The High-Performance Content Catalog: INSIGHTS TO GET THERE
Media destinations are largely defined by what’s in their catalog of content, but what really matters is what audiences are actually watching. It’s an obvious statement that premium content commands top dollar because it drives more screen time. But what’s going on with the entirety of your offering? Title-specific analytics are crucial for valuating a program, but programmers and providers alike can really benefit from a more holistic view of how larger parts of their catalog are working for them (or not working, as the case may be).
Smarter decisions around content aren’t just about knowing what to buy and what to create. Understanding what audiences aren’t watching is as valuable as knowing what’s doing well. We’ve all experienced going to a service we use regularly and scrolling through suggested programs similar to ones we’ve previously viewed (or whatever content needs an ROI boost). After that it can seem like an exercise in diminishing returns, but most of us have dug deep into a programming guide only to find something fantastic that we didn’t even know was offered. With some better-informed merchandising or marketing moves, the entire catalog’s ability to create stickier audiences improves.
To provide these macro views across a wide spectrum of content engagement, Comcast Technology Solutions is introducing Insights – a new service to give companies a holistic view into the overall health of their content catalog.
INSIGHTS: SOME NEEDED CONTEXT FOR YOUR CONTENT
“Insights is a new service that is focused specifically on business impact,’” explains Peter Gibson, Executive Director of Product Management for Comcast Technology Solutions. “So, it’s less about the number of times a viewer streamed a piece of content, or how quality is impacting playback, but more about how your content is tracking with audiences as a whole.” Insights provides answers to questions like:
Are audiences watching what you think they’re watching?
What’s getting binge-watched? And for how long per session?
Have you become a viewing habit for your audience?
Combining both historical and a daily view of the actual content consumption by your audience, practical decisions can be made based more on real-world context, with less conjecture. For example, perhaps you’ve been purchasing a lot of dramatic programming, but your audience is watching a lot of comedy. Insights can help to provide clarity where parts of your catalog might be underutilized due to lack of discovery, which might spur some additional advertising or some new merchandising decisions. Or, it might show that content creation and acquisition dollars could be reassessed based on the holistic impact they’re having on audience engagement and retention.
HOW INSIGHTS WORKS
Insights is a new feature within Comcast Technology Solutions’ Cloud Video Platform. Information is collected on the server side, which translates into minimal client-side implementation work to get Insights up and running. Once it’s up and running, Insights combines historical data with current performance measurements to provide context over time. The Insights dashboards include a wealth of data not normally found within analytics solutions. Among the multitude of benefits:
Binge Tracking
Understand how much audiences are watching in one session, and for what period of time. Clearly we ALL want to encourage binge-watching. Insights provides some needed clarity around not just which shows are finding their audience, but also how those audiences are watching with tools like Device and Content Insights.
Measuring Engagement
How much do audiences really like your service? Are audiences coming back actively and consistently (a sticky, engaged viewer), or is it just something that they’re getting billed for (a high churn risk)? Engagement measurement can lead to opportunities to re-jigger marketing strategy or direct outreach / offers to viewers.
Attention Indexing
Attention Indexing looks at your entire catalog to see how audiences are really watching. For instance, a new show might get a lot of play, but . . . .is it getting played in its entirety? Or are folks tuning in to a longer movie and only playing part of it. Catalog insights might determine that folks are clicking on content because it’s merchandised, but they don’t stick with it to completion. Lots of starts with low completion rates…that’s a problem that most out-of-the-box analytics tools aren’t designed to illuminate.
MACRO-LEVEL UNDERSTANDING FROM DAY ONE
“Insights can immediately help you make content catalog merchandising, marketing, and policy decisions with data based on your historical video activity,” explains Gibson, “Plus, you can easily add it to your existing analytics solutions if needed.” In the space between how you want your content to be used and the reality of your audience’s behaviors, Insights gives you an added layer of business intelligence that brings you to a deeper understanding.
Learn more about Insights, our CTSuite for Content and Streaming Providers, and our CTSuite for MVPDs and Operators.
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Ad Management for Political Campaigns
As the calendar slips into the start of a new decade, the 2020s are poised to roar for advertisers ahead of one of the most anticipated U.S. election seasons in memory.
Need proof? Check out what the industry experts are predicting. Kantar Media forecasts political campaigns for U.S. federal office will spend $6 billion on paid media placements this year. Broadcast is projected to take in $3.2 billion and cable $1.2 billion, according to the Kantar study. The study did not include ads sponsored by Political Action Committees (PACs).
Of the $6 billion in political campaign spending this cycle, Kantar expects 20%, or $1.2 billion, to go to digital.
According to Cross Screen Media, there could be eight million broadcast airings of political ads in 2020, an increase from 5.5 million in 2018. A lot of the political ads will air on local newscasts. According to a report from Kantar CMAG, political advertising took up 43% of available slots on local news in battleground markets, compared to just 10% at the start of the season.
EMarketer estimates US advertisers will spend $42.58 billion on digital video placements overall, amounting to 28.1% of digital ad spending. Most of those placements will be bought programmatically, with 82 % of US digital video ad spending forecast to be transacted in automated channels next year.
Why are experts predicting such large advertising spends this season? In addition to a banner ad year, experts are also expecting a tremendous voter turnout.
Turnout in 2018 was the highest it had been for a midterm election since 1914, according to University of Florida political science professor Michael McDonald, a nationally recognized elections expert who maintains the voter data site United States Election Project. Next year, he predicts, 65%-66% of eligible voters will turn out, the highest since 1908, when turnout was 65.7%.
For political advertisers to capitalize on their advertising opportunities and reach voters at the right time and right place, they need a campaign built on speed, mobility, quality, reliability and scale. To stay ahead of the polls and make an impact fast, you need to get your message to voters faster, at higher quality, without worries and hassles.
