The Editor’s cat, Fang has appeared in numerous social media posts, but parents are more likely to share videos of their kids.
Cats and kittens seem to get all the attention on the Internet. But research shows that parents are shooting and sharing video more than ever and, for them, their kids are the biggest stars.Magisto research shows that parents are increasingly using video to share their lives—almost as much as photos.
More than half (53 percent) of the parents surveyed take videos so that they can share them, fast approaching the 61 percent who take pictures to share.
PlayScience global research firm and Magisto, the automatic video editing solution that turns everyday videos and photos into movie magic, found that role of video is dramatically changing.
Parents are now using video to shoot and share moments from their everyday lives instead of just special occasions such as weddings or graduations. Video is 300 percent more likely to be shared if the subject is kids, the most often recorded subject, over a “special moment.”
Sixty percent of parents film at least three videos a month and nearly half (44 percent) of parents share at least three videos a month
Seventy-eight percent share videos immediately after taking them and 60 percent send their videos on the same day
Eighty-eight percent of parents who shoot videos will share them, even though shooting and sharing a video can be a complex task.
A majority of parents said they would use video even more if it were less difficult and time consuming. In fact, those who already use software solutions that help with editing are twice as likely to take and send videos.
More than a third of parents (37 percent) would share more videos if there were an easier way to do so
Approximately one third of parents would take more videos if they had access to an application that would make it easier to edit (35 percent) or share (31 percent) videos
Smartphones can be credited as a large part of the reason for this increase in shooting and sharing videos and pictures, and are now the device of choice for parents when it comes to these activities.
Fifty-three percent of parents are more likely to reach for their smartphone than a traditional video camera when they want to share a video.
“People are turning to video increasingly as a mode of personal communication and actively seeking solutions to simplify video production, sharing and viewing,” said Reid Genauer, CMO of Magisto.
“With eighty three percent of parents looking for a solution to help better produce their videos, its clear that people want to tell their stories rather than merely document their lives for posterity. One barrier to realizing video storytelling for the mass market is simply solving the perception that creating quality videos is still difficult for the average person.”
The consumer video devices market is transforming the way users interact with their phones, televisions and computers. The industry is on a remarkably growth spree, driven by soaring consumer demand for a ubiquitous video experience and growing affordability.
A consistent shift toward long-form online video consumption, including live TV, is driving first-time purchases of devices. This is also driving upgrades to higher-end, feature rich devices. However, competition and demand are compelling device manufacturers to discount their prices, globally and regionally.
The Frost & SullivanAnalysis of the Consumer Video Devices Market, finds that 1.2 billion units worth over $360 billion were shipped in 2012. Unit sales expect to nearly triple to 3.1 billion devices by 2017.
“Consumer appetite for online and personalized content, including both on-demand and live TV, anytime and on multiple screens simultaneously, is going to remain the number one driver of the consumer video devices market,” noted Frost & Sullivan Digital Media Industry Manager Avni Rambhia .
Remolding business models
“Internet video disrupted the Pay TV industry once; today, a wide range of consumer video devices – including Blu-ray players, gaming consoles, IP connected devices, set-top boxes, smart phones, and smart TVs – are forcing a remolding of business models across the board.”
Smart phones account for nearly half of total market units currently and will continue to spur market expansion. The rapid adoption of tablets and smart TVs and sustained sales of set-top boxes (including home gateways) are also significant contributors to overall growth.
However, the competition to innovate and differentiate, while still lowering prices, is stressing the market in terms of risk and return on investment.
Price does matter
Regional vendors pose greater competition to global vendors in high growth emerging markets as they continue to improve the quality and reliability of their devices while addressing local price sensitivity. Price-performance is a challenge that needs to be addressed by vendors at a global level and also region-by-region.
“Price does matter to the large majority of consumers, but features and innovation determine early market success,” said Rambhia. “Thus, a strategy that straddles both price and feature sets is most likely to succeed in the long-term.”
Angry Birds is one of the most popular digital games.
Partnerships with content service providers, game developers, and app developers to ensure a total package that will appeal to consumers is key to winning market share in a space where every new generation model has the potential to swing the fortunes of a vendor significantly – one way or another.
“From a service provider perspective, a personalized, convenient, and intuitive user experience is critical to achieving service popularity,” concluded Rambhia. “Vendors who craft compelling services that are consistently available across all major devices will find that users are willing to pay (directly and through ad viewing) for such experiences.”
Videology—a digital advertising platform and solutions provider— recently released a report showcasing research on the link between digital video advertising and offline sales results for consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand advertisers.
CPG is an extremely important category for digital video, comprising 22% of total video ad impressions—more than any other sector—according to a Videology Q1 2013 analysis.
“After 50 years of television-centric marketing, (CPG advertisers) know the right television equation to move product off the shelves. But data has the potential to bring this same level of ROI confidence to other media—including digital video, the natural complement to a brand’s television spend,” the report stated.
TV is still king
“Television is still king for CPG advertisers because they know what works and what doesn’t to move product off the shelves,” added Scott Ferber , CEO and Chairman, Videology. “We need to similarly define video’s value by showing how video ad exposure equates to sales success. And, as this study proves, we can.”
Videology analyzed over 186 million video impressions served across online and mobile video for CPG advertisers to determine digital video’s ability to drive key sales metrics including Penetration Lift, Unit Velocity Lift and Sales Velocity Lift using Kantar Shopcom data.
“The proliferation of media platforms offers brands more choice for when, where and how to capture consumers’ attention,” saysKatie Casavant , CEO, Kantar Shopcom . “Brand marketers from across the CPG landscape use Shopcom audience data and campaign impact measurement to optimize their media planning, buying and execution for maximum conversion return.”
Report highlights include:
All online video campaigns analyzed drove an increase in Sales Velocity Lift from 4% to an impressive 35%.* However, since ad campaigns often correspond to promotional pricing efforts, Sales Lift on its own does not tell the whole story.
