CANNES — Yahoo arrived at Cannes last month ready to talk about video and programmatic.
Lisa Utzschneider, the company’s SVP-Sales, Americas, observed that Yahoo’s video offerings now run the gamut from long-form original content (such as a custom opportunity for Honda in “Community”) to short videos in digital magazines to Sponsored Posts on Tumblr that appear alongside user generated content.
“Video advertising is a big opportunity for Yahoo marketers to connect with users wherever they’re consuming streaming content,” she says.
Utzschneider joined the company last year and had previously been Amazon’s ad sales chief. She notes that Yahoo has been focused on integrating BrightRoll to make video inventory on the company’s owned and operated sites available programatically.
Yahoo’s acquisition of the programmatic video ad platform, which it bought for $640 million, closed last December. Utzschneider says Yahoo is now able to reach 188 million video viewers every month.
“What that gives Yahoo and our marketers is incredible flexibility and scale,” she says.