“Video advertising is essential to modern political campaigns, helping to build awareness of both candidates and issues. Fast, efficient placement of broadcast-quality advertisements is essential for a high-functioning campaign,” said Richard Nunn, Vice President and General Manager of the Ad Platform at Comcast Technology Solutions.
The CTSuite offers a advertisers a new solution for political clients designed to get their message to potential voters quickly, and across more touchpoints than ever before.
Manage campaigns, ad spots, payments, closed-captioning, versioning and distribution all from a mobile platform “on-the-go". Fully transparent order entry and management provide views into the lifecycle of spots from upload to final delivery.
Cast your vote for efficiency...
and learn more about ad delivery with the mobility and scope to keep pace with your passion.
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Why mobile should drive your CDN strategy
A strong relationship between content creator and consumer is built on reliable, consistent, playback experiences. Don’t leave your customers stranded without the connection they need to the content they love. A global world demands consumers have universal access where, and when, they want it.
According to eMarketer, 75% of all video plays are now on mobile devices. Mobile video traffic accounts for two-thirds (63%) of all mobile data traffic, and will grow to account for nearly four-fifths (79%) of all mobile data traffic by 2022 – representing a 9X increase since 2017, according to a 2019 report by Cisco. By 2022, Cisco projects that: mobile will represent 20% of total IP traffic. The number of mobile-connected devices per capita will reach 1.5. The average global smartphone connection speed will surpass 40 Mbps ad, Smartphones will surpass 90% of mobile data traffic.
In fact, consumers in the United States spend nearly as much time watching videos as they do working, nearly 40 hours per week, according to Deloitte.
As viewing experiences become increasingly mobile, the importance of delivering content seamlessly across vast geographic landscapes is paramount. Content creators must ask if their CDN is smart enough to always chart the shortest, cleanest, most efficient, and highest-quality pathway to every screen?
Meet your audience where they are with a multi-CDN strategy
Depending on the content delivery strategy utilized by the creator, consumers may, or may not, be able to enjoy the highest-quality viewing experiences.
Today, more video content is being watched than ever before, with 85% of all internet users in the U.S. watching online video content monthly on their device of choice (Statista, 2018). The global video streaming market is estimated to be worth $124.57 billion by 2025, according to Market Watch.
Speed alone will not ensure your content gets to where it needs to as quick as possible. The edge-tier of every CDN provides points of presence (PoPs), where your audience and your content interact. By employing the use of more than one CDN, you get more PoPs for your programming. Additional CDNs can widen your delivery footprint and allow you to serve customers from many more locations and over different network routes – this is especially true when attempting to deliver content to a global audience.
The variability of performance is another reason to utilize a multi-CDN strategy. Individual CDNs vary in their performance across different locations, network, and time of day. No single CDN can perform well in every area of the world. Quality of experience will differ depending on their proximity to points of presence, as well as capacity and utilization.
A multi-CDN media delivery strategy ensures downloads are seamless and downtime is not a concern, no matter your location or device.
Preparing for tomorrow today
Today, content is created for global audiences. According to YouTube, 80% of users come from outside the U.S., and YouTube services 88 countries in 76 languages, or 95% of all internet users.
Ericsson’s November 2018 Mobility Report, predicts video traffic to grow 35% annually through 2024—increasing from 27 exabytes per month in 2018 to 136EB in 2024. This means video’s share of global mobile traffic will rise to 74% from 60% today.
As content creators look toward the future, how and where consumers view their creative will occupy increasing levels of mindshare when devising delivery network strategies.
Avoid the additional resources required to manage multiple partners independently, and leverage Comcast’s multi-CDN fabric to deliver your broadcast quality content to any device. Take advantage of the Comcast CDN and other pure-play CDNs using DLVR multi-CDN routing technology with direct interconnects to more than 250 global networks.
Learn more about our CDN Suite of services
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Harness the full capabilities of the marketplace with advertising automation
Today, brands debate whether to prioritize broadcast or digital video channels in their advertising campaigns. But why choose? A blended, multichannel, strategy can increase ROI by as much as 35%, according to the Advertising Research Foundation.
However, according to a survey by 4C and Advertiser Perceptions, lack of full-funnel visibility and control, led half of marketers interviewed to say the inability to plan media seamlessly across platforms is a top challenge.
A typical Fortune 500 advertiser currently cobbles together solutions from dozens, or even hundreds, of media sources, technology partners and data providers. As a result, it’s nearly impossible to get a full picture of the media supply chain from ad creation to delivery.
While ads may still reach the end user, inefficiencies built into these workflows create costly redundancies and time-consuming manual processes, hindering an advertiser’s ability to take full advantage of the sophisticated targeting capabilities now available.
“To the outside world, yes, ads still get to their end user,” said Richard Nunn, VP and General Manager of Advertising at Comcast Technology Solutions. “It isn’t broken in its entirety. It works, and it has worked for 70 years. But the reality is that it doesn’t work well enough. The process should be faster, more seamless, more cost effective and free of errors.”
Create at the speed of automation
In the past it could take weeks and millions of dollars to manually create hundreds of video ad versions - matching creative with audience-level targeting. Today, advertisers can create hundreds of ad versions in under 60 seconds. Why is this necessary?
Technology is evolving to provide advertisers with ways to better understand viewers contextually and respond not just by serving up ads for more relevant products, but also to tailor the ads themselves to elicit more positive buyer behavior and support a better viewer experience.
“Being able to match targeting to creative execution on the fly is really the holy grail of marketing,” Nunn said. “It gives consumers the personalized experiences they’ve shown they want to engage with, and it reduces the complexity of execution by removing many of the manual interventions that were slowing advertisers down.”
Technologies like dynamic creative optimization (“DCO”) hold the promise to a new generation of more personalized ad service – a win-win for audiences and advertisers alike. But in order to fully realize this dream, advertisers need more than a DCO solution.