Lift in household penetration is perhaps a truer gauge of performance. An increase in the number of households purchasing a product after exposure to a brand’s video ads ranged from 9% to 28%.*
When the number of households buying the brand increases (Penetration Lift), more units are sold (Unit Velocity). In the study, lift in Unit Velocity ranged from 8.5% to as high as 30%.*
Audience targeting based on purchase data performed 20% better than demo targeting.
Demo targeted ads, however, still drove stronger lift than the control group. Overall, both targeting sets play a role in successful online video campaigns, with demo targeting providing scale and purchase-data targeting driving specific lift metrics.
Completed views and total reach were the two most important metrics for increasing product penetration and driving units sold. Click through rate was not associated with a higher lift in sales.
*Compared to the control group not exposed to the ad.
This research was conducted using Sales Impact, Videology’s ROI attribution and tracking tool for brand advertisers.
Chaitanya ‘Chet’ Kanojia, CEO, founder of AERO, will participate in the upcoming Digital Summit in Atlanta.
One of the factors influencing change in the digital and media worlds over the last decade has been bandwidth. “That’s a huge factor,” says Chet Kanojia, founder and CEO of the online TV platform Aereo.
The company has faced some court challenges to its platform, which allows consumers to watch live or recorded HD broadcast television on virtually any type of Internet-connected device, including smart TVs, smartphones, tablets and computers.
All the publicity surrounding Aereo “Is something of a mixed blessing,” says Kanojia. That’s because it can overshadow the company’s mission, he adds.
“The consumer proposition is the key mission here,” he says. The venture-backed company was comfortable with its legal position, so it wasn’t surprised to find that position validated by initial court decisions. “It’s nice to be validated, but wasn’t a surprise,” Kanojia says.
Previously, Kanojia was the founder and CEO of Navic Networks, the industry leader in advanced television advertising. Navic Networks was subsequently acquired by Microsoft in 2008.
Participating at the Digital Summit
The holder of more than 14 patents in fields ranging from robotics to data communications systems, Kanojia is an innovative leader known for pushing beyond the conventional and developing breakthrough solutions. He’ll join more than 100 other digital media and marketing thought-leaders at the Digital Summit in Atlanta next week (May 14-15, 2013).
Kanojia founded Aereo after selling Navic Networks when he noticed too things: broadband penetration and bandwidth had made it easier for people to consumer media on the Internet. And there is a great imbalance between what people watch on TV and what they’re paying cable and satellite companies to receive.
“Most people watch seven or eight channels,” he notes. But they’re paying for 500. ”Any time you see that imbalance, you wonder how consumers may respond to a different choice.”
So far, they’ve responded very favorably, and Aereo, which has raised about $65 million so far and expects to need more as it builds out its infrastructure city by city, expects to have its service available in the first 15 of 22 cities by summer.
It will change everything
Back to his point about bandwidth, Kanojia, who will address the topic more fully at the Digital Summit, points to the way bandwidth changed the music industry as it increased to ten times what was needed to move music around digitally. “We no longer have a Tower Records,” he says.
As a similar bandwidth increase approaches, he sees it affecting the delivery of HD streaming video the way it did the music industry, especially along with the high resolution screens on devices such as iPads. But it won’t just affect the TV industry, he says.
“It will force a massive change that affects everything when everyone has high quality bandwidth at their fingertips.
For Aereo, that means it can offer consumers a great value proposition: a smart way of getting TV at about ten percent of the price from cable and satellite providers.
Two of today’s most talked about brand advertising categories are mobile and online video. Until now, however, brands have struggled with accurately and definitively measuring the return they are getting on their video and mobile ad spending, and deciding how to best allocate their limited marketing and advertising dollars.
MarketShare, which sells predictive analytics for marketers, has just completed one of the first in-depth analyses of video and mobile ad effectiveness as part of the larger marketing mix.
The study, sponsored by Google, quantifies the relative impact of these digital media across several major industries, including autos (entry level luxury segment), credit cards, cosmetics, auto insurance and smartphones, with implications for many others.
How marketing drives consumers
MarketShare analyzed vast amounts of data from Google, YouTube, and other syndicated data sources to establish how, at a category level, marketing drives consumers to engage with search, display, video and mobile channels, ultimately influencing their purchasing decisions.
“Through this analysis, MarketShare and Google are helping marketers better understand how search, online video, and other paid, owned, and earned marketing tactics influence consumer behavior and drive demand,” says Wes Nichols , Co-Founder and CEO at MarketShare.
“At the same time, we’ve uncovered new insights about video and mobile advertising effectiveness that many marketers haven’t seen or been able to quantify before.”
A Marketing Efficiency Index developed by MarketShare compares ad spending on different online and offline channels to actual results (sales or applications). Looking at the overall average for the industries analyzed, findings show that online marketing offers greater efficiency per dollar of marketing spend than offline.
Reallocating marketing dollars lifts sales
By reallocating marketing dollars, marketers with spending levels similar to the category averages studied could expect to generate an incremental 1% to 4% lift in sales. Since the total marketing spend analyzed across all five categories totals more than $8 billion, the stakes are significant.
“Through our efforts with MarketShare, we were able to develop unique category-level models for analyzing digital and traditional marketing channels more holistically, helping us better understand the full value of marketing investments,” says Gunnard Johnson , Advertising Research Director at Google.
MarketShare’s analysis of category-level marketing activity sought to measure how consumers are influenced throughout their “purchasing journey.”
By including not only paid marketing investments, but also other intermediate outcomes in the purchase journey such as a consumer’s Google queries and content views on YouTube related to a brand (both brand-uploaded and content related to a brand), this analysis went deeper into drivers of brand performance than traditional marketing allocation efforts.
A few key takeaways for marketers include:
While offline marketing and other environmental factors continue to play a substantial role in driving demand in the categories modeled, digital spending appears to have substantial upside for greater marketing efficiency, particularly for smartphones and auto insurance.
Desktop search continues to warrant a significant percentage of marketing allocations. In addition, mobile search is an aspect of marketing investment that this study has identified as important, especially in larger categories such as Cosmetics, Credit Cards and Auto Insurance.
