I am thrilled about the eMarketer stat — behavioral targeting is projected to grow to a $4.8 billion market by 2012 -- and it seems online video will be taking over the majority share of that.  One of the barriers that has been raised to behavioral targeting with online video is the fact that the cookie data (which stores the users behavior, enabling the ad network to decide which ad to display based on the users behavior -- aka behavioral targeting) often resides in the player -- which, of course, are not standardized.  Eric Franchi raises the issue in his article Behavioral Targeting and Online Video: Making It a Reality: “Cookie data may be utilized to deliver video as it does now for display, but not in every player format (formats being Flash, Windows Media and Real Player to name a few).”

We came across this barrier recently when trying to integrate an ad network into MediaMall.  Since we use our own player that enables the video to play on the TV vs. PC, we needed an ad network that didn't require the cookie data be stored in the player.  We found that, in fact, the logic for using cookies can reside in the page, in standardized jscript, regardless of what player is being used to actually play the media. And that cookie intelligence can then just instruct the player (whatever player it is) to play a given ad once it makes a decision on what to play.  Both tremormedia and spotxchangeuse jscript in the page vs. logic in the player. So — the fact that so many ad networks bake their intelligence/logic into the player, instead of keeping it in jscript in the page, which is video-format agnostic will slow the growth of the category.  I hope to see more ad networks adopting the open approach!

In our effort to bring all the compelling Internet video content to your TV in a cost-effective manner, of course we will be bringing advertising too. Advertising is (naturally) a big part of our business model. But -- how does video advertising really work? How effective is it? In our model, the viewing experience is very similar to TV advertising (like the video that plays in the upper corner while you are searching through on-demand listings from your cable provider). But it is bought, sold, managed, and distributed like on-line advertising. So which metrics apply? The online click-based metrics or the TV "audience" (aka number of viewers) metrics? We're all trying to figure that out. Tameka Lee just published an interesting article based on a recent study conducted by Exponential Interactive Study: Consistent Performance Metrics Emerging For Online Video which found that the majority of video buyers are still using "click-through" metrics (logically, since these are the same folks who buy other forms of online advertising), but those who did use "view-through" metrics were much more satisfied with their effectiveness. It seems to me that which metrics work best depends on three factors: (1) the goal of the advertiser, (2) the viewing context/audience targeted and (3) the ad itself. If an advertiser's goal is to drive traffic to a website (ultimately for purchase), then an interactive click-driven ad targeting folks sitting at their PCs makes sense. If the advertiser's goal, however, is to build brand awareness, or introduce a new product to targeted consumers (who may be watching a certain type of video on their PC or TV), then a pre-roll or post-roll-type ad with view-through metrics may make much more sense. From a context-perspective, interactive video ads can only be effective where the user is watching the ad on their PC. But, with view-through-associated goals, the video consumption could be TV or PC-based. In the MediaMall environment, when users are watching through their TV and the navigation and interaction is remote-control-based, it is likely that ads with a view-through goal will be much more effective. And -- in the end, the view-through metrics are still more granular than on broadcast TV. So - I am glad that the survey respondents had much higher satisfaction with the view-through metrics. I am sure the metrics will get better and better as video advertising matures.