The online advertising business would greatly benefit from technology that curates scoally shared content and identifies the content that can be monetized with ads. That’s the conclusion of Rene Rechtman, CEO of Goviral and Senior VP AOL Advertising Group International during a panel session at the recent Monaco Media Forum covering inventory challenges.
“Every time you tweet a friend, or send a picture on Instagram, or Facebook somebody, you create inventory, but we haven’t figured out how to monetize that,” he says. “The ad networks of the future will find ways so Facebook and YouTube can make money not on 5% but maybe on 80% of their inventory. So when we hear there isn’t enough video inventory for pre-rolls, I question that.” Rechtman expands on the idea, saying that the industry needs technology that can understand and curate such consumer-created content without disrupting the environment.
However, that may not solve the inventory challenges, says Scott Ferber, CEO and chairman of digital video ad platform Videology, during the same panel session. The number of display ads is potentially infinite, but TV advertisers want video ads to run in video, and given the challenges that YouTube has faced in fully monetizing its investment in original content, making money on video content is not so easy. “One could argue that video advertising has a natural constraint that display advertising doesn’t,” he says.
Daisy Whitney
