“TIME!” The judges voice rang out like a fire drill to the dizzied contestants. Faces were flush, hearts raced, and competitive juices were soaring. Some were injured, but they had pressed forward through blazing heat and tense moments. Like true gladiators, they persevered, and pressed on to the final moments of battle.
World Cup final you may ask? Lakers vs. Celtics for the NBA title? No, but close. This was the 2011 Iron Chef Challenge hosted by YuMe, and the kitchen scene was like a battle field in Braveheart. The Northwest sales reps gathered their most fearless clients to the Blue Ribbon Cooking School in the East Lake district of Seattle for a night of stove tops and wine, to see who could impress in the confines of the kitchen. After being divided into two teams, and being assigned two separate proteins (steak and shrimp respectively), the two teams jumped right into strategy and planning.
Each team was responsible for laying out a main course, side dish, and a dessert, so you had to take into account time, resources, the skill sets of your team members.
Within only moments it seemed, the teams had broken up into miniature cooking staffs, fighting their way through giant buckets of salt, flour, and any other unique ingredient they could grab before the opposition could make a move. Both teams quickly compartmentalized into prep groups, focusing on different aspects of the meal. As the clock ticked, both teams leveraged the experience of Blue Ribbon’s own masters of culinary arts to guide the teams through the menus they had planned. As each team’s meal began to take shape, you could see leaders emerging on both sides, and the participants true competitive nature was starting to show.
When Blue Ribbon manager (and judge on the evening) Mike Duppenthaler called for time, we all knew we had put everything into it. Team steak concocted “Seattle” Cheese Steaks, a dedication plate to their Philly predecessor. As a side, it was homemade tator tots. Dessert was carnival style funnel cake, infused with pumpkin spice, and topped with raspberry compote and crème fraiche. Team shrimp made hand rolled ravioli, filled with the shellfish and garnished with a fantastic cream sauce. Stuffed mushrooms and a chocolate pudding finished it off, and made for a difficult decision for Judge Duppenthaler. When the funnel cake was deemed the best dessert Blue Ribbon had ever seen, team steak knew that victory was theirs.
All in all, it was an amazing time had by all. As if it were any of our home kitchens, it was good wine, good friends, and a night of memories we won’t soon forget. But if we do forget, we’ll have this video to remind us:
Yesterday was an exciting day for YuMe. It was a day we went back to our roots. You may not know this, but before we created our advertising technology platform, ACE, YuMe launched in 2004 as an IPTV company. Our first product enabled people to download and watch movies directly on their TV:
YuMe, like online video, has come full circle. It started with television, and then moved to the computer screen, then to mobile phones and tablets. Now seven years after our first IPTV box, we’ve announced the Embedded SDK and established our position as the operating system for TV 2.0. The YuMe Embedded SDK is the only video advertising platform to be built directly into TVs, Blu-Ray Disc™ players, and other connected devices.
For advertisers, this means access to consumers at every stage of interaction with the TV. Even as consumers’ attention continues to fragment, advertisers can maintain a presence on every screen on which video is being watched. For publishers and CTV app developers this means even more access to TV brand dollars, enabling them to maximize revenue and simplify their ad serving and management. And because the Embedded SDK is built into the firmware of the TV, CE manufacturers can easily integrate with ACE for Publishers and the Connected Audience Network, and finally participate in the advertising value chain of television.
What makes this announcement even more exciting is that we’ve secured the support of one of the most innovative automotive advertisers, Toyota. Through their participation in this important launch, they’ve proven the value of this fast-growing channel for video—a channel in which we’ve helped participated and innovated since the beginning.
We’ll be making several exciting announcements about our Connected TV products in the coming months. Check out our News Page for updates!
An article penned by our SVP of Emerging Platforms, Frank Barbieri, appeared in TechCrunch today and is also featured below.
Every five or so years for the past two decades the introduction of an Internet connection to a new device type has created a boom in disruptive businesses.
Most of these booms – computers followed by mobile phones, and then gaming consoles and now tablets – have been clearly successful. Others (remember the Network Computer?) have been ill-timed.
