I've put up a post on my Lucid Media blog that may be of interest here. It is the rational for not placing ads within videos:
http://tinyurl.com/37s2ma or http://lucidmedia.cirne.com/index.php/2007/03/02/the-case-against-advertising-in-net-video/ Blog text follows: ================== Recently methods of advertising in video have become active in development and implementation. Originally when I heard the rational for Ads in net videos from Revver, I thought it worthwhile. Provide a method for people making video on the net to gain revenue from their work. This would support net videomakers continuing their work. There had been entries on the yahoo videoblogging group and on blogs for Ads targeted to the audience and content of the video. Similar to Google showing Ads that try to relate to keyword searches; an Ad for Harley motorcycles could appear on a videoblog entry about a weekend motorcycle hog excursion with friends. Unfortunately, specifying include an Ad in my video on Revver, blip.tv and others means you can have a powerful, emotive video on the relationship to one's father followed by a upbeat commercial for Juicy Fruit gum. Or a irreverent video of doing a prank on someone followed by a commercial for the Heart Association. Now this problem probably just relates to the technicality of specifying categories for the Ad's relationships to video content and the amount of different Ads available. With time the correlation of Ads to video content and the viewership should have stronger matching. The question is why have Ads in videos on distributed networks. Traditionally, on a television set broadcast a advertisement had to exist within the video stream. No other location was provided for placement. However on the internet an Ad does not need to be in the video. It can be anywhere around the video on the web page. Either top, left, right, bottom or lower down the page. Now video on the net does not mean just a web page. It can be an iPod, mobile phone, Tivo, or even projected in a theatre film festival. All of these non-website screens can and probably will develop methods of displaying more than just a video stream. A future iPod, mobile phone, digital TV and theatre projector will be able to show more than just the video. Like the Opera super- and sub-titles projected separately from the performance, these screens will probably eventually have dynamic separate information areas where Ads can appear. Further with the usage of different screen ratios than 4x3 (16x9, etc.), space can be made available around the video to place Ads. This puts advertising in the video stream, but does not directly break up the video continuity. Google proved the failure of putting ads directly in searches. Flash Ads that pop-up and dance up over the content of web-pages send people away from sites. And Ads that interrupt the video, even at the end, will be found to be ineffective. They will either drive people away from watching the videos if at the start or middle or tend to not be watched if at the end. Ads placed around the video will work since people can choose to pay attention to the periphery of a video if the ad relates to their interest or ignore that area. ================== -- Enric -======- http://www.cirne.com
