When Rocketboom, a three-minute newscast on technology and culture, signed on to be distributed by blip.tv, blip developed the first clickable overlay ads on QuickTime versions of the show for Rocketboom’s sponsor, Comedy Central’s The Sarah Silverman Program.
“It’s important for a couple of reasons,” said Mike Hudack, blip’s CEO. “Blip focuses on serialized content on the web and a lot of people watch it in iTunes. They subscribe to it and it gets delivered in podcast, so a large percent of the viewers see it in QuickTime. If you sell overlays that only play in Flash, you only hit a percentage of the audience. Now you’re making everybody happy because you get an ad in front of the entire audience and people can click on it. If it’s not important, they can hide it which is important for the show’s creator and the viewer.”
Andrew Baron, founder of Rocketboom, said the sponsorship model is “a great system because we burn the sponsorship message into our master file and distribute across all platforms. Not just one Flash file, but all our files, everywhere, through our own site (iTunes, Facebook, YouTube, TiVo, etc.).”
The ads were sold to Comedy Central by Deep Focus/New York. Eric Druckenmiller, the agency’s media director, said QuickTime has a hard coded video delivery technology unlike Windows Media Player that makes it difficult to serve ads. “We figured out how to get the Flash overlay to exist in the QuickTime environment for the first time. So the ads are playing in the iTunes world, the coveted Apple platform.”
The two-week campaign, which ended Oct. 3, featured overlay ads to promote the second season of The Sarah Silverman Program.
Rocketboom was used because “its underground video has an irreverent quality to it, like Sarah Silverman,” Druckenmiller said. He noted blip.tv was a good place for the advertising for two reasons: “it mirrors the irreverence of the show and the ad delivery methodology of the overlays was the most effective way of reaching the audience.” He said overlays were preferable to pre-rolls and post-rolls and the ability to deliver them in QuickTime increased the views.
Hudack said blip.tv will play overlay ads in QuickTime again. “We’re talking to advertisers about using it in the future,” he said.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More