Now manufacturers, and a growing ecosystem of partners to support them, are betting big that consumers are finally poised to accept an Internet connection in their most cherished living room technology mainstay, the television. Players from Samsung to Sony are bringing the so-called ConnectedTV (CTV) to market in mass, and you’ll see a big push this holiday season. There are already upwards of fourteen million CTVs in North America and sixty five percent of TVs sold in 2012 will be CTVs.
With every platform change new companies and nimble traditional companies have lined up to try and capture a share of the redistribution of rewards that inevitably comes when consumers change their habits. North American television advertising is certainly no exception as a host of companies, old and new line up to try and capture their share of that $62B annual advertising feast.
While there has been some preparation to date, incumbents have an incredibly hard time cannibalizing established revenue streams for growing, but yet to mature, new revenue streams. We’ve seen this with everything from books to brokerages. And in the TV world, we are seeing it on display with the recent stutter of Hulu, the pioneering archetype, catching arrows in their back from erstwhile incumbent partners as they bravely forge ahead.
Such is the nature of distribution when the business advantage is built primarily on pricing and bundling, and carefully restricted access, not on real consumer demonstrated desires and behaviors.
Technology has always been on the side of the consumer, especially in the realm of television viewing. You may not remember now, but broadcasters bitterly fought the arrival of cable in the 70s.
And while it seems absurd now, given it has created hundreds of billions of revenue, studios fought against the arrival of DVDs in the late 90s. The early titles were a handful of B movies released by Warner Brothers in conjunctions with Toshiba. It was all Toshiba could get at the time.
We may be seeing another disruption today. With a new wave of CTV content applications, the pricing and access advantage of cable television may dissipate. Imagine downloading a TNT program application directly from Turner rather than paying a cable company for access to Turner content. Content providers themselves now, or will soon, have the tools to reach their audience directly on the big screen. Turner could pocket 100% of any subscription fee and advertising revenue rather than having to share with a distribution partner.
The traditional distribution players are betting, but not banking, on the fact that new television distribution will look substantially similar to old television distribution. They are expanding their services to include on demand viewing and hoping much will continue as before with consumers paying a fee for content bundles.
But what if that’s not the way it goes down? What if like mobile phones and the PC before them consumers choose to snack on content delivered directly to them by the content providers themselves, effectively removing the pricing, bundling and access advantage of traditional cable and satellite television distribution. In that world the power of delivery, and we’ll say advertising insertion, shifts directly to content providers, device manufactures and the ecosystem of direct Internet connected business partners they surround themselves with. In that scenario online advertising businesses have a distinct advantage over traditional distribution businesses as they are already in the market pumping billions of video ads through existing devices like PCs, mobile phones and tablets.
Sure distribution incumbents like Comcast could make IP connected set-top boxes that consumers use to access content directly, unbundled or al la carte, but that erodes their existing revenue model around cable pricing. The industry calls folks who end run cable to get their content directly from content companies, “cord cutters.” A recent Morgan Stanley report concluded that cable companies would have to double the internet access fees of so called “cord cutters” to make up for the lost revenue on cable TV packages.
There is change brewing. Years in this business and witness to booms and busts have taught all of us to be cautious of absolutist rhetoric opining the end of any particular distribution channel. Consumers have shown a remarkable ability to expand their entertainment appetites, and new consumption habits largely prove additive, not cannibalistic (except for my poor print friends of course). So be suspect of anyone who claims that all programming or advertising is going to be wholly delivered in a particular way. But the numbers themselves are so enormous, and the opportunity so large that even a ten percent swing in consumer viewing habits from cable and satelite to ConnectedTV applications and cord-cutters will represent a shift in $6.2B of advertising spend. That, to me, is a scenario worth preparing for.
Sources include GFK Market Analysis, Piper Jaffray, and DeutscheBank.
Here at YuMe we love video, but we really really love video that comes from the web, mobile devices and connected TV. All of our services involve video. Our team is often in videos to talk about video (look to your right). We’ve done tons of research on video, with studies on video viewing habits, the best way to advertise with video and the best way to attract advertisers with your video. You get the point…
So, we’d like to put something out there. TV Is Dead. Video Advertising is Alive & Well.
We know there’s research that shows TV viewership is up, and that it’s still the best way to reach a mass audience. But how many people are actually “watching” TV when they watch TV? Did you know that 60% of viewers don’t focus on the TV, usually because of their cell phones? This is the future of video entertainment, and YuMe is at the forefront of it.
