VIEQUES, PR — YuMe Chief Revenue Officer Scot McLernon is calling on marketers and web publishers to unite and figure out how best to reach the approximately 160 million consumers who stream video and content via connected devices before they enter the “non-sponsored environment.”
This joint effort will require a greater focus on better understanding what connected device users look like: their demographics, psychographics, time of day of viewing, their interest levels and their passions.
“Advertisers are speaking rather loudly about this, but I don’t think we’ve figured out how to reach that right consumer at the right time and right place just yet,” says Mclernon. “Clearly, there’s a consumer shift. But the advertising opportunity hasn’t quite been figured out to the degree that can we can have this massive onslaught of dollars that just comes into the shift.”
According to McLernon, since 2011 the number of connected devices—including gaming consoles and smart TV’s—has ballooned from about 13 million to roughly 160 million today. Of all the bandwidth that’s used on a typical Friday night, 78% of viewing is being done through streaming. “Those are scary stats,” says McLernon.
And while he predicts that Netflix eventually will probably come up with some type of sponsored-environment model, “For now, we as marketers and publishers need to figure out what’s the best way to reach the consumer before they go into that non-sponsored environment.”
Shortly after McLernon was interviewed, YuMe announced fourth quarter and full year 2015 earnings results. The fourth quarter highlights included “solid revenue and adjusted EBITDA performance, and the completion of our end-to-end programmatic buildout with the on-time launch of our YuMe for Publishers sell-side platform,” said Jayant Kadambi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of YuMe.
This video was produced at the Beet.TV executive retreat presented by Videology. You can find more videos from the session here.
