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What do prospective online video advertisers want from vendors – the publishers and ad technology companies that can help brands get in front of audiences?
That’s the question I posed to Julian Zilberbrand, SVP, Digital Director, Technology Activation Group Services, Starcom Mediavest Group.
Besides cheap rates, which agencies will always try to negotiate on behalf of their customers, advertisers want good technology, strong analytics, an audience, a safe environment, and a clear differentiator – what is unique about your solution that separates you from your competitors.
Oh, and know who your audience is when you walk in the door for a meeting. Show that you’ve taken the time to thoughtfully reflect on their brand prior to a meeting.
Advertisers are simple creatures. They evaluate ad solutions by whether they can solve a problem facing the advertiser, provide extra reach, a better level of reporting or a better direct response capability.
In the online video advertising space, most advertisers today are doing pre-roll ads because it’s easy for them to repurpose their existing 30 second TV spots for the Web. For advertisers to adopt innovative ad formats beyond the plain vanilla pre-mid-post-roll, they need to see a case for ROI.
When I pushed Julian to give some examples of ad types that have piqued his interest, he mentioned Interactive pre-roll ads as an ad type that provides a level of direct response to a branding initiative. As I noted in our conversation, advertisers, when submitting RFPs to vendors, always want their cake and to eat it too. They want branding AND direct response, often in the same campaign.
Innovative video advertising vendors that got a shout out from Julian include Innovid and Panache, both boasting interactive pre-roll capabilities.
Julian is a big fan of The Pool’s Ad Selector, whereby a viewer can choose which pre-roll ad they want to watch from a few options.
Engagement mechanisms, such as overlay, ticker, bug, or time spent with an ad, are important metrics to advertisers. A social response mechanism, such as sharing, is a nice feature too.
Ad Verification, while mostly used for display advertising, is coming to the video advertising world. So get ready to haggle over who pays for it. Starcom has worked with Ad Verification companies such as DoubleVerify, AdSafe Media, Adometry, and AdXpose, to verify that their brand customers are getting what they pay for, and is working with these same vendors to bring verification to the video advertising arena.
It was pointed out to me that Julian has a lengthy, impressive sounding title. Here’s what it translates to in plainer, albeit still jargony English:
Julian Zilberbrand oversees the implementation and reporting of digital campaigns for clients across the SMG network. In this role, he leads training on buying, planning, trafficking and billing tools for all digital staff, and manages digital and technology vendor relationships. In addition, Julian has helped lead and oversee the development of the Digital Mediabank platform throughout the entire Starcom MediaVest Group network.
