Microsoft Concentrating on Video Ads for Behavioral Marketing
Microsoft, who simply lost in the search marketing competition so far, is turning its sleepless eye to video marketing in various ways (via Wired), and is downplaying the importance of search - at least for spending (in the US, the leading online marketing field is still paid search).
Tarek Najm, a technical fellow at Microsoft said “spending on search keyword ads will be dwarfed by what marketers spend on other types of online advertising, such as placement based on “audience intelligence” - figuring out what kind of person the Web user is based on their surfing and searching habits - and display ads including video.”
If only he said that marketers will spend the most on well-chosen solutions based on tests and optimization for the best technique and combinations of tactics - regardless of the fact if it is traditionally categorized as display, search, video, viral, behavioral etc. marketing. And here ‘best’ could mean something like the highest ROI, highest profit and the best transparent customer relations. But, unfortunately, Tarek Najm may be right, as the vast majority of marketers are still short-sighted, unstable in web-based (let alone web 2.0 based) communication, they do not use analytics, or not efficiently, or they do not even care that large sums could be spent in a lot-lot better way - after all the master buddie marketer said that the new magic of behavioral ads is the best investment, and we believe the master buddie. We believe the new glittering - surely forgetting about ongoing testing & evaluation. It’s sort of sad.
Yes, this is a transitional period - the era of Meatball Sundae - and it is taking long. But let’s see what Microsoft is focusing on (no, hypervideos are not specifically mentioned - unless the interactive kiosk is capable of object tracking):
One crunched a clip, looking for the most appropriate stretch of time and spot on the screen for an advertiser’s “bug,” or logo. For example, if a car company wanted to show its logo for 10 seconds in the bottom-right-hand corner of the screen, the computer program would find the 10 seconds in which the logo interferes least with the action in the video.
Another used speech recognition to make a transcript of a video, then served up ads - in the demonstration, they were text links - alongside the video. As the topics discussed on screen changed, so did the ads.
The third program scanned a video for surfaces where ads or product images could be inserted later. The demo showed how the same frames could display a Coke ad one moment and a Pepsi ad the next, without having to reshoot the video.
Other experiments included an interactive shopping kiosk that used elements of Microsoft Surface, a next-generation touch screen, to show ads and coupons, and a computer program that helped marketers avoid accidentally putting their brand on a Web page with distasteful content.