Robert Andrews

Advertisers imagine a world where they target ads by knowing just what viewers are watching. In digital, that world is coming in time. But, in analog, it’s already here. Around a million US households are feeding their TV tuning data to media monitor Kantar Media, which uses it to help WPP stablemate Xaxis buy digital […]

The apparent shortage of premium video inventory against which brands can advertise is being driven in part by insufficient verification for who is really watching what, says one ad exec at the sharp end. Group M data unit Xaxis‘ audience strategy manager Evan Hanlon blames “shortage” partly on the “lack of our ability to verify […]

After Tokbox closed its own-brand consumer video chat service in 2011, it began opening up its own technology to offer as a platform for rival services. Two years on, CEO Ian Small is thanking a Google-backed web video initiative for supporting his company. “A little over a year ago, Chrome introduced WebRTC,” Small tells Beet.TV. […]

clypd may have recently taken on $7.2 million in VC funding to build out its ambition to bring data-driven advertising to television – but an exec says things are moving faster than anticipated. “We have a total $10.5 million (in investment) – this is being used to build out the team, build out the platform,” […]

This year, Dutch TV data provider Civolution has been helping social ad firm Optimal place Facebook ads on second screens, chronologically synchronized with TV ads. Next up, the firm wants to get a lot more detailed. “2013 was all bat establishing the goalset,” Civolution senior product manager Stefan Maris tells Beet.TV. “2014 will be all […]

Many people are out to re-invent education as a “flipped classroom“, in which learning and interaction is carried out remotely and digitally. Tokbox CEO Ian Small agrees video is just the medium to support the idea. “WebRTC on its own solves the one-to-one, peer-to-peer (video) case reasonably well,” he tells Beet.TV. “But what it doesn’t really […]

Today, the TV tuning habits of a million American households is helping Kantar Media advertising partners target digital ads. Tomorrow, the applications could be far more widespread. “One of the things on our roadmap, as we’re very integrated in television, is to broaden the perspective,” Kantar chief commercial officer Bud Breheney tells Beet.TV. “You have […]

Putting users in control can put publishers at an advantage, it seems. Google’s TrueView video ad format may let users skip YouTube pre-roll ads – but that doesn’t mean reduced engagement, says a company exec. “One of the most interesting findings that we’ve gotten from TrueView, both on YouTube and also off of YouTube and […]

Advertisers should think of basic 15- and 30-second digital video ads as the “blank canvas” for interactive creative ad engagements, according to an executive from video ad tech vendor Videology. “There’s a second layer of optimization around the interaction with the audience,” product GM Rich Astley tells Beet.TV. He says Videology’s own technology offers basic interactivity […]

Lately, ad tech vendors have been rushing like bulls out of a gate to bring out new automated ad delivery tools. But this proliferation may not always be the case, according to a top Google exec. “There could easily be some contraction in this marketplace, or acquisition,” Google media platforms sales head Jay VanDerzee tells Beet.TV. “The next […]

Today, super-automated and -targeted ad buying dubbed “programmatic” is mostly  brought to bear on straightforward display ads in standard formats. So, with engaging new devices demanding new-wave interactive ad formats, will programmatic reach this new area? “Technology will catch up to the creative,” Real Media Group president Nicolle Pangis tells Beet.TV. “We’ve seen it in display, […]

Mindshare wants to deal in real-time ads – but it hates the price spikes that can be associated with the mechanism. The group’s north America MD James Powell tells Beet.TV he needs “inflation-immune pricing”… “Strong publishers aren’t necessarily dumping all their good content in to a programmatic sphere at the moment. And, even if they […]

“The year of mobile.” It’s become a pretty hackneyed digital media forecast. But, in 2013, for digital video, it came true, says Brightcove media and broadcast CTO Albert Lai. “In 2013, we saw a lot of our customers say that the majority or near-majority of their customer base were coming from mobile apps versus desktop,” […]

Automated advertising is about to be executed at some serious scale, after WPP this month announced it would merge its 24/7 Media unit’s collection of publisher-side technologies in to data stablemate Xaxis. “It puts us in some rare air – we are the largest programmatic and media platform,” Xaxis north America MD Brian Gleason tells Beet.TV. WPP merged […]

Soon to announce it’s “significantly beyond” the five million US sales it announced this April, internet video device outfit Roku is more than a box maker – it’s also trying to help its channel partners serve up sophisticated ads to those users. “Advertising-supported apps are our fastest-growing segment on the platform,” business development VP Scott […]

“Big Data” is a topic that has been hot on the lips of many technologists through 2013. But what is it, and what does it mean for online video? Adobe principal business development manager Kevin Towes says analytics tools can be worked on data to better serve both ads and more content itself. “You could […]

Wywy, a German startup that helps advertisers serve ads to mobile devices in sync with TV commercials, plans to launch in the US and elsewhere, having raised a $7 million second investment round. The outfit ingests ad videos from advertisers and uses decade-old automated content recognition in mobile apps to identify when a viewer is watching […]

One of the biggest changes in the digital video industry is coming thanks to the arrival of ye olde traditional TV advertising practices, says one industry exec. “The biggest lever I’ve seen in pushing this forward is this concept of TV data coming online, which really didn’t exist a year and half ago,” says Mark […]

Television may be “old media” to some digital folks. But traditional data and practices from TV advertising are making rapid incursions to influencing the online video world. “in 2013, we saw the first step in that evolution,” says Evan Hanlon, audience and strategy manager of Group M’s Xaxis data unit. “One of the key pieces […]

Philips spin-out Civolution may be best known for the  video watermarking technology it inherited in its acquisition of Teletrax. But the Dutch outfit also brings other offerings to the table. Civolution technology also provides clients with real-time metadata describing on-air TV content. When this is used to target advertising in social networks, the results can […]