They also need to adopt more a unified approach to enable faster, more seamless management of creative, media buy and distribution. Many advertisers and their agency partners still rely on emails, spreadsheets and individual vendor platforms to communicate media and creative availability, delivery and reporting. A centralized, automated ad-management tool where media buys are identified, filled and tracked is an essential component to sophisticated ad targeting and versioning, allowing personalized spots to be delivered in minutes, not days.
“This isn’t the silver bullet, but it solves one of the big underlying problems – automation and trying to connect the dots in this world of converged channels and formats,” Nunn said.
Bringing together many of these “dots” – including distribution, creative customization and reporting – in one management tool helps restore advertiser control over an increasingly fragmented process. It empowers advertisers and brands to deliver near-real time customization to satisfy consumer expectations and drives measurable results.
Comcast Technology Solutions is reimagining the ad management and ad versioning processes by introducing automation – helping advertisers generate customized ad creative capable of driving a measurable increase in ROI.
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Unique new ways to maximize classic VOD content
What’s old could be new again.
From music and fashion to television and movies, culture and content have a way of coming back around and finding new audiences — especially in an age where your new favorite (and long ago canceled) show is only a click away.
“Your 13-year-old may discover a TV series from the 80s like Knight Rider, or Miami Vice, and fall in love with it,” Comcast Technology Solutions Matt Smith said. “There are countless shows sitting out there that could provide value.”
Across the globe, there are huge back catalogs of videos and shows without an opportunity to shine. With the right technology, your favorite old show could find a new audience and help drive new revenue.
Today, 78% of people watch online videos every week, and 55% view online videos every day, HubSpot reports. Video is expected to make up 82% of internet traffic by 2021, according to Cisco, and content providers are searching for the next classic show to crossover to a new generation.
In the most eye-catching example, WarnerMedia paid a reported $425 million over five years to get Warner Bros. Television’s “Friends” away from Netflix, and now plans to offer it on its streaming service HBO Max, set to launch in spring 2020.
However, using library content to build a new platform isn’t a recent phenomenon. When cable channels first began to take off in large numbers during 1980s and ’90s, retired broadcast network series served as their lifeblood. “The Andy Griffith Show,” the biggest hit sitcom of the 1960s, was among the most popular shows on TBS, and reruns of NBC’s procedural crime drama “Law & Order” turned A&E into a viewer destination, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Grow and curate your audience
By 2020 there will be close to 1 million minutes of video crossing the internet per second, and by 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic — 15 times higher than it was in 2017, according to Cisco .
With the Virtual Channels platform from Comcast Technology Solutions, you can grow an existing fan base — or create one from scratch — by pulling complementary content together into seamless experiences that like-minded viewers will keep watching. Launch a brand that is truly fan-centric. Or, aim for a particular demographic with crowd-pleasing programming.
Discover a new way to turn existing on-demand and live programming into a linear “always-on” over-the-top digital experiences. Stitch together a curated programming, and schedule and serve it to audiences seamlessly.
So, break out your pastel T-shirts and linen suits. Get your black Ferrari convertibles revved up. And, put on your favorite pair of Ray-Bans. There’s enough neon, and potential syndication gold, out there to bring in additional ROI like it’s 1984.
Learn more about how Comcast Technology Solutions makes it easier, and more affordable than ever, to add choice, value, and revenue to your video offerings.
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CDN: Media Delivery for Gaming and Virtual Reality
Developers spend years crafting the newest games. When the next big release date comes, the last thing creators and consumers want are slow speeds and long download times.
Worldwide online gaming traffic reached 915 petabytes per month in 2016 and is expected to increase by 79% in 2019, according to Cisco Systems. As the scale of online traffic grows, the need for delivery networks to carry the content does as well. The Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) forecasts a 36% compound annual growth rate in Content Delivery Network (CDN) traffic per month from 2017 to 2022. As file sizes grow exponentially, the need for CDNs to provide continuous, reliable and fast access become ever more critical. The number of end-users downloading content is also expanding quickly, making localized delivery that much more important as geographical demographics expands.
In addition, the appetite for gaming is expanding to eSports, virtual reality, and other new forms of media and entertainment, changing the way many think about these offerings. According to a 2018 survey by the Entertainment Software Association, 79% of gamers report video games provide mental stimulation, as well as relaxation and stress relief (78%). The role of video games in the American family is also changing, with 74% of parents believing they can be educational for children, and 57% indicating they enjoy playing with their child weekly.
The economics of eSports and VR
Esports is already big business. Thanks to advertising, sponsorship and media rights, eSports revenue is expected to reach $1.49 billion by 2020, according to Newzoo, a gaming industry analytics firm. North America will generate $409 million in 2019, the most of any region, the report found. China will generate 19% and South Korea 6%, with the rest of the world comprising the remaining 38%.
In July 2019, 16-year-old Kyle 'Bugha' Giersdorf, from Pennsylvania, was crowned king of Fortnite and took home the $3-million-dollar grand prize. The tournament, held in New York's Arthur Ashe tennis stadium, had a total payout for all levels and ranks of $30 million dollars.
Earlier this year Comcast announced it would be building a $50 million eSports stadium in Philadelphia, and would be partnering with Korean phone company SK Telecom to create an new eSports organization called T1 Entertainment & Sports, which will field teams in a number of different video games, including League of Legends, Fortnite, and Super Smash Brothers.
The global VR gaming market is expected to be worth $22.9 billion by the end of 2020, according to Statista. VR is expected to generate $150 billion in revenue by 2020, according to Fortune, and 500 million VR headsets are expected to be sold by 2025, according to Piper Jaffrey.