Online video investments via YouTube in the range of 1%-4% of total media budget seem appropriate for high-spend categories, with more considered purchases (e.g. luxury autos or handsets) perhaps even higher. All in all, the model suggests that current levels of brand spend in YouTube appear to be consistently underinvested.
Quantifying the impact of other consumer touchpoints highlights the importance and potential for paid advertising to influence owned and earned contributions. In particular, the analysis was able to determine the value YouTube “owned” and “earned” content views represent, highlighting their significant overall sales contribution.
There’s significant interest in video communication among enterprise employees, but lack of education and tools are a challenge, according to the April 2013 Enterprise Portals Usage Survey from Qumu.
Only a very small 12 percent had never uploaded a video to their portal platform. However, nearly two thirds of video uploaders encountered problems. These results provide insight into how enterprises can speed up the adoption and use of video to support internal communications, training and collaboration.
Key Findings
Nine out of ten survey respondents indicate that they see a value for video in the enterprise.
The majority of respondents feel ready to interact with video at work but indicate a lack of tools or platforms to support the effective creation and sharing of video.
A majority of respondents indicated they have attempted to upload video at work and have experienced at least some level of difficulty completing the task.
More than half of respondents want to see better support for streaming video.
The survey asked employees to respond to scenarios where enterprise video would be beneficial, such as training, internal communications and collaboration.
64 percent want video training for office workers.
44 percent want video for human resources and employee benefits communications.
40 percent want video-based executive and internal communications.
38 percent want video for better project and departmental communications.
With a little planning and investment, enterprises can take advantage of employee readiness and create a video-friendly environment.
The ideal platform should consolidate the video functions into a single environment where video and rich media assets can be centrally managed through their life cycle. Ease-of-use functions for employees to capture and upload employee-generated content, intuitive asset management, publishing and reporting create a true video ecosystem.
“Organizations looking at the next level of communications tools should be considering video on their portals as a top priority,” said Vern Hanzlik, senior vice president and general manager, Qumu. “The industry research tells us that employees are ready; now companies need to follow their lead and start deploying the tools and resources to meet employee demand.”
Professionals are turning to original digital videos are hitting strong benchmarks and those who watch are receptive to marketing messages.
So says The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in its “45 Million Reasons and Counting to Check Out the NewFronts,” an in-depth research study focused on the growing reach and impact of digital video – revealing that original professional online video (OPOV) captures the attention of 45 million U.S. viewers per month.
“Consumers are rapidly turning to digital video for entertainment, news and information, and advertiser demand to reach this growing audience is expanding in kind,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, IAB.
“The wealth of original professional digital programming being presented at the Digital Content NewFronts is evidence of the public’s hunger for new, compelling content available online. It is a watershed moment. And, this study provides valuable insights that can help marketers take advantage of this momentum, and effectively tap into the evolution of the digital video platform as a central hub for must-watch original programming.”
The study was conducted in partnership with GfK and surveyed over 2400 people, representing the U.S. adult population, in order to identify and question over 1000 avid video viewers that screen programming across various platforms. The results clearly demonstrate that original professional online video programming is hitting strong benchmarks when compared to traditional television.
Receptive to marketing messages
Receptivity to marketing messages during OPOV was directly in line with consumer ad receptiveness while watching primetime television programming on a regular TV set. Plus, those surveyed who view both primetime TV and OPOV cited viewing new, unique content and flexible screening times as preferable aspects of OPOV over primetime television viewing.
“It is very exciting to have the opportunity to benchmark viewing levels to original professionally produced online video as the ad marketplace is evolving,” said Sherrill Mane, Senior Vice President, Research, Analytics and Measurement, IAB.
“It is particularly telling that this kind of programming is attracting a large following – 45 million already – while also bringing viewing experiences and ad receptivity that compare favorably with regular TV.”
The demos also speak to the appeal of original professional online programming, with younger adults 18-34 (31%) and males (24%) exhibiting markedly higher OPOV monthly viewing levels.
Devices used
When it comes to which digital device consumers use to watch this type of video, laptops (used by 50% of monthly OPOV viewers) were far and away the favorite pick, followed by:
Desktop computers (39%)
Internet connected TVs (27%)
Smartphones (26%)
Tablets (23%)
No matter which device consumers choose for streaming purposes, the majority (89%) of OPOV viewing happens at home. The same goes for the viewing of user-generated content (UGC) and traditional TV programming online (88% vs. 93%).
Looking at how social media channels are leveraged during viewing, the research finds that OPOV and UGC viewers (41% vs. 56%) tend to integrate social media much more within their online video experiences in comparison to those watching TV online (35%).
To download the entire “45 Million Reasons and Counting to Check Out the NewFronts” study, go to: www.iab.net/DigitalVideo45
Invodo, a business video firm, has suggested a new set of eight rules for video marketing for retailers and brands, based on a just-released study, “How Consumers Shop With Video,” done in partnership with the e-tailing group.
The rules are as follows:
Rule #1: Give consumers what they want: More product videos.
67% of consumers engage with videos regularly, which is a 34% increase over last year (50%).
45% of consumers have watched at least five product videos over the past three months, significantly above last year’s 36%.
Rule #2: Don’t prematurely bury the PC.
Mobile video usage is growing fast, but the PC remains the most common device for watching videos.
In the Invodo-e-tailing group survey, consumers were asked on which devices they have watched a product video over the past three months. Surprisingly, 81% said the PC, while smartphones (43%) and tablets (35%) have made gains.
Rule #3: It’s an omnichannel world. Think about the consumer first, the platform second.
Retailers and brands need to treat PC, smartphone, tablet and in-store users as the same shopper, at different points of the purchase cycle, and deliver video across every platform.
62% of consumers surveyed said they can gather enough information after watching a product video on a tablet to make a purchase, compared to 49% of smartphone owners.
57% of consumers said they watch a video on their smartphone while in a store for research before making a purchase.
This shows that PC users often watch product videos when they are in a “ready to buy” mode, while smartphone users are more likely to watch product videos when they need more information on-the-go, such as when they’re in a store.
Rule #4: Focus on video for the product page first, before the homepage or brand page.
Consumers watch videos on the product page more often than any other location, and they watch these videos in search of information that helps them decide whether to purchase.
