You’ve all seen advertisements that look the same, sound the same, reuse the same ideas over and over again. They’re clichéd, unoriginal, and somewhat mechanical. If this is the best that creative individuals can come up with, it would be cheaper and more efficient to do away with them and just let a machine do all their work… well in 2010, a team of experts decided to do just that!

They began work on an extensive database of pictures, products and keywords. Nine months later, they had CAI (Creative Artificial Intelligence). CAI is a computer system that allows you to input the product you want to advertise, your objective for the advertisement, and your target audience. The computer uses all of this information to compile pictures and text into a solid, generic advertisement that looks like something you might find in a magazine or TV commercial. It’s possible that this generalized database of ideas can do the job just as effectively as some of our less skilled designers, but a computer can never take the place of truly skilled and creative individuals.

For more information check out Ads of the World

Brightroll, the largest video advertising network, has released findings from its second annual survey of U.S. media buyers and agency executives.

Here are a some of the key findings (which may be biased):

• 56% of respondents stated that they view online video advertising as either “more effective” or “much more effective” than other forms of advertising.
• Targeting was identified as online video’s most valuable asset by 32% of respondents, followed by ad unit format (21%), reach (19%), price relative to TV (10%) and ability to reuse creative (10%).
• 45% of respondents said they would most like to base online ad spend on cost per video view (CPV) while 34% said cost per engagement (CPE) and 16% said cost per impression (CPI).
• In 2010, the majority of advertisers plan to spend their creative budget on interactive pre-roll (54%) as opposed to branded entertainment (20%), consumer content or webisodes (15%) or other forms of creative content (11%).

Visit AliVega.com for more Marketing Video ideas!



It was once considered feminine to be seen and not heard, but when it comes to having a truly integrated marketing campaigns, data shows that people remember 30% of what they see, 20% of what they hear, but an incredible 70% of what they see and hear. With news sources increasingly diversified by social media tools, It’s no surprise that video and viral video distribution via the web has become a “must have“ advertising tool for businesses of all kinds. Additionally, recent data reveals that women over 55, the same docile creatures who were raised on the old adage, are now the the fastest growing demographic using social media giant Facebook.

Thus, now more than ever, it’s lucrative to follow the advice of a contemporary feminist, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, who stated that “well behaved women seldom make history.” The old rules are out–along with the basic PSA–and new media is an integral element of getting your brand seen and your message acknowledged by target audiences.

Luckily, getting a professionally styled video that speaks to the needs of any generation is an affordable possibility at AliVega studios, where mixed-media master Alicia Eschwege customizes innovative video content, new media and images for DVD distribution, use online and, yes, even the golden oldie, print.

While YouTube’s announcement that they will start including ads in video comes as little surprise, there are already dozens of companies vying for a piece of the video advertising industry, which is expected to grow to $2.9 billion by 2010 according to eMarketer. Here is a look at 10 of the top players in the market, ranging from startups to some of the Web’s biggest companies.

BrightRoll offers both pre-roll (meaning ads before a video plays) and mid-roll (ads that take place between segments of a video) advertising and places ads based on contextual, behavioral and demographic targeting. To determine content, BrightRoll looks at information like tags and keyword profiles, while using data for its publishers from ComScore to create demographic-based campaigns. The company claims to be the fastest growing video advertising company with more than 800 million ads served.

YouTube’s approach to video advertising closely mirrors that of VideoEgg, who powers video uploads for major publishers like Bebo and AOL. VideoEgg uses what they call a “ticker” that shows a promotional banner within the video that can be clicked if a user wants to learn more about the product or service being advertised. In the example below, an ad is shown for the film SuperBad that when clicked shows a trailer for the movie. Ads are sold through the eggnetwork, a collection of VideoEgg’s largest publishers serving more than 15 million videos per day. The format is less-intrusive than pre-roll advertising since it doesn’t delay the actual video from running and is optional for the user.

AOL’s online advertising network, Advertising.com, now offers pre-roll video as well as in-banner video (video ads that display in conventional banner ad sizes such as 728×90). In-banner ads seem to be growing more common on content-heavy sites replacing traditional graphic-based banner ads. Most in-banner ads require a user to click them in order to play, but some more invasive ads start automatically. In the example below, a video ad is displayed in an article on investment site TheStreet.com.

http://video.advertising.com

Roo is a resource for web sites looking for video content, video producers distributing content, and advertisers that want to advertise via video. This works by Roo licensing video content and selling advertising across their network of sites that host it. Unlike several of its competitors, Roo gives web publishers control over the advertising, allowing you to sell your own ads in addition to those sold by Roo. Through its content channels (such as sports, music, etc.), Roo targets pre-roll advertising based on user interests and demographics.

ClipSyndicate is a video network comprising of web publishers, video content producers, and advertisers. Like Roo, ClipSyndicate licenses video content from a variety of sources and distributes it via a network of web sites. Web publishers then have the option to pay a fee to host videos and sell their own ads, or can do opt for a revenue share on the ads that ClipSyndicate sells for them. At this time, ClipSyndicate ads consist primarily of 15-second pre-roll video ads.

The massively funded BrightCove operates the BrightCove Syndication Marketplace which connects video producers, content web sites, and advertisers. The company offers several different advertising formats, including combined video commercial and banner ad, video overlay (a small ad that appears while the video is playing; similar to VideoEgg), or player takeover, where the sponsor’s ad occupies the entire video player and can either be clicked or skipped.

Broadband Enterprises is another online video network consisting of producers, publishers, and advertisers. The company claims more than 450 publishers including Fox News and Warner Brothers that deliver over 400 million monthly video streams. It appears the majority of the ads Broadband Enterprises sell are of the pre-roll variety.

The largest remaining independent ad network, ValueClick’s video ad program is currently in beta. ValueClick’s “In-stream” product displays pre and post-roll video ads, while also offering in-banner ads to place ads in traditional banner slots. In the example below, a post-roll ad for TaxBrain is shown, while the web site also makes use of ValueClick’s traditional banner network by placing a 728×90 TaxBrain ad at the top of the page.

AdBrite, which operates a marketplace for a wide variety of online advertising including text, banners, and in-line ads (those ads that turn words on a page into ads) recently launched InVideo, its own video player and ad network. The ads show up in “split screen” format so you can continue watching your video as the ad is displayed. InVideo also allows you to place your own watermark into the videos, a nice feature for branding your video content.

Adap.tv places a variety of ads through the video watching experience. While allowing you to have pre and post-roll video ads, adap.tv also attempts to analyze the content of the video to provide relevant text ads while the video is playing. In the example below, the video hosts are talking about the movie “The Prestige” and a text ad promoting the DVD is shown. ScanScout offers a similar technology.

The online video space continues to see a huge amount of venture capital pour in as the race is officially on to grab the market. While it’s unlikely anyone will catch the 800 gorilla of Gootube in terms of reach, “win-win” networks like VideoEgg and BrightCove are already attracting the publishers and advertisers necessary to create a viable marketplace and will help keep the industry competitive in the years to come.

Alicia Eschwege Attended the San Diego Ad Club’s An Evening with Alex Bogusky at the beautiful USD campus!

Alicia Eschwege at the Alex Bogusky Ad Club Event

Alex Bogusky and Greg Joumas

San Diego USD campus