When the true VR tipping point comes is the object of much speculation, but one way it could penetrate the consumer market more deeply is by starting with public venues that allow users feel comfortable with the technology. A recent article in Variety discussed how Las Vegas is transforming into a kind of virtual reality hub, with VR arcades and location-based VR entertainment centers opening up in casinos and shopping centers. One of the first casinos to embrace VR was the MGM Grand, which opened a free-roam VR arena in cooperation with VR startup Zero Latency in September of 2017.
A 4K video can consume up to 10 GB of data per hour. A 4K VR experience will require several times that bandwidth. While transporting vast amounts of data, VR content providers, like game developers, need to solve the challenges of latency, quality and speed.
CDN, interactivity, and media delivery
The streaming of interactive content like games and VR differs from video streaming in one major way. While video streaming is a one-way delivery from servers to your device, games and VR are a two-way street. Every time a button is pressed, the signal must travel to the server where the experience is being run. Then, the signal from the server has to go back to represent the result of pressing the button.
A multi-CDN media delivery strategy ensures this process is seamless and downtime is not a concern. If one server goes down, the next is ready to compensate and deliver cached content to those users by caching content nearest to your destination. This improves performance and reduces errors by offloading bandwidth from the origin.
The more servers, the better the odds a consumer is going to get the highest-quality speeds without lag.
Thanks to this two-way street, viewers and gamers can provide feedback in real time, join interactive events that coincide with live media, and unlock rewards within content.
While interactivity might have started in gaming, the tactic will likely carry over into nearly every kind of media audience. The interactivity of advanced advertising, where viewers can feed back in real time, or possibly join an interactive event, becomes increasingly attractive.
A 2017 report from Magna found interactive video ads drive 47% more time viewing a message compared to a non-interactive ad. Even if viewers don’t click, simply having the option to interact makes the ad 32% more memorable than non-interactive ads, the report found.
Learn more about how Comcast Technology Solutions global media delivery innovations can help reimagine your strategy, and prepare your business for what comes next.
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Q&A with Allison Olien: How today’s opportunities can be tomorrow’s foundation for MVPDs
Allison Olien, Vice President and General Manager for Comcast Technology Solutions, collaborates with MVPDs and Content Providers to introduce the newest, most innovative offerings. She took some time to chat with us about how she sees the evolution of the industry for small and medium sized MVPDs, and new opportunities for growth.
Many small and midsized MVPDs are finding new success with non-video offerings like internet. How do you see the landscape of the industry changing for your customers?
Even if you live in a rural town, you have a choice for internet. You may not have three or four, but you have a choice. This is where the MVPDs are investing their money, and I would say they have to continue to invest in their non-video offerings, because it’s the conduit to so many entertainment choices for their customers.
Some entertainment options they’ll be able to offer, and some they won’t, but operators don’t want customers leaving them because they don’t offer enough speed to power those experiences. Customers are going to want more and more bandwidth, and will pay for it.
With increasing percentages of customers in small and medium-sized MVPD markets showing interest in offerings like premium broadband connectivity and business services, how can operators take advantage of these growth areas?
MVPDs should see themselves as technology providers. Be more of an advisor and a technical resource for businesses and the larger users of broadband. They can be the customer’s first choice for all of their data and connectivity needs.
In addition, offerings like telephone, streaming video and home security can serve as new revenue opportunities. There are more and more connected devices, especially businesses where they have increasing numbers of sensors, monitors and security related necessities—all of those are internet driven. MVPDs will increasingly shift their focus to being “always on” and taking care of their networks.
How do MVPDs find a balance between continuing to serve existing customers and exploring new opportunities?
Balance is always hard to achieve, but I would say continue to grow your network at a reasonable pace, protecting it as well as growing it, and also looking for internet-based services and opportunities with local partners who can offer something to the customer you may not be able to—home security for example.
Expand reach within your communities, and find out what your local communities are really looking for.
Some MVPDs are finding success by adopting app-based approaches and offering access to streaming services. How do operators continue to increase offerings and methods of access to provide the experiences their customers are asking for?
When you’re talking about the app-based approach and incorporating streaming services, I like to think about it like this—you put all of the different stores in one mall for a reason. Even though they are all competing against each other, it’s a lot more convenient for the customer. You don’t have to go into every store in the mall, but the one time you want to, you can. This is becoming increasingly popular strategy.
MVPDs may need to take a long-term view of a growing audience. It’s about evaluating current investments and making sure you maximize them. Sometimes, this means waiting for the right time to add new technology to existing offerings. The goal is to maintain your identity with the customer and make sure they keep you top of mind.
How does Comcast Technology Solutions serve as a trusted partner for MVPDs as they explore these new technologies, business models, and revenue streams?
Comcast Technology Solutions continues to offer the services powering operators’ existing infrastructure, and looking at how we can incorporate the new technologies that will power their next endeavor.
As we introduce new ways to offer IP-based technologies, we’ll continue to look for paths for our partners to stay within their business model and invest as they grow.
Learn more about the services we provide to MVPDs.
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Self-Service Advertising: Reimagining advertising in the U.S.
Self-service advertising models are bringing transparency, control and efficiency to the forefront of the international market. While here in the United States, we typically opt for managed-solutions – a distinction changing fast due to the rise in self-serve digital platforms.
Running campaigns through fully-managed platforms puts the responsibility and control in the hands of a third party. Someone else uploads creative, makes changes or optimizations, and sends back insights. For those with limited time or resources, this can be the right option.
However, for those with the appetite, a self-service advertising platform capable of navigating an entire campaign lifecycle, from planning to execution and reporting, presents major benefits.
We’ve seen the use of self-service advertising platforms for demand and supply-side platforms increase as knowledge and expertise has increased. Agencies and brands now directly use these platforms to deploy and manage advertising spend and activity.
Why Self-Service?
