Something Video This Way Comes
It’s hard to explain or put a finger on it, but we are beginning to witness something big. When it comes to just what the next big thing will be, much of the discussion to date has focused on online video. And, chances are that’s just what it will be. YouTube has led the charge so far, creating the traffic, demand, and familiarity with uploading and consuming video. They haven’t focused on monetizing it; Google will no doubt figure that out. But, those two companies have challengers. Each has started to make quite a stir. One of them makes for a pretty good YouTube comparable. They focus exclusively on online video. The others’ core business has nothing to do with YouTube or online video, but it might just revolutionize the way television gets purchased which means that online video won’t be far.
Many companies no doubt started to see bigger dollar signs when Google bought YouTube. It seems safe to say that Brightcove, the first company being profiled here, would have reason to smile. In the wake of the acquisition, attention turned towards finding the next company that would make a big splash in an immerging online arena, one that had the upside but perhaps not as much legal downside as YouTube. Judging by the recent media attention and flurry of high level deals including deals with Warner Music Group and AOL, many seem to think they have found that next “it” company in Brightcove.
Brightcove’s story and product line takes more time to digest than YouTube’s. The latter makes intuitive sense as a user. You can use the site to upload videos; the site just as easily lets you share videos and embed them into social networking hubs like MySpace. YouTube began by trying to solve that issue of hosting large video files to share. By billing itself as an Internet TV company, Brightcove’s story and problem feel older and less accessible. It takes exploring the site, actually reading the “About us” and sampling the web before the differences start to make sense. In the end, rather than a free for all directed by users, Brightcove focuses on content owners and helping them place their video content online. It’s a more upmarket, behind the scenes, almost consultative approach – as someone said almost like a Doubleclick for video content. To complete the picture, they take these content relationships and offer tools for traffic owners and individual surfers to create distribution.
Where Brightcove focuses on Internet TV, the second company making waves and shaping media’s future, leverages the Internet but focuses on traditional television. Their innovative service does what in many ways Google did for web advertising – it offers more granular placements and aspects of self-service, which mean more advertisers can now participate. Smaller advertisers in particular have the most to gain. To date, they have few options for buying media – few low cost of media and low production cost ways. Spot Runner changes this. Their system means not just the local pizza shop can by TV time but perhaps a CPA marketer could test it out too.
While Spot Runner’s services look to make television advertising more affordable, setting up such a service isn’t. The company made news this week with its latest financing round of $40 million led by WPP, CBS Corporation and Interpublic Group. The first two offer sales side support. WPP manages approximately $50 billion of clients’ budgets worldwide and Interpublic Group agencies serve more than 4,000 multinational, regional and local clients around the world. According to Interpublic CEO Michael Roth, by combining their strong local media assets across all channels with Spot Runner’s platform, they can, “can deliver unparalleled depth, breadth and automation of services” to the local marketing sector, which according to him represents about a third of total advertising spending in the United States. Completing the pieces, CBS offers the traffic and ad inventory for Spot Runner’s platform to use.
As interesting as Brightcove and Spot Runner are today, imagine the impact they could have as both they and Internet TV / online video mature. So much inventory exists for video, but now, the amount of purchasable inventory is low. Companies such as SWMX too, help make buying TV and radio quicker and more streamlined, and it’s more than exciting to imagine what our industry might look like as access to media opens up. While such change can often seem overwhelming, those in the direct response space have excelled at leveraging web advertising platforms to discover undervalued media. Through companies like Brightcove and technologies like Brightcover and SWMX, we will continue to see our playing field expanded.
