In November, Yahoo! quietly introduced clickable pre-roll ad units with a
"call to action," meaning visitors who watch a video, see a pre-roll ad and are encouraged to click on the ad to find more information.
Rebecca
Paoletti, Director of Video Sales Strategy told me on Friday that some of these new units are getting clickthrough rates ten times greater
than conventional ads.
Yahoo! typically inserts a pre-roll ad and companion
banner ad adjacent to the video player.
While YouTube has vastly greater streams, Yahoo! has the most "professionally produced" videos on the Web. For advertisers comfortable with placing ads against television-type programming, the Yahoo! platform works.
In this video with Rebecca, we have added examples of the new interactive ads.
For more information, check out this interview with Rebecca in Adweek by Brian Morrissey.
Maven to Stay in Cambridge
I asked Rebecca about about the Maven acquisition, announced this week. She said the company will remain in its Cambridge, Massachusetts headquarters and continue to serve its stable of big publishers.
While the company will exist as a stand alone unit, technology from Maven will be integrated into the Yahoo! offering, notably Maven’s overlay ad technology which will be used by Yahoo! by Q3, she said.
As publishers seek a solution to manage and monetize video publishing the new Yahoo!/Maven platform looks very attractive indeed.
— Andy Plesser