The self-service model empowers advertisers to create and change assets quickly, deliver ads in near-real time, and take control of campaign workflows from start to finish. By limiting the number of hands touching any given campaign, self-service offers increased brand safety, as well as deeper insight into each part of the workflow.
For agencies, manually executing campaigns and working with each advertiser individually can be costly. Automating the process cuts down on time and resources. In addition, self-service can help build links between media agencies, post houses, creative agencies and clients as they work together in a shared platform.
In 2017, IAB commented on the rising trend of self-service models in their annual Internet Advertising Revenue Report saying, “of the roughly 9 million small and medium-sized businesses in the U.S., 75% or more have spent money on advertising. Of these, 80% have used self-service platforms, and 15% have leveraged programmatic advertising. These findings point to significant ad spend going to publishers with these capabilities, and presents a growth opportunity for those that can add self-service and programmatic geared to these businesses into the mix.”
Barriers to Change
I hosted a February 2019 IAB panel discussing how self-service can help solve the complexity of disparate workflows. Peach, an advertising partner of Comcast Technology Solutions, delivers millions of ads every year to more than 100 countries internationally, where the adoption rates for self-service are the opposite of what we see in the U.S.
“We’re up at 98% self-service. So, pretty much everything is self-service internationally,” Peach Head of Enterprise Sales Alex Abrams said during the panel discussion. “In the States, it’s probably 98% managed-service. It creates inefficiencies and barriers to move into 24/7 automation.”
Peach transitioned from managed-service to self-service about four years ago, when automated workflows and technology made it possible at scale. The U.S. market has been more reluctant.
Owning the workflow
Justin Morgan, Senior Director of Marketing Automation at Comcast, described the impetus for a self-service approach, expressing the market’s desire to create efficiencies by having control over each portion of the workflow.
“I think there is a wave of companies wanting to own their data. Own some production elements. Own really anything they can,” Morgan said during the panel discussion. “Put simply, I can either give direction to a company to put something in implicitly, or I can just put it into the system myself. Obviously, the latter is more efficient and faster, and probably cheaper.”
“We should have all of that at our fingertips. So, from that perspective, everything we are doing now is really to move toward a self-service model,” Morgan said.
The evolution toward self-service may be daunting to some, but there has never been a better time to rethink your strategy.
According to the most recent IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report, digital video advertising revenue reached $7 billion in the first half of 2018, up 35% from the previous year. Cisco estimates by 2021, 80% of all the world’s internet traffic will be video.
In addition, research from Digital Content NewFronts’ 2019 Video Ad Spend Report showed brands expected, on average, to increase spend by 25 percent to $18 million on digital video in 2019—with nearly two-thirds (59%) of ad buyers saying they planed to increase their advanced TV spend.
The U.S. market is poised to reap the benefits of a model designed to reduce complexity and cost while optimizing the revenue potential of each piece of content.
Global trends toward reducing inefficiencies, enabling automation, and taking control of each part of the workflow are indicators of the growing domestic opportunity for these services and for self-service advertising solutions.
Learn more about how Comcast Technology Solutions self-service innovations can reinvent your advertising workflow.
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Three industry terms to refresh and evolve in 2019
We’re well into the new year. The months ahead will be filled with messages of innovation, disruption, and . . . . well, monetization. It was actually the word “monetization” here in our office that sparked talk about some of the most overused terms in our industry. Monetization is certainly not a term that’s in danger of being phased out. In fact, it’s going to be even more prominent as business models and audiences evolve. That said, it did start a fun conversation about some of the terms and phrases getting pretty long in the tooth around.
With Q1 almost in the rear-view mirror, we’re reflecting on all of the new innovations and opportunities surfacing across the video ecosystem. While we operate today with a host of relevant buzzterms like hybridity (more on that below), or converged workflows (linear, non-linear, digital, broadcast), here are some of our picks for terms in serious need of an upgrade:
THE OBVIOUSLY “FRAGMENTED AUDIENCE”
2008 called – it wants its market insights back. We all get it: today’s audiences are connecting with content in multiple ways, over countless device types, platforms, and services (oh my!). We’re far enough past the early days of streaming adoption that there are plenty of industry professionals out there who have not only spent their entire adult lives as multi-screen, multi-platform content consumers, but their entire careers have taken place within a multi-platform delivery ecosystem. To have a conversation about modern video delivery is to accept as a given every audience can be broken out by how they watch, where they watch, and when they watch. The real conversation isn’t about a new phenomenon of audience fragmentation to be mindful of, but more about serving media accurately and more effectively under any circumstance. It’s about keeping the audience engaged no matter the device through a great experience – whether the experience hinges on quality, discoverability, share-ability, or, let’s be honest, price.
ARE WE OVER “OVER THE TOP” YET?
Can we let this one go yet? Of course not. It’s now the de facto way to describe digital delivery as opposed to broadcast. This doesn’t change the fact today’s market is no longer as cut-and-dry as subscriber services vs. over-the-top of subscriber services. It made more sense when serving content “over the top” of other subscriber services sounded revolutionary—because it was. Now that delivering media over the internet is standard operating procedure, it begs the question “over the top of what?” Digital delivery isn’t going over, under, or around anything – and in reality, digital delivery is often going with something else. The obstacles now between you and your audience (other than catching attention to begin with) are technical challenges like latency, metadata management, file size, formatting, hi-def quality demands, etc. So, if we’re stuck with OTT as a term that now means more than it used to, let’s at least agree we’re well into OTT 2.0: an age of mature digital delivery that enhances discoverability, personalizes commerce strategies, and merges broadcast and digital workflows to intelligently evolve along with consumer devices and habits.
ABOUT THAT “MONETIZATION” WORD AGAIN. . .
