Firefly Video™ Unveils New and Powerful Way to Leverage Automotive TV Advertising Buys for the Web

NEW YORK, June 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Firefly Video™, a new online video advertising platform designed to complement traditional television and online pre-roll advertising, today announced the results of a successful campaign it ran to promote the newly redesigned 2011 Hyundai Sonata with advertising agency Initiative. During a two week period in April, Firefly Video drove over 150,000 engagements, or active online views of a Sonata commercial designed to reach a highly-targeted online audience. This campaign, constructed by Firefly Video, identified the ideal Sonata buyer and leveraged creative assets from Hyundai's TV commercials to build the web video campaign, which ensured complete message consistency as well as no additional production costs.

A February report from Nielsen shows that while down 23.4% from 2008, the automotive industry still led all categories in US advertising with over $8 billion spent in 2009. Firefly Video predicts that consumer-activated online automotive ads will account for approximately 1 percent of that spend for the 2011 model year, or about $80 million. "The recent economic downturn, and turmoil in the automotive space means that major manufacturers must consistently show that their ads are delivering results -- not only helping with brand lift, but truly engaging and encouraging potential buyers," said Marc Barach, CMO of Firefly Video. "Consumers who actively choose to watch a TV spot are far more valuable than consumers who passively consume ads.  Bringing these highly-qualified prospects to the mix really complements the automaker's TV investment in a meaningful way and helps drive traffic to the showroom."

Firefly Video's ad units run on the Tribal Fusion network, providing video-enabled reach to 220 million web users worldwide (120 million US).When a consumer chooses to engage, the ad unit unfolds to cover the entire web page, ensuring the viewer's total attention and delivering a highly interactive experience.

"This campaign helped Hyundai differentiate in a highly competitive automotive landscape," said Jonathan Lim, Digital Planner at Initiative. "Firefly Video's unique video format combined with its reach and targeting capabilities helped us deliver a highly engaging experience to a large group of self-selected, high-value prospects and this extremely efficient exposure really complements the rest of our online and offline media plan."

Additional campaigns are now running with five other auto manufacturers as Firefly Video is rapidly being adopted as a new tactical weapon in the very competitive automotive space. The Firefly Video platform enables publishers and advertisers to combine the emotion and impact of TV with fine-grained targeting, rich audience insights, interactivity, brand-safe reach and most importantly, the ability to target within a worldwide audience of 220 million consumers (120 million US-only). Access to an online audience of this magnitude ensures that Firefly Video can reach meaningfully-sized consumer segments such as those who are in-market for a specific make or model or for a competitor's vehicle. For those reasons and Firefly's success with Hyundai, the company expects additional automakers to come on board as the competition for consumer dollars intensifies.

"We see this as a very new trend in auto advertising; conduct major brand awareness campaigns through television and additional media, then leverage that same message and well-produced creative in front of a concentrated audience of buyers," said Donnovan Andrews, president of Firefly Video. "We like to use the water irrigation analogy. Television is like rainfall: top down, massive and sweeping over the general public. Firefly Video is like drip irrigation: we're highly concentrated with little waste, traveling through a complex but connected and precise network. Both forms of irrigation are necessary for successful crop growth, and we're glad to have proven this out with both Hyundai and Initiative."

About Firefly Video:

Launched in 2010, Firefly Video is an online video advertising platform that provides brand advertisers the ability to effectively complement their TV and pre-roll buys, easily, efficiently and with full brand safety. Delivering the ability to reach and target within a worldwide online universe of 220 million people, Firefly Video enables brand advertisers to connect with consumers who are most interested in their brand and engage with them by combining the impact of video with interactivity. Firefly Video combines the best of TV advertising: emotionally engaging full-motion ads, with the best of display advertising: interactive engagement, fine-grained targeting, user feedback, social sharing and intelligent insights.

About Hyundai Motor America:

Hyundai Motor America, headquartered in Fountain Valley, Calif., is a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Co. of Korea. Hyundai vehicles are distributed throughout the United States by Hyundai Motor America and are sold and serviced through almost 800 dealerships nationwide. All Hyundai vehicles sold in the U.S. are covered by the Hyundai Assurance program which now includes the 5-year/60,000-mile fully transferable new vehicle warranty, Hyundai's 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranty and 5-year complimentary Roadside Assistance in addition to the highly acclaimed vehicle return policy introduced in early 2009. For more details on Hyundai Assurance, please visit www.HyundaiAssurance.com.

About Initiative:

Initiative (www.initiative.com) is a media communications company that transforms media exchanges into marketing results through a commitment to performance. Initiative believes that all marketing should be performance-driven. Data, analytics, insight and innovation are central to all our services, and we hold ourselves fully accountable to client business goals. This commitment to performance is the heart of Initiative's unique process and culture. Owned by the Interpublic Group, Initiative is part of media management group Mediabrands and a partner of Magna, IPG's centralized media negotiation entity. Initiative employs more than 2500 talented professionals, working in 91 offices across 70 markets, worldwide. Initiative's comprehensive range of performance-led communications services include: research and insight, media planning and buying, digital communications solutions, content creation, and evaluation and accountability services.

SOURCE Firefly Video