55% of respondents in Invodo’s survey watched at least one product video on a product page over the past three months, beating the home page (42%), brand page (34%), category page (20%), video gallery (14%) or banner advertising with video (13%).
Brand videos and “explainer” and how-to videos on the homepage or in a buying guide are where your marketing team may want to go first, but those are nice-to-haves for a retailer. Product page video is the must-have, according to consumers.
Rule #5: Give consumers video across all product categories.
It doesn’t matter how complex the product, or how much explanation is needed, consumers are still looking for videos.
Asked which categories they’ve watched at least one product video over the past three months, respondents cited consumer electronics (40%), computer hardware and software (26%), automotive (25%), music/DVDs/videos (25%), clothing and accessories (24%), food and wine (20%), toys and video games (19%) and health and beauty items (19%). They also cited less complex items, like pet supplies (12%) and jewelry and watches (12%).
Your marketing team may prefer to add highly detailed videos to only a few product categories. They would deliver higher ROI by broadening the video catalog coverage.
Rule #6: Focus on delivering key product information, and don’t worry about arbitrary time limits.
Debunking the “30 second sweet spot” myth, Invodo’s 2012 study found that 37% of consumers will watch a video longer than three minutes if it’s educational.
Consumers spend an average of 2.77 minutes watching product videos that include demonstrations, compared to 2.40 minutes for videos supporting a brand’s value proposition.
Rule #7: Create videos that will help consumers feel more confident in a purchase.
In the new Invodo-e-tailing group study, 57% of consumers said they were more confident in a potential purchase and less likely to return an item after watching a product video. This was an increase from 52% a year earlier.
Rule #8: Make professional-quality videos.
More than half of consumers (54%) said they preferred more “polished,” professional-looking videos, according to the 2012 Invodo-e-tailing group study.
Just 30% of consumers said they were inclined to buy a product after watching user-generated videos from peers.
“It’s clear that despite increasing adoption of online video by retailers and brands, many myths about video continue,” said Craig Wax, CEO of Invodo.
“Based on two consumer research studies and our own expertise, these rules will empower retailers and brands to maximize their video investment. They will also put to rest a lot of the misconceptions out there that can stand in the way of success.”
These rules build upon the 2012 study “Captivating Consumers through Cross-Channel Video”, also conducted with the e-tailing group. Invodo has found that some of the myths dispelled in the first study persist in the marketplace and is addressing those myths with the “Eight Rules.”
How Consumers Shop With Video is based on a survey of 1,073 U.S. consumers, who completed an online questionnaire in December 2012.
Crowdfunding Expert Kendall Almerico, the CEO of ClickStartMe.com, has released a video explaining five things every good crowdfunding video should do to maximize the chances of success.
Almerico speaks not only from his experience operating a crowdfunding site on the Internet, but also from his background as a television and radio producer and host.
“A good video is a necessity if you want a successful crowdfunding project.” Almerico says. “More than 50% of crowdfunding projects with a video are successful. Conversely, only 30% of those without a video succeed.”
Almerico’s new video explains the five things that make or break a crowdfunding video. “Your video doesn’t have to be a Spielberg epic to be a good crowdfunding video,” Almerico notes. “But, it needs to follow five simple rules to give you the best chance of success.”
Here are Almerico’s five tips:
1. Good video and audio quality make a difference. While a good quality crowdfunding video can be shot on an iPhone or with a camcorder, care must be taken to assure good lighting and audio. Recording a video in a well-lit room or outdoors makes the lighting part easier.
The sound is another issue. If using a phone to record the audio portions, speak loudly, clearly and not too close to the phone, or too far away from it. Listen to a sample. If it sounds too hollow or if words that start with a P make sound “pops,” do it over. Also, beware of echoes.
If shooting outdoors, this is usually not a problem. But recording indoors in a room with wood or tile floors is asking for trouble. By trial and error, it is easy to find a room that works.
2. Plan the video in advance. Trained public speakers or actors can turn on the camera and talk without a plan. For others, this is is a recipe for disaster. Write a script, and try to stick to it. When writing the script, think about how a journalist tells a story. Give the “who, what, when, where and why.”
In addition:
a. Tell the story.
b. Talk about the rewards.
c. Give people a reason to get excited.
d. End with “the ask” and a thank you.
“The ask” is the portion of every crowdfunding video at the end where the project creator asks for donations.
3. Only talk about two or three rewards, not all of them. People do not want to hear about every reward being offered. Highlight some of the best rewards. Pick one from the low end, one from the middle range, and one high-end reward and discuss them. Remind the viewer that there are other rewards they can see by reading the project text. Most importantly, get excited to pitch the rewards. Excitement is contagious, and the viewer will also get excited about it if done correctly.
4. Add update videos as the project continues. People should update their crowdfunding project constantly, adding rewards and trumpeting their successes. Consider posting additional videos when these things happen. Not only do videos get more interest for the crowdfunding project, but they get lots of additional plays on Facebook and social media when they are posted. An update video is particularly effective down the home stretch, when trying to get everyone excited again to fully fund the project as the end approaches.
5. Keep it short and simple, but end with a bang! The video should be no longer than 3 minutes unless absolutely necessary. The last 10-15 seconds should be “the ask” where the project creator requests donations and ask for help spreading the word. This should be clear, carefully worded, and create a sense of urgency and action. Tell people what to do, and do not leave it up to them to figure it out on their own. Check out these examples:
Bad Ending: “Thank you for watching my video and for your attention.”
Good ending: “We only have 30 days to raise $10,000 and we need your help, now! Donate today and, just as important, spread the word by sharing our project with everyone you know. Thank you for helping to make our dream, a reality.”
Video conferencing is evolving rapidly – how it’s used, where it’s used, by whom and for what – and its use as an enterprise productivity tool is also growing rapidly, says a new survey of almost 5,000 enterprise video end-users around the world, fielded byWainhouse Research and Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM).
The survey results, published under the name “End-User Survey: The ‘Real’ Benefits of Video,” reveal some notable insights into the business benefits of video conferencing, deployment trends, use cases, adoption and insights for future growth.
