheldon: Targeting is done by a number of things. We can take the IP address of the consumer and we can determine from there using IP to zip code lookup. At a basic level, we get the geotargeting element. We can also use time of day. At that point we work with publishers to provide more data to us. A publisher might have a news, weather and sports service and if the consumer is viewing weather data we can stream a specific ad based on current weather conditions. In addition to targeting data from the publisher, we can use local data to determine the appropriate creative. One of the advertisers we’re working with is an auto manufacturer that wants to promote dealers and car models at the local level, so individual creative ads tell consumers about the local dealer in their area where cars are available. We run tags on the end of the ads for each dealer. Another example is an online travel organization that is interested in promoting retail offers to specific locations, so we serve ads that are targeted to them.
iSPOT: As far as targeting goes, you said you can target by geography and time of day. Can you also target based on specific personal data?
Sheldon: That’s going to be down to individual site privacy rules, but it can be inferred. One of our publishing partners is DoubleClick and they have a tremendous amount of knowledge about users through their DART system, so we offer DART enabled spots where you can take DART intelligence and apply it to video creative messages that get delivered to a site using DART technology.
iSPOT: How do agencies work with you to create so many different creative versions of each ad?
Sheldon: We have a tool agencies use called Story Maker, which helps the agencies. Using an automotive example: Let’s assume that the manufacturer has six products that each address a different demographic. At a local market level the manufacturer wants to drive consumers to their local dealer. We now have two targeting parameters to key off a creative treatment: geography and demographic.
The automotive dealer’s database is uploaded to our system and each creative treatment is augmented with each dealer’s slate. The advertiser or its media buying agency uses our web-based tools to assign creative treatments to each geography and demography.
iSPOT: How do you work with publishers on the campaigns? Do all publishers accept your ads?
Sheldon: We have published an Application Programmers Interface that multiple publishers and ad networks are now writing to. Currently, DoubleClick and Internet Broadcasting Systems have completed the interface. We expect another ten or so to announce support in the next 60 days.
iSPOT: Are your broadband clients mostly existing TV advertisers or new ones?
Sheldon: We’ve had significant interest from TV clients to move online because they have the creative already done and it’s logical to repurpose it. There are other advertisers who were not on TV because they spend most of their marketing budget online, such as the online travel company. The sweet spot from an advertiser’s perspective is they understand the benefits of targeting based on demographics or they have a specific product or service to sell that gets delivered locally. National advertisers who have regional or local messages are key for us, from communications companies to rental car agencies. As video is becoming more common online and the use of video advertising is integrated into editorial messages, online advertisers who are used to highly targeted display ads want to be able to apply it to video creative messages.
iSPOT: How will the ability to target video ads help advertisers and do you think it will lead to an increase in video advertising?
Sheldon: Optimizing the video messages along with banners and key words is the logical next step for online advertisers. Visible World’s solution enables online advertisers to combine the intelligence of their online campaign with the unique video creative treatment and deliver that to a consumer in a much more targeted way. I think the evolution of online video advertising will naturally evolve around far more targeted creative messages as it has for every other form of online marketing message.