It’s the word that started the conversation, so it seems apt to wrap with it as well. Looking back at my list, I’m seeing some commonalities: terms we can’t escape, we repeat a thousand times a day, and that’s true meanings continue to evolve. According to Merriam-Webster, monetization as a term was “coined” (I know, bad pun) circa 1879, at which point it literally meant “to establish as legal tender.” It’s of course expanded to mean “extract revenue from,” but the deeper meaning in our industry is much more than the static act of putting a price tag on a program. Hybridity of your monetization strategy is more than just blending subscriber or ad-based approaches. To extract the most value out of content requires context – not just within the relationship that exists with each viewer, but also the relationship of each piece of content with what’s going on in the world, and the ability to pivot accordingly and intelligently.
I should probably add a disclaimer: none of these terms are going away any time soon. We’re sure to be applying each for the foreseeable future. For those of us who eat, sleep, talk, write, and work with these words on a daily basis, we’re always looking for the next great term to repeat into ubiquity. Got any suggestions?
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The State of Digital Transformation in 2019
In 2017, we started off the year talking about the convergence of digital and broadcast workflows. It was inevitable: by bringing the consistent quality and process maturity of broadcast with the agility, reach, and monetization capabilities of digital, companies are creating, as we said at the time, a new ecosystem of win-win scenarios. In truth, it’s really a win-win-win, as consumer choice – and power – have only increased the benefits at the individual viewer level.
2018 saw the acceleration of change in pretty much every measurable way. The capability of viewing devices, from folding mobile screens to gargantuan “wallpaper” in-home displays, continues to drive consumer quality expectations. At the same time, advances in video management and delivery continue to find creative ways to exceed those expectations by wrapping broadcast-quality reliability into first-rate experiences and personalized, hybrid business models that remain relevant to consumers daily.
Our initial partnership with research and strategy company MTM resulted in our first TV Futures Initiative – an international effort to identify the trends that are shaping the relationships between content, consumer, creators, and providers. For 2019, we’ve again partnered with MTM, along with FreeWheel (also a Comcast company) to produce the new research paper, 2019 TV Futures Initiative: Digital Transformation – A Framework for Success.
A FRAMEWORK FOR MEASURING AND TRACKING INDUSTRY EVOLUTION
One of our primary goals in creating this paper was to help media companies with a structured way to strategize and self-analyze in a rapidly changing market. The digital transformation framework we identify consists of six key areas to consider and prioritize:
Content: It’s not exactly a secret that job one of every media destination is to offer content that’s relevant and valuable to consumers. The proliferation of standalone and subscriber services creating original top-quality content has blown the competitive landscape wide open, but it’s more than just the popularity of a program – it’s also about the quality and variety of presentation. Broadcasters and providers are adding value through new streaming services and content partnerships that build audience engagement. UHD programming continues its rise, and while emerging technologies like 360 video and VR/AR might not earn a place on your roadmap today, they are increasingly worth exploring.
Products: How are you bringing your content to market? It’s important to take a hard look at how content is bundled and packaged, and how those decisions play out across platforms, devices, and regions. “Know thy audience” must be a mantra for providers to be heard above the noise of a crowded market, so any learnings about consumer behavior and response needs to be turned into actionable and agile planning.
Delivery: The consumer-facing demands of right now, any-device excellence put tremendous pressure to perform on infrastructure and processes, requiring new ways to eliminate outdated and disparate workflows in favor of a more unified delivery model that can keep up. Content, especially high-demand content, needs to be delivered seamlessly to multiple linear and non-linear destinations seamlessly, with a close eye on security. Protection of content is a serious concern for live programming (like premiere sporting events) as well as on-demand services, and in today’s environment it’s incumbent on each provider to ensure that the value of their assets aren’t compromised.
Customer Management: The importance of cultivating a healthy transactional relationship with consumers cannot be overstated. Direct-to-consumer business models provide unprecedented control, but like the saying goes, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Consumers expect easy, intuitive support as part of their relationship, and companies are building audience relationships that are longer and stronger by meeting folks on their terms – with tailored payment solutions and incentives for customers who bring more people to the brand. Technically, even an ad-supported service is transactional in nature, because consumers are being asked to watch messaging that paid for some eye-share on a program or stream. Informed focus on the customer experience is the only way to find and follow the north star for each brand.
Sales and Monetization: The word that rules our world here is Hybridity. The market continues to shift and grow. Monetization takes on an even deeper sense of urgency when it’s costly to produce. Incorporating an advertising component into a subscriber service, offering specific content as a standalone purchase, tailoring offers based on individual consumer habits – they’re all dynamic ways to maximize the revenue potential of content so long as the underlying technology and management processes can support it.
Technology and Operations: The common thread that runs across every point in the transformation framework is how companies are leveraging new technologies and techniques to close the gap between content and consumer. New approaches may supplant or augment existing components of your workflow, technology changes need to be prioritized, and analyzing the impact of how these advancements will impact the skillsets needed by your team are all considerations (side note: we published a white paper that introduced a different framework for this point alone, called Media Technology and Lifecycle Management).
GET THE RESEARCH
The 2019 TV Futures Initiative research paper illustrates the above points in greater detail, and provides a handful of case studies from companies that are applying these tenets to transform their operations and succeed with consumers globally. You are invited to download the paper for yourself as a tool to:
Gain insights into key digital trends from each of the above points
Better understand the challenges and opportunities ahead
Learn from firsthand experience of other companies
Apply this format to your own internal assessments
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The “Retro Look” For All The Wrong Reasons
The sheer quantity of quality video out there makes it a fantastic time to be an advertiser or agency. So many new devices, new audiences… the possibilities are literally becoming endless. Here’s the thing though: be it live streaming, linear, on-demand, broadcast, you name it – consumers are increasingly savvy about how premium video should look and sound like. Audiences are being trained every day to expect “the good stuff” from every device, and ad quality doesn’t get a free pass. In fact, it’s even more important: seen amidst a crisp, clear, high-definition program, a poor-quality ad looks even worse. When an ad break shifts from an HD or UHD program over to a commercial with quality that feels like a ’70’s sitcom, it can directly impact consumer perception and, in turn, campaign performance.