These include:
The longstanding misconception is that travel reduction is the only ‘real’ driver of video conferencing. This survey, however, shows that soft benefits including improved efficiency and productivity and increased impact during discussions play a prominent role in the video conferencing value proposition.
The top benefit of video conferencing is increased efficiency/productivity (94 percent), followed by increased impact of discussions (88 percent), expedited decision making (87 percent), and reduced travel costs (87 percent).
When asked how their companies are using video conferencing today for specific, newly emerging use cases, “Meet with Customers and Partners” is the top response(71 percent).
Quarter of respondents say they video conference daily, 39 percent weekly, 21 percent monthly, and 14 percent every few months.
Multivendor environments are the norm, so interoperability is critical – 60 percent say they “primarily use” more than one vendor’s equipment or software to videoconference; 32 percent use three or more.
Video helps remote workers feel more connected to their colleagues. Of the total respondents who work from home, 87 percent strongly agree or agree that the use of video conferencing allows them to work from home without feeling disconnected.
“This comprehensive study validates what we’ve been seeing from our customers for years. In or out of the office, employees do their best work when they are empowered to meet and collaborate, face-to-face, over virtually any device,” said Andy Miller, president and CEO, Polycom.
“In addition to helping foster a more productive and engaged workforce, video collaboration helps enterprises and organizations thrive by enabling more effective sales and engineering teams, better customer service, and stronger partner relationships.
The world is on a path to ubiquitous video, and Polycom’s goal is to drive that ubiquity by making video easy to use, secure and affordable for all, across the widest range of devices and environments, ranging from immersive theatres to conference rooms, desktop systems, laptops, PCs, browsers, tablets and smart phones.”
Key Findings by Wainhouse Research and Polycom
In December 2012, Wainhouse Research, underwritten by Polycom, surveyed 4,737 end-users of video conferencing systems.
The survey respondents represent all global regions, with 63 percent from North America, 27 percent from Asia/Pacific, 9 percent from EMEA, and 1 percent from Latin America. All company sizes are represented, from small businesses with 1-49 employees (20 percent of respondents) to very large companies with more than 10,000 employees (17 percent) and all points in-between. Vertical industries are also well represented. Click here to download a copy of the full report.
Video Anywhere: Users leveraging video conferencing across devices, environments – in the office in conference rooms and on PCs, and increasingly at home or remotely on mobile devices
Desktop PCs and laptops are the most common device used for video conferencing (71 percent of respondents), followed by room/group video systems (65 percent), tablets (34 percent) and smartphones (33 percent).
Conference rooms are the most popular environments for video conferencing today. 79 percent of respondents use video in conference rooms, 69 percent use video in offices.
The fastest growing video conferencing environment is “on the road” – which includes airports, hotels and client sites.
PCs are the #1 device for video, but the age of mobile has clearly arrived. Over 90 percent of respondents have a Smartphone, and 75 percent have a tablet. More than 77 percent of respondents use their smartphone for business, and 50 percent use their tablet for business.
Respondents expect the use of mobile devices for video collaboration will continue to surge over the next year.
For video to grow, it needs to be available to more people, and integrated into business processes.
Leading drivers for increasing use of video conferencing include equipping more people with video (94 percent of respondents), more accessibility of video (85 percent of respondents), more integration of video in business software (83 percent of respondents) and availability in IM/UC clients such as Microsoft® Lync™ (80 percent).
As the web has evolved, WordPress has become a dominant platform for the building of websites and blogs.
According to online learning company,lynda.com, it is easy to use and includes many perks like making websites easy to find and allows for a large variety of templates to be used, many of which are free.
With recent changes and updates it’s good to know exactly how to successfully manage the publishing platform.
“Why do people choose WordPress themes for their websites?” Asks Sam Philips, SEO and business development manager at QArea, in a recent article inSocial Media Today. “Because they don’t have to spend lots of money to get one of them and WP themes can make any type of website look professional.”
Your website is home base
Susan Gilbert, marketing expert and author a SusanGilbert.com in Issaquah, Washington, believes that, “a website is an extremely important piece of online real estate.”
In fact, several recent marketing studies have shown that blogs, not social media, drive the most business for companies and brands.
Gilbert adds that having a fully developed blog or branded site will help a person or company get noticed both online and offline. “It’s what goes on business cards, gets linked in the social media profiles and, in general, is the hub of all the online activity,” Gilbert states. “It’s the home base.”
Her new videos will help anyone who is using WordPress, while Susan’s emphasis is on websites for authors and entrepreneurs. Her short video series provides step by step instructions that range from two to five minutes in length making the small tweaks available in WordPress easy to learn.
Get a security plugin
As longtime WordPress users here at the TechJournal, we strongly recommend installing a security plugin and firewall such as Wordfence (there are other, stronger security programs available too).
Cyber attacks are rampant and some bot networks scrape your content just to sell your competitors information about you. You may even want to block some countries unlikely to do business with you but very likely to add to the number of cyber attacks you have to fend off.
If you want to dramatically increase the ability of your video ads to drive consumer action, using both television and online video does the trick.
New research from Videology, a digital ad platform, found that action conversion rates increased 40 percent in consumers exposed to both television and online video advertisements compared to the control group (those not exposed to the digital advertisement).
Action conversion includes actions beyond a simple click through, such as searching for a retail location, building a product profile, downloading a coupon, or other actions that suggest intent to purchase a brand’s product or service.
Optimal frequency mix
Videology found that an optimal frequency mix of 7-9X on television and 7-9X on digital video drove the highest overall conversion rate of all combinations.
Those exposed in the 7-9X frequency range for both television and digital video saw a 230% lift in action conversion compared to the control group. Other findings:
TV frequency alone does not specifically correlate to action conversion.
Those who were exposed to an ad online first are more likely to take action.
Increased digital frequency drives increased action conversion.
In addition, Videology’s research showed that while Ad Recall topped at 54% for TV only campaigns and 59% for video only campaigns, there was 64% Ad Recall for TV & online video campaigns.
