Race is on for Australian online video content
The growing importance of video to the Australian online industry has been underlined with a series of developments including the boss of one of the biggest media agencies in the country warning of a shortage of content, and Fairfax Digital preparing to rebrand its video offering as FDTV.
In a guest posting for NineMSN’s media centre, Leigh Terry, managing partner of OMD, writes: “Strange, that in the age of engagement we are still using traditional TV based creative, in the interactive environment the automatic default has been to pre and post roll creative formats. Plugging a traditional media format into a newer medium is simply square peg round hole and is rapidly becoming less relevant to a savvy audience that increasingly expects integration and more intelligent advertising.” And he adds:
“It seems that the TV networks in Australia have been slow to anticipate and quench the demand for video with many media owners having a lack of inventory to sell to advertisers.”
Meanwhile, the growing importance of video has been recognised by AIMIA – the Australian Interactive Media Association – which has for the first time included a video category in its awards this year.
Although various categories have previously included video elements, this is the first time the body will have a specific category to recognise “appropriate, relevant and best use of digital video as a creative and distribution”. medium.
There are also two other new categories in the AIMIA Awards – People’s Choice, as voted by AIMIA members, and best sport content. Entries in all categories close on November 4.
Awards chairman Paul McCarthy told Mumbrella: “The importance of video has come out of the growth of broadband both here and globally. Rich media is one of the key opportunities that the National Broadband Network will offer us.”
AIMIA has also created a video committee, which meets for the first time at the end of next week. The founding members are representatives from media owners involved with video, including BBC.com, BigPond. Firelight, Hutchison, ninemsn, Viocorp and Yahoo!7. The Group is chaired by Adam Furness, Head of video sales at NineMSN.
And another awards ceremony with online video categories open to Australian agencies and content producers is The Webby Awards, which has just launched its call for entries.
Meanwhile, today saw Yahoo!7 announced as the official online broadcaster for the 2010 Australian Open Tennis Championships. The deal will include video of the match highlights. Sister company Seven is the TV broadcaster for the event. Kath Hamilton, audience director for Yahoo!7 said: “We will package up the best of the tournament for our audience and provide exclusive online footage of the matches, interviews and other on-court antics.”
Adn there is also a digital category for the Australia’s Trop Fest short film contest, which launched its call for entries on Friday. For the first time, there will be a Mobile Masterpieces category – sponsored by Telstra – featuring work shot entirely on mobile phones. The video below was the New York winner:
Fairfax Digital is also pushing hard on the format, with full page video launching from medium rectangle ads coming shortly. The company will also rebrand its offering under the FDTV banner. According to a spokesman, a couple of clients have already signed up, although the campaigns have not yet run.
Among examples of Fairfax’s made-for-the-web work is the video series Curiageous (curious + courageous) which has been running on The Vine.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Hey Tim – does the Oz Open online deal include live streaming? Or just highlights?
It would be