YOUR ADS ARE BEING PLAYED ON BETTER SCREENS
Let’s focus for a moment on in-home screens and living-room entertainment to see how fast consumers are jumping on the high-def train: Do you remember way back when (oh, a couple of years or so ago), when the price for a 4K screen averaged thousands of dollars and comprised just a small piece of the market?
According to Digital Tech Consulting, 4K TV’s cost around $900 today on average, down from an average of $4,000 just five years ago.
The Consumer Technology Association predicts that 4K Ultra-High Def (UHD) screens will be in 41 percent of U.S. homes by the end of 2019. That’s up from sixteen percent just two years ago.
Throw in the ubiquity of powerful mobile devices with fantastic display technology and you’ve got a global audience that experiences more than ever when an ad is pixelated, if the sound level is out of whack with the rest of the program, or any other technical issue that comes between their screen time and your intended brand message.
AD QUALITY IS FOUNDATIONAL TO BRAND SAFETY
We sat down with Richard Nunn, Comcast Technology Solutions’ new Vice President and General Manager, Ad Suite, for a short Q&A session about where the advertising industry was headed. The quality question was certainly part of the discussion.
“The quality issue for both broadcasters and advertisers is a problem, and it’s a challenge across the industry,” Nunn said. “If you break it down, I think the first point is the fragmentation of channels that are out there, different (file) sizes and formats is a major problem for the buy side. They have to create multiple assets of varying sizes that they’ve never had to do before, ten times what they’ve ever done before.”
The advertising industry has always understood the end-user experience as crucial to the ad-supported programming model. From a brand safety standpoint, we spend a lot of time and energy working to improve brand safety for the advertiser, especially in a more automated ad buying and selling environment. It’s a major concern – ensuring that ads are delivered only to brand-safe environments is certainly a foundation of a successful ad strategy. But even in a situation where an ad suite has built “destination confidence” with advertisers, protection for the user experience – in the form of ad quality that’s commensurate with programming quality – is as important as ever.
HOW TO WIN IN 2019 AND BEYOND
Live streaming is an increasingly important and attractive market for a campaign to tap into, but users are more quality-sensitive than ever. As reported by Broadcasting and Cable, a new report from Conviva provides advertisers and agencies with some neon signposts about where live streaming is headed, and what success looks like:
Not only were global viewing hours of streaming video up by 89% last year, but in fourth quarter alone the increase was a whopping 165% over 2017.
Likewise, video plays were up 74% for the year, and 143% for fourth quarter.
At the same time, consumers are leaving poor experiences in greater numbers:
There was an increase in the abandon rate in 2018: Conviva reports that 15.6% of potential consumers quit a video due to problems with the experience. In the previous year, the abandon rate was more like 8-9%.
For live-streamed content, 16.7% of viewers quit poor experiences, which is up from 11.2%.
Other video destinations, such as vMVPDs or connected TVs, also experienced increases in abandon rates, albeit smaller (up about 2%)
The takeaways? Dodgy spot quality just won’t cut it anymore. It’s important to note that the consumer’s perception of quality is formed from an aggregation of everything that happens prior to the actual viewing experience. With that in mind, brand safety is really a shared goal between an advertisement and the program that hosts it. Poor quality from either side can – and does – have a detrimental effect on the other.
Video consumption habits continue to increase, evolve, and change. Consumers have more ways than ever to enjoy video, they’re smarter about what their screens can deliver, and they’re increasingly less inclined to sit through a sub-par experience. It’s incumbent on every partner in the ad delivery workflow to focus on the end result so that they complement the programming being offered to customers.
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Video Monetization Models: To Maximize the Value of Content, Hybridity is the New Normal
From the research that comprises our recent paper Survive and Thrive: The Changing Environment for Content Services and Video Services, one of the surprising takeaways was that “being discovered” surpassed operational costs as the number one business challenge facing survey respondents. Along those same lines, “maximizing customer lifetime values” was in a virtual tie with operational costs for second place. The clear takeaway here is that success in video means to drive engagement up, while driving costs down. Today’s video monetization models are geared towards accomplishing these fundamental goals while building a fantastic content-consumer relationship – one screen at a time.
BUILDING ENGAGEMENT, FROM AD SPOTS TO PREMIUM CONTENT
It’s that “relationship” thing that’s led us to our current industry conversations around maximizing customer lifecycle values, hybridity and flexibility in commerce and video monetization models, and so on. Advertisers are in the same boat, quickly becoming savvy to the unique audiences at different destinations. It’s a constant learning experience for every video-based business, which is not just a statement about consumer behaviors. It’s also about “unlearning” outdated processes and manual procedures in favor of radical new ways to consistently: a) get to a screen quickly, b) merchandise effectively, and c) serve a consistently crisp, clear audio/visual experience.
The advertising industry, for example, understands that there are different audience cultures at different video destinations, and that campaigns are more successful if they’re tailored to be more aligned with the content that’s carrying them. The trick is to be able to participate in whatever folks are watching. The increased shift to on-demand viewing means that advertisers need a much faster response time from their ad delivery workflow, while gaining cost efficiencies that free up needed resources for targeted ads with shorter shelf-lives (we talk more about that in this blog). Industry adoption of a centralized cloud-based delivery model is an important first step towards modernizing the process of buying, selling, and delivering video products.
Within the video industry, relationship building is a complex balancing act between how consumer behaviors change at the macro audience level, and how an individual’s preferences change over time. There’s a direct tie back to advertisers as well: brands that need a deeper relationship with consumers – automotive brands, for example – are going to gravitate towards destinations and delivery methods that can bring them into a closer orbit with actual buyers.
