Adam Gerber, a former TV buyer at MediaVest, with more than 15 years of agency media buying and planning experience, is now the VP of advertising products and strategy at Brightcove, the broadband video network based in Cambridge, MA that is fast becoming the leader in the space. Brightcove recently announced the creation of the Brightcove Network, a platform that allows publishers to create their own broadband video channels, syndicate the content on other sites and generate advertising revenue. iSPOT discussed the network with Gerber, the advertising opportunities it provides and its relevance in today’s rapidly changing broadband video world.
iSPOT: How many publishers do you have on the Broadband Network and what kinds of publishers are they?Gerber: We’ve seen fantastic uptake across a number of verticals since we released the network service offer. Hundreds of publishers have come into the system. We’ve got over 100 categorized into the select tier of our network, which reflects high quality – and advertiser friendly – publishers from across the mid and long tail. We’re seeking to aggregate and scale for marketers and consumers who are looking for highly niched content. A much larger number of publishers come onto the system who are performance based tier publishers. They have shorter form content or content that is not necessarily the right platform for high impact branded advertising but which is really the perfect environment for more direct response or strong call to action messaging by advertisers. Those two tiers have grown since we launched.
iSPOT: I’ve spoken to a few of the publishers, including Dow Jones and Petstyle.com. Is the Brightcove Network going to be a mix of large and small publishers?
Gerber: Our network grouping is not driven by size of publisher but whether the publisher wants to work with us on a platform service basis or network service basis. Anyone who has their own sales force will sell their own inventory. They’re not part of our network and they may be small or large. The ones you sited participate in the ad network in a different way. Dow Jones sells its own inventory and won’t participate in our select tier of our networks.
We’re trying to build a flexible advertising network solution for both sides of the marketplace for publishers who have different types of business requirements and advertisers who are looking for different types of media solutions. Large media companies want to sell their own ad space but can’t sell out their inventory. Those type of publishers need an ad network to push remnant inventory into a blind aggregate network that can be taken to market. Our solution is geared to large media companies with their own teams who need a release valve and smaller publishers who don’t have their own sales team and want a network managed and grouped into channels that make sense for advertisers to buy.
iSPOT: Will Brightcove be able to help advertisers produce their own video ads?
Gerber: We are working with Fortune 500 advertisers who typically have video assets and digital advertising assets existing, but a key vision of our company is we believe that as long tail content expands and more people consume video, smaller advertisers who never spent money in the TV space will have reason to look at highly targeted opportunities that exist in the Web space. There will be a need to facilitate automated and easy development and production of digital assets that can run in the multimedia video environment. It’s something we’re exploring and has powerful value proposition for small advertisers. Not national brand advertisers, but what you’ve seen in the search space, local advertisers and small mom and pop shops and highly vertical companies that have only marketed in small geographic regions now have the opportunity to drive their messaging out through a global platform. As the video space evolves, those types of marketers will find an environment that fits their brand message and they’ll need streamed and easy to use production solutions to create their assets.
iSPOT: What types of ad formats will appear on the Brightcove Network?
Gerber: Whenever you talk about ad formats, you have the reality of the marketplace. Most advertisers who are spending money in the online video space are national advertisers who have existing TV commercials in the can. Very few marketers are dedicated to producing shorter form creative specifically for the online environment. There’s not enough in the media budget to justify the production cost. So the formats you see in web video space are reminiscent of the TV model, 15 or 30 second pre-rolls and banner ads associated with them. There’s lots of debate about whether it’s the right model and format and everyone agrees it isn’t the end all or be all. Over time, you’ll see a variety of new innovations, as less intrusive forms evolve. One example is the overlay unit, which we rolled out and is operational today. It’s an image that covers the bottom third of the window as video content plays and allows the marketer to offer a message and call to action. If the user engages the unit, the video content pauses and they can return to the video after the ad plays. It deepens the advertising experience on the screen and puts the user in control of the experience.
iSPOT: How do you promote a new platform like the overlay to advertisers and how will you get it to work?
Gerber: A big part is education in the marketplace. Our sales team is focused on talking to agencies and clients and engaging with the market to educate them about new types of ad formats that will evolve in the space and how they can craft marketing strategies and build production resources. We have to accept that it takes time to change things but at the industry level you’ll see all major video portals and ad sales organizations start to coalesce at the industry level and focus on how to evolve standardized formats. It will be like the traditional banners. Once the IAB standards were set the agency business could scale against it and publishers could build sites to support the standard units.
iSPOT: What would Brightcove’s role be in this process?
Gerber: Brightcove is one of a number of marketplace leaders that will be involved in discussions. We’re a member of the IAB and I chair the broadband committee so we’ll be actively involved. Also involved will be the major portals and a number of key vertical sites like Heavy.com and you’ll see a variety of key publishers, programmers and tech providers like DoubleClick who will coalesce around the standards that work for everyone.
iSPOT: How do you think the Brightcove Network is advancing broadband video, Internet TV and the advertising it contains?
Gerber: The role we’re playing is one of leadership in a particular area specific to ad networks. In the last 12 to 18 months broadband video has evolved. The primary players have been the portals and some big vertical sites, like news and sports. You’ve seen big portals aggregate video into channels like AOL video. Outside of that you’ve seen key big media companies with lots of content like CNN and ESPN. We’re now moving into the second phase of the video revolution on the Web driven by much smaller and highly vertical publishers. Brightcove is focused on providing solutions for hundreds or thousands of smaller publishers to build their business and have their content aggregated into scalable offerings for marketers. Without that solution, the long tail business falls apart because they’d have a hard time building an ad sales team on their own and selling content.
iSPOT: Does Brightcove have any direct competitors?
Gerber: They’re not doing the same thing from the standpoint of how we’re building the audience base, but in a broad perspective we compete from an ad sales perspective with every media network out there that’s trying to sell online video. We’re all competing for a share of the overall spend in that space. How you aggregate your audience is a different question than who are our competitors from the ad sales perspective are. We’re bringing our audience to market just like AOL and Yahoo, we’re all pitching the same advertising. It’s a healthy competition, but we’re all competing for the same ad dollars.
