The Boutique Agency taking on Video Advertising

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Video advertising at Barons Media has become a fast growing addition to the company now making up over 35% of the company's net revenue.  Barons Media runs Pre-Roll, Mid-Roll, Post-Roll and overlay advertisements.  The majority of their inventory is Pre-Roll inventory. 

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VAST 2.0 (Video Ad Serving Template) is the industry standard set forth by the iab (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and adhered to by most advertisers.  VPAID (Video Player Ad-Serving Interface Definition) is a variation on this standard supporting a rich interactive video experience.  The VAST 3.0 template has been released by the iab but has not yet been fully adopted.  Barons Media is completely VAST and VPAID compliant.  In addition to that Barons Media has also received Telemetry approval.  Telemetry is an ad serving and verification service used by various advertisers.

Pre-Roll has consistently been the preferred choice for video advertising.  However, there have been many changes over the past year.  Last year, the VTR (view through rate) didn't seem to be much of a concern.  Currently, achieving a reasonable VTR seems to be a major goal for advertisers as they often do their best to maintain a 60% or higher VTR.  CTR (click through rate) is also becoming a new goal for advertisers as many are expecting a CTR in the 3-4% range.

Transparency has always been an issue for advertisers.  Expectations as far as referrer information have broadened over the past year with stricter and stricter regulation.  The site URL almost always needs to be passed to the advertiser.  This is implemented through a referrer url macro within the VAST tag.  Other referrer information requested by some advertisers has been player size, placement (above the fold, below the fold), type of ad etc…   The list of requests seems to continue to grow throughout the year.  Previously advertisers seemed more open to running inbanner (within an iframe or javascript tag) where no referrer information was passed.  This seems to be a rarer occurrence nowadays.

Networks and agencies seem to vary when it comes to content.  Some are extremely strict, only allowing premium content on a premium site such as http://www.hypster.com.  However, as the market changes and advertiser appetite for video has only increased it seems advertisers are more willing to work with UGC (user generated content) on premium sites such as http://www.highbrowcoffee.com as long as content and comments are filtered through an approval process.

As the market changes Barons Media has continued to adopt the highest standards expected by advertisers.  Few boutique agencies such as Barons Media have tackled video as there are many facets attached to video advertising.   With Barons Media's success in the space it seems to be well worth the endeavor.

SOURCE Barons Media