This research was conducted with the help of Videology’s TV Amplifier(SM) product, which is designed to link television viewing behavior to online viewing habits, utilizing Nielsen’s cross-platform measurement data. Download the full report here.
What is the amount of accomplishment venture capitalists need to see these days to finance a true Series A r0und of a startup? The bar is higher than it used to be, says Mark Rostick, director of East Coast investments for Intel Capital.
Rostick is among more than two dozen venture capitalists and investors participating in the upcoming Southeast Venture Conference in Charlotte, NC, March 13-14.
With the availability of online tools, the ability to inexpensively write code to get something started, and the proliferation of accelerators such as Y Combinator, there has been “An explosion of startups that create a light or beta version of a product and get a few customers to buy it quickly,” Rostick says.
The bar has moved
The problem is, he adds, “That water tends to be very shallow, so what they’ve accomplished doesn’t tell you much about what their chances are. It’s so much easier to do all of that earlier, the bar has moved for what an investor needs to see.”
That, he notes, means that “Now it’s much harder to separate the wheat from the chaff and judge how much the company has de-risked by what it has done. There is an explosion of new companies you need to sift through. So we have to be more savvy about what the level of accomplishment for a Series A financing needs to be.”
It also means startup teams need to think about how they’re going to separate themselves from the pack, he says. “Have they thought through their road map? Do they know their next step? Do they know what the management team needs? There are ways to prove your game.
Hot tech sectors
Intel, Rostick says, sees several tech sectors it thinks are going to do well.
“There is a ton of upside in the Enterprise that people haven’t thought about much,” he says. “A lot of startups in the social and mobile world use the cloud, but Enterprises are still in the process of making that move. It’s a gigantic shift and we’ve made a lot of bets on that infrastructure.”
Intel is also spending a good deal of time looking at big databases and analytics. “How do we talk about this data? How do we visualize it? All of that is creating opportunities. And it’s starting to mature to the point where people are thinking its time to get some bets down.”
Always looking for local opportunities
He suggests, “Look at the M&A history in these areas. IBM is buying analytics companies. SAS is doing that. They’re looking at how to use cloud infrastructure to help their customers.”
Another “big thing,” he says, “is the Internet of things.” If a company deploys a lot of equipment in factories or the field, trucks, a wireless network, meters, monitoring and managing them centrally makes a lot of sense,” Rostick explains.
It lets companies know what’s happening right now with the ability to fix or tune operations.
Online video and video analytics are two other areas Intel finds interesting.
Rostick asked us to note that Intel is “Always looking for local opportunities here in North Carolina.”
Do you watch pre-roll ads that precede many videos online? Not many of us do, apparently. Overall, marketers running simple pre-roll campaigns saw an average 1.21% Engagement rate and 69.59% Completion rate on average, according to Innovid’s Interactive Video Advertising Benchmarks for Q4 2012.
Interactive campaigns did much better.
Innovid says they saw a whopping 3.09% Engagement rate and 71.58% Completion rate. Furthermore, interactive campaigns delivered an additional 21.57 seconds in time spent, converting 30 second media buys into 51.57 slots and delivering a 70% increase in brand exposure with no additional media investment.
Innovid studied over 900 campaigns in Q4 2012, served utilizing its advanced video Ad Server on more than 1000 premium publishers and ad networks globally. The first report of its kind, provides benchmarks for Awareness Rate, Engagement Rate, Time Earned, Completion Rate, Ad Viewability, and Click-Thru Rate.
Innovid examined metrics from hundreds of advertisers across 15 different categories to produce the quarterly report, which is available for download at: http://www.innovid.com/insights/benchmarks/.
Overall key findings of the Innovid Interactive Video Advertising Benchmarks: Q4 2012 report include:
15 second slots saw the highest completion rate at 74.41%, versus 30 second slots that delivered a 68.91%
Consumers however are more likely to engage with longer form content, clicking-in at 2.99% rate on 30-second units versus 2.01% on 15-second slots
Interactive campaigns recorded a 44.54% awareness rate, while pre-roll displayed only a 17.57%
iRoll Apps provided an average 1.01%, making it a great resource for advertisers with backend goals
iRoll Expand delivered an additional 27.37 seconds in time earned on average, providing marketers with brand goals an efficient vehicle to engage with consumers and maximize media budgets
If you’re at all new to this, Innovid offers this glossary of terms in the business:
Glossary
Awareness (rate): The number of times the video environment is moused over by the user while the pre-roll plays and then divided by all the impressions served. The event is counted once per impression.
Engagement (rate): The first click by the user to the iRoll unit and then divided by all the impressions served. This can either be an interactive slate open event, or click-thru depending on the format of the unit. The event is counted once per impression.
Time Earned: The average time in seconds a user spends interacting with the unit while the pre-roll video is automatically paused in the background. Note, iRoll Apps units do not consistently require the pausing of the pre-roll video in the background, and therefore may not generate the Time Earned metric.
Completion (rate): Impression logged immediately upon completion of the video play, divided by all impressions served.
Ad Viewed (percent): The average duration of the pre-roll video watched by users, calculated as a percentage.
CTR: A click directing users to a new web page and then divided by all impressions served.
Mobile LTE subscribers are taking advantage of their additional bandwidth to us more mobile data and video on average and a decrease in WiFi use, says a new whitepaper from Mobidia Technology, Inc., a provider of mobile analytics.
Mobidia’s data shows an increase in adoption of new pricing plans and a move away from the traditional unlimited plans.
These trends suggest a positive opportunity for the more than 100 mobile operators that have already deployed LTE. The generational change to LTE is driving increased demand for mobile data and presenting operators with the ability to monetize that data in more sustainable ways.
An analysis of LTE usage in September 2012 in leading markets highlights the following trends:
In all markets, LTE subscribers used significantly more mobile data than 3G subscribers. Specifically, in Korea and Japan, markets often used as leading indicators of mobile trends, Mobidia recorded increases of 132 percent and 67percent, respectively.
At the same time, decreases in relative Wi-Fi usage in all markets were also noted and Korea registered an absolute decrease. While Wi-Fi usage is still very significant, the data points to a possible trend towards a decrease in reliance, suggesting an opportunity for LTE operators.