ORGANICALLY GROWN AUDIENCES ARE HEALTHIER
There’s never been a better time to build an audience than today. That said, it’s also an increasingly global audience, which means that commercial strategies need the technology horsepower and know-how to pivot based on regional changes in addition to larger lifecycle management concerns. Some merchandising requirements might seem like no-brainers, like the ability to describe video assets in multiple languages as well as in images; but nurturing relationships at that scale means solving for the entire end-to-end – from app/storefront to multi-currency transactions, in different ways, with different customers, in different regions.
From a technology standpoint it’s imperative to have the ability to change up the way your content is merchandised, and the way promotions and offers are displayed, so that the user experience can be tailored to support all these factors easily. There are a ton of factors to consider:
Content might be bundled for specific audiences by category: such as genres, series, sequels, and trilogies. Or, dynamically bundle content targeted for specific devices and access rights (e.g. one movie for the iPad, two movies for all devices, or a collection of media that dynamically changes).
Pre-set access rules and pricing templates might be applied for different viewing rules like pay-per-view events, season passes, single transactions, movie bundles, or subscription access.
Product tags need to be easily applied at the video and bundle levels to make it easier for folks to search for and select content
For a subscriber-based model, pricing and special offers can get complicated quickly. Maybe a code-based promotion is the way to go (i.e. “enter FREEWEEK to start your trial”), or maybe a discount is applied based on a percentage, or at a fixed rate, or based on a minimum time commitment, or . . . you get the idea. Ultimately, a true hybrid video monetization model is something that needs a lot of technology behind it, to enable companies to turn their consumer data into actionable intelligence – and then into stronger, longer relationships.
THE BUSINESS OF “PLAY”
Demographics and buyer personas exist to categorize the constituents of a market, so that businesses can understand them and do a better job catering to them. Video brands looking for a deeper one-on-one with customers need the flexibility to shift and pivot on a more personal level. For more information we invite you to read our new article The Business of Play: Monetization in a Video Economy. A truly savvy business model begins with creative out-of-the-box thinking; but implementing it is a technology challenge that’s evolving right along with delivery quality and screen resolution.
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VOD MONETIZATION: NEW TERRITORY FOR LOCAL ADVERTISERS
Are you watching more video-on-demand (VOD) programming? Of course you are. We’re living in a binge-watching economy where entire seasons of a program are delivered all at once and VOD consumption is a growing component of the average viewer’s video diet. The market opportunity for advertisers is nothing less than explosive: according to a 2018 report by the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB), ad impressions for VOD have experienced a dramatic increase from 6.3 billion in 2014 to 23.3 billion last year. So how do you capitalize on this 4x growth?
DISPARATE TIMEFRAMES VS. TIME-SENSITIVE ADS
For businesses and agencies at the local and regional levels, VOD advertising can be a tough nut to crack, primarily because of the convoluted process of placing and managing VOD ad spots. It can take anywhere from 24 to 72 hours to make spots available for play through multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs). A 24-hour turnaround would already be too long for VOD to be viable for short-term promotions or late-breaking opportunities. If it takes even longer, it means that the viability of a campaign with a very short shelf life would be inconsistent across destinations. There are a lot of reasons why VOD processes (and timeframes) are all over the map:
Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) for set-top-box (STB) VOD requires additional metadata in a specific format (CableLabs 1.1) in order to work properly with the intended program. The metadata requirement lies on the MVPD side, but content providers need the software and people to write it. Many commercial spots are delivered either without it, or with metadata that’s written in an incompatible format.
DAI for digital destinations requires a variety of media formats. Content providers need the correct software to solve for these destinations, as well as video experts who can ensure that all transcoding / transformation is performed properly. The post-transcoding playback experience must be at its best, prior to being subject to any of the other factors (such as geography and network traffic) that may impact the consumer’s playback.
Every MVPD also has to account for its internal own delivery mechanism – or multiple mechanisms. They may outsource their work, maintain their own technology stack, or both. Larger distributors may have additional traffic coming from internal clients, such as advertising for news, sports, or other programs that the MVPD offers.
Adding to the overall complexity of VOD ad delivery is volume: to say there are a lot of ads to process would be a gross understatement. For national spots alone, just one major provider is moving hundreds of thousands of spots annually; and when it comes to VOD delivery, spots are still being relegated to a manual queue, mainly due to the challenges above.
Everything adds up to non-linear inventory that’s a real challenge to monetize effectively, especially during critical Nielsen C3/D4 periods that impact the value of advertising. Local ads or short term, time-bound promotions aren’t a good match for VOD playback unless they can be swapped out in near real-time once they’re no longer viable.
EXPANDING VOD MONETIZATION WITH THE CLOUD
With a centrally-managed ad library and management architecture that resides in the cloud, the disparate VOD workflows across delivery endpoints are brought together into one consistent, simplified, and accelerated process. This is huge news for both sides of VOD monetization: not only does it open up new revenue opportunities for ad purveyors, but it also improves business for content providers on the buy-side of the equation looking for more ways to sell ad space. The centralized location within the overall ad delivery pathway is key, providing both advertiser/agency and content provider/broadcaster with visibility and ease- of-use. Where the previous workflow takes up to 3 days to complete, the new process can be completed in hours.
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Ads and promos are now aggregated into one common location.
Digital/ad operations teams can locate assets (both external ads and internal promotional spots) via web-based UI.
Assets can be viewed, rules applied, and distribution initiated to preset destinations.
Information needed for ad decisioning services (ADS) is immediately generated.
Ops teams can copy and paste the information into ADS, and associate the creative assets with the correct campaign immediately.
The across-the-board benefits translate into more than just better performance. They imbue the entire operation with the needed agility to respond to changes in short order, and make last-minute revenue opportunities possible.
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