SXSW interactive is an annual festival challenging its attendees to envision the future of innovative technology. Is there a better group of people to talk to about the future of video?
We’re asking everyone to go to YuMe’s SXSW Panel Page and vote for us to speak on the future of video entertainment. On that website you can see a description of our panel, a list of questions that will be answered and get a link to some of that great research we mentioned before. Afterall… We really love video.
Our CEO Jayant Kadambi sat down with Beet.tv to discuss our efforts in mobile video advertising and the growth we are seeing in this sector. With smartphone penetration nearing 50% in the US, along with the increase of consumers watching video on connected devices, we anticipate 2012 to be a year of significant growth for mobile video advertising.
Today we announced that Slacker Radio, a top digital radio service, has selected our ACE for Publishers (AFP) ad management platform to manage ad serving, ad management, ad source mediation and inventory monetization across all platforms – online, Apple iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad), Android devices, Blackberry smartphones and more.
Slacker Radio provides music lovers with access to the Slacker music library, which includes over 150 curated genre stations. In addition to its own website and mobile applications, Slacker recently announced that they will be powering AOL Radio content and ad operations in order to increase reach for advertisers on the Slacker properties.
“At Slacker, we are committed to providing music lovers with highly personalized music online, via connected home devices or on-the-go with easy-to-use Slacker Personal Radio mobile applications,” said Jonathan Sasse, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Slacker. “We believe that YuMe’s AFP platform, combined with our world class radio service, is a winning combination that enables us to monetize content and consumer relationships across every platform.”
We are excited about Slacker Radio adopting AFP and welcome them as well to our Connected Audience Network family!
eMarketer published a recent study conducted by Yahoo! that demonstrates the strong impact online video has in driving brand recall. In the study, Yahoo! found that video viewers recalled seeing pre-, mid-, and post-roll ads more often than any other display ad type. And, most importantly, more than half (53%) of respondents who recalled seeing some advertising remembered viewing these ads in-stream. The following chart shows how pre-roll compares to other ad formats and significantly out-performs banner ads.
What was the effect seen for pre-, mid- and post-roll ads in drving brand awareness? As highlighted below, 48% of respondents remembered the brand or product and 20% took action as a result of the ad.
We are excited to announce that we have acquired Appealing Media, a premium mboile video advertising company and a leader in the UK market. Appealing Media currently serves customers such as ESPN, IPC Media, Bauer Media, and Universal McCann and we are thrilled to have Owen Hanks, Appealing Media’s founder and CEO, join us as General Manager Mobile – Europe.
The Appealing Media team are experts on mobile video and this acquisition allows us to expand our technology footprint into Europe, starting in the UK, leveraging Appealing Media’s momentum and growing across Europe.
Appealing Media is also an award winner, taking home the Grand Prix award at MobiTech Europe in 2010.
As stated by our CEO Michael Mathieu in the announcement, “As smartphone and tablet adoption takes off, the mobile video market will grow considerably both in complexity and reach. And the advertising on these platforms needs to be relevant and smart, especially for premium brands. We are excited to open our first office in the UK and welcome the executive team of Appealing Media to YuMe.”
Our team in Chennai, India continues to grow and just this week moved into a new office. It’s a big change from our previous office, which was getting very cramped! Check out our new space, as well as members of our creative services team, which supports our video ad network sales team with the design and development of custom ad placements, like InSynch and Triple Play, as well as our Ad Operations, Flash and IT Ops teams getting settled and enjoying their new space.
Today Gian Lombardi, our SVP of Sales, presented findings from a research study we conducted with DIGIDAY at their annual Video Upfront event in NYC. If you missed it, our CRO Scot McLernon is presenting the results again at DIGIDAY’s Video Upfront event in Los Angeles this Thursday, April 14th. ForDIGIDAY’s “State of the Industry on Digital Video” report, we asked the industry questions about video content, ad formats and how marketers judge the success of their video investments. Why are some companies still sitting on the sidelines of the digital video experience and what will it take to convince them that online video has arrived? And, what are advertisers planning to spend on mobile video and connected TV in 2011? You can read more about the results here or download a copy of the report from our Insights & Papers section.
Older Entries