LTE operators’ strategy to reset pricing plans during the transition to 4G appears to be working. Mobidia’s data shows significant decreases in unlimited plans and increases in larger-sized, volume-limited plans. As an example, only seven percent of SKT LTE subscribers are using unlimited plans compared to 24 percent of SKT 3G subscribers. Additionally, the percentage of SKT subscribers on 2G or higher plans increased from only 10 percent of 3G subscribers to 62 percent of LTE subscribers.
Securing long term relationships with customers rather than just winning them for single transactions should be among the top concerns of marketers in 2013, says Sitecore, a web content management and customer experience management software company.
The firm has created a list of the top ten things it believes marketers need to do in 2013.
“The initial thrill of securing single transactions and interactions can leave customers and marketers feeling unsatisfied and yearning for more,” said Suzy McKee, Director Demand Gen, Sitecore.
“It’s time to re-examine our goals. As marketers, the initial boost to revenue is never unwelcome, but it’s easy to get lulled into a false sense of success when we fail to leverage that investment into a relationship that contributes to revenue over time.”
She added, “To renew your commitment to customers and secure a long-term relationship that lasts well beyond a single click or download, we put together a top 10 list to help drive more deeply satisfying and rewarding customer relationships in 2013 and beyond.”
The Top 10 Things Marketers Need to Know in 2013
1. Talk to your CIO and CTO - 2013 will be the year that marketing’s budget approaches or passes IT’s budget as the importance of driving the customer experience across the entire customer lifecycle becomes critical. Analytics and customer data that includes all interaction points will provide increases in conversion and sales revenue.
2. Automate the mundane - Big data for marketing purposes will begin to move into the actionable stage. Already one-third of all big data is marketing related, coming from browsers, transactional systems, ad networks, tagging, ecommerce, social data, devices, apps, and more. To succeed, marketers need to automate the process.
3. Support channel partners - 91% of national brands say they plan to spend more/the same on local marketing in 2013 than in 2012, with mobile marketing, local blogs, and online customer reviews as their top 3 digital priorities for the coming year. Create consistent, localized content and campaigns across all digital markets.
4. Cater to the small screen - By 2013, there will be 1 billion smartphone users globally and by the end of 2013, the global smartphone and tablet installed base will exceed the PC installed base. Companies will spend more than $3.3 billion in 2013 on marketing in the mobile channel. Know how your web content and campaigns will display on devices.
5. Be more relevant and immediate - Marketing will become more personalized with customized content and tailored experiences to meet growing customer expectations. 80% of consumers surveyed were willing to provide personal data if it yielded a better experience for them. Develop personas and use analytics to get real time profiles of your customers.
6. Get pinning - Pinterest will become a critical component of social media marketing plans thanks to its dramatic rise to become the third biggest social network in the U.S. This becomes another interaction point for marketers to use content to drive engagement.
7. Use video to improve SEO - Videos are 53 times more likely than text pages to appear on the first page of search results and YouTube is the second-largest search engine on the web and attracts 157 million unique viewers per month. Estimates are that 90% of all web traffic will be driven by video by the end of 2013. Video does not have to be expensive and/or labor intensive to be successful.
8. Don’t kill your email campaigns - Email is still the most utilized channel by marketers and consumers and will continue to grow. Test, optimize, and improve your campaign results with analytics.
9. Stop using clickstream metrics - Customer and engagement analytics will continue to grow in importance, as 51% of companies use it to drive customer satisfaction. Engagement analytics tools can accurately predict behavior and whether your website and campaigns engage customers.
10. Think more global - 56% of U.S. based CMOs and VPs plan to add 2 to 5 more languages for their websites. Automating the process of localizing and translating web content and marketing campaigns can yield higher conversion rates and support regional sales.
Ads in short-form videos actually produce significantly higher recall, brand affinity and purchase intent than those in long-form content, says a new study from AOL. It also found that viewers avoid ads in long-form videos by doing other things, such as going to another site.
Conducted by Qualvu, the study utilized both quantitative and qualitative methods to gauge consumer perception toward the ads, which were presented in their traditional online video environments.
The short-form videos featured pre-roll ads, while the long-form videos – defined as those that were more than 10 minutes in length – featured pre- and mid-roll ads. The study was administered to more than 800 respondents who watch online video on a weekly basis.
Additional findings from the research study include:
Ads in short-form videos are more effective than ads in long-form content. More specifically, short-form video produced a 25 percent higher brand recalland a 42 percent higher purchase intent for the featured product or service.
Viewers are adopting traditional avoidance behaviors during ads within long-form videos. Respondents found the ads to be too frequent and interruptive; as a result, they chose to avoid them altogether (by walking away, going to other sites, multitasking with their phone). This is the same “annoyance” behavior that is demonstrated when viewing television without the use of a DVR.
Consumers want more targeted and humorous ads in both formats. In fact, 67 percent of respondents would be willing to be answer a question to make their ads more personalized and enjoyable.
Consumers understand the exchange of free content for advertising, but they want to make sure their time tradeoff of watching ads also benefits them. They found coupons, contests and links as the most positive forms of engagement.
“Consumption habits are evolving rapidly, and we’re seeing consumers display many of the same ad avoidance tendencies online than they do with TV,” said Ran Harnevo, senior vice president of The AOL On Network.
“Our hope is that this research will help advertisers optimize their ad mix for maximum effectiveness and ROI in the face of changing behavior online.
“By showing the efficacy of advertising married with short form premium video content, this study sends a message to marketers that they should adjust their spend mix and allocation when it comes to online video,” said Charles Gabriel, vice president of sales for The AOL On Network.
“And, this highlights that there are scalable alternatives to the TV network’s digital extensions that cannot be accessed by third party ad networks.”
With Christmas expected to bring another leap in ownership of tablets, smartphones and other devices, new research from Bell Labs , the research arm of Alcatel-Lucent, suggests that increasing consumption of video content on such devices will push the wired broadband networks that carry this traffic to their absolute limits over the next decade.
