AOL’s advertising division, Platform-A, developed the video ticker ads as an alternative to conventional pre-roll spots for online video…
In its ongoing effort to find an alternative to pre-roll video ads model that many viewers call annoying and marketers find ineffective, AOL recently announced plans to begin offering “video ticker ads,” a graphic banner ad that is integrated directly into streaming video content.
Advertisers and networks want to balance the placement of their video marketing with the likelihood such placement would not backfire by annoying the targeted audience. They have experimented with dropping ads before the video, after the video, and even in the middle like a typical TV commercial.
“Online video consumption is a fast growing consumer behavior and our new video ticker ads give advertisers a new and creative opportunity to reach consumers through this burgeoning medium,” said Platform-A President Curt Viebranz in a statement. Platform-A is the entity AOL created in September to consolidate the activities of its growing spate of advertising businesses.
AOL will venture where Google has traveled with its ads on YouTube. Through work with Gannett’s PointRoll and its TickerBoy technology, AOL’s video ticker ad is a graphic banner ad that is integrated within a streaming video, but without obstructing the video viewing experience.
Ten seconds into the video, a ticker ad will appears as a graphic banner in the bottom of the screen, enticing the viewer to click to learn more about the advertiser. If the viewer does not click after 15 seconds, the ticker ad disappears.
“When a viewer clicks on a video ad, it will expand within the video player’s window. Ads will be in video or an interactive Flash format, based on what the marketer created for the spot.”
“With these ads, advertisers can target users who are consuming video with a clickable video or an interactive Flash ad, creating a deeper, longer brand dialogue that is not passive.” “Other rudimentary overlay solutions exist, but ours is the only one that is fully interactive, offers such deep metrics and is backed by PointRoll’s technology, TickerBoy,” said Jason Tafler, Senior Vice President of Global Business Operations and Strategy for PointRoll.
“Already, TickerBoy is in exclusive company. Not only has AOL led the publisher/portal charge to adopt TickerBoy, this new video advertising solution will attract leading advertisers.”
“These ads will run across the AOL Network of premium video content within the newest version of the AOL Video media player platform.”
While the industry has been developing other “overlay” solutions to integrate banner ads adjacent to video content, AOL and PointRoll claimed their new ticker ads create a more interactive experience, enabling users to access advertising content while viewing video content.
AOL’s debut of the video ticker format comes as part of other new advertising options emerged. They include a newly revamped media player platform which introduces several new and improved features, including:
A single flexible experience: Sharing and social utilities – such as email, book-marking and related videos – are available from the player view port.
Multiple monetization options: New ad inventory includes 300×250 interstitials, video ticker ads and synched text ads;
A new user interface and development framework: The new UI streamlines the control set and improves customization options, while the new development framework simplifies adding new features.
Ticker ads come as one potential answer to the growing consensus among digital advertising insiders that pre-roll ads have emerged as the de facto industry standard format.
Ticker ads, then, might be considered AOL’s latest attempt to shed the former and embrace the latter, as it continues the effort to reposition itself as an advertising powerhouse and muscle into the party long-dominated by Google and Yahoo.