Bell Labs projections suggest that, by 2020, consumers in the United States alone will access seven hours of video each day – as opposed to 4.8 hours today, and will increasingly consume this additional video on tablets, both at home and on the go.
Significantly, the research also points to a dramatic shift in viewing habits, as consumers switch from broadcast content to video-on-demand services, which will grow to 70% of daily consumptioncompared with 33% today.
The projections also suggest a twelve times increase in internet video content as cloud services, news sites and social networking applications become more video based, and continuously accessible anywhere, anytime on tablets.
Marcus Weldon , Chief Technology Officer, Alcatel-Lucent, said: “Delivery of video from the cloud and from content delivery networks to tablets, TVs and smartphones – with guaranteed quality – presents an exciting new revenue opportunity for communications service providers, but only if they are prepared to take advantage of it. Left unmanaged, the rapid growth in video traffic can turn into a deluge and spell disaster.”
Local advertising on mobile media is turning out to be the natural match-up it has been touted as. Location-based features in rich media mobile ads have overtaken branding and presentation as the most engaging. Engagement rates for those features nearly doubled in the third quarter 2012 seeing 187 percent growth to 18.8 percent.
So says Celtra‘s quarterly Mobile Rich Media Monitor Report.
Overall, engagement rates for rich media mobile advertisements continue to show steady, quarter-over-quarter growth. In Q3, the average ad engagement rate was 13.7 percent, nearly a one percent increase over Q2.
Gaming features came in second.
Rich media mobile advertising maturing quickly
“Rich media mobile advertising is maturing quickly and its position within the marketing funnel is becoming clearer and more established — especially as engagement rates continue to grow,” said Matevz Klanjsek, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Celtra.
“Mobile rich media advertising is emerging as a powerful and extremely effective asset in the mid-funnel, successfully driving purchase consideration and intent. Gaming, location-based and social media features in the mobile ads engage consumers in a meaningful way, providing an essential and often missing link between typically overcrowded upper and lower funnels.”
Site quality plays a significant role in driving both purchase intent and consumer satisfaction, demonstrating the “halo effect” that exists for brands that run video ads on high-quality sites, according to research from Undertone, which creates digital advertising solutions for brands.
Website quality emerged as the element that had the highest single contribution to purchase intent above player size, player placement and the playback method of the ad (auto-play vs. click-to-play) in the reseach conducted in partnership with IPG Media Lab that used eye tracking, facial coding and panel surveys to measure reactions to video advertising.
The study also reveals the impact that different playback methods have on an ad’s efficacy. Auto-play ad units can create higher awareness than click-to-play ads, but elicit a more negative emotional reaction from viewers. Meanwhile, click-to-play ads elicit more positive emotional reactions and drive higher engagement rates as well as greater intent to purchase.
“This study highlights that buyers can leverage different kinds of video advertising to achieve different goals as part of a holistic video strategy,” said Jared Skolnick, VP of Product Marketing at Undertone. “One of the key findings to emerge from the study is the central role high-quality websites play in driving successful video advertising campaigns.”
Other findings in Undertone’s research include:
Site quality plays a significant role in driving consumer satisfaction, with nearly 50% of video satisfaction rates stemming from site quality.
Eye tracking data revealed that viewers of click-to-play video ads were more engaged and more likely to browse new content than viewers of auto-play ads, and had higher overall satisfaction with the videos.
Larger video players evoke higher levels of brand awareness among consumers and can mitigate the negative effects often associated with auto-play ads.
The position of the video unit on the page – center of the page vs. side-rail – has little meaningful impact on an ad’s efficacy.
The consumer video devices market is transforming the way users interact with their phones, televisions and computers. The industry is on a remarkably growth spree, driven by soaring consumer demand for a ubiquitous video experience and growing affordability.
“Internet video disrupted the Pay TV industry once; today, a wide range of consumer video devices – including Blu-ray players, gaming consoles, IP connected devices, set-top boxes, smart phones, and smart TVs – are forcing a remolding of business models across the board.”
Videology—a digital advertising platform and solutions provider— recently released a report showcasing research on the link between digital video advertising and offline sales results for consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand advertisers.
Two of today’s most talked about brand advertising categories are mobile and online video. Until now, however, brands have struggled with accurately and definitively measuring the return they are getting on their video and mobile ad spending, and deciding how to best allocate their limited marketing and advertising dollars.
By including not only paid marketing investments, but also other intermediate outcomes in the purchase journey such as a consumer’s Google queries and content views on YouTube related to a brand (both brand-uploaded and content related to a brand), this analysis went deeper into drivers of brand performance than traditional marketing allocation efforts.
Professionals are turning to original digital videos are hitting strong benchmarks and those who watch are receptive to marketing messages.
When it comes to which digital device consumers use to watch this type of video, laptops (used by 50% of monthly OPOV viewers) were far and away the favorite pick, followed by:
Invodo, a business video firm, has suggested a new set of eight rules for video marketing for retailers and brands, based on a just-released study, “
Video conferencing is evolving rapidly – how it’s used, where it’s used, by whom and for what – and its use as an enterprise productivity tool is also growing rapidly, says a new survey of almost 5,000 enterprise video end-users around the world, fielded by Wainhouse Research and 
Mobile LTE subscribers are taking advantage of their additional bandwidth to us more mobile data and video on average and a decrease in WiFi use, says a new whitepaper from 
Securing long term relationships with customers rather than just winning them for single transactions should be among the top concerns of marketers in 2013, says 
Ads in short-form videos actually produce significantly higher recall, brand affinity and purchase intent than those in long-form content, says a new study from AOL. It also found that viewers avoid ads in long-form videos by doing other things, such as going to another site.
Local advertising on mobile media is turning out to be the natural match-up it has been touted as. Location-based features in rich media mobile ads have overtaken branding and presentation as the most engaging. Engagement rates for those features nearly doubled in the third quarter 2012 seeing 187 percent growth to 18.8 percent.
Site quality plays a significant role in driving both purchase intent and consumer satisfaction, demonstrating the “halo effect” that exists for brands that run video ads on high-quality sites, according to research from Undertone, which creates digital advertising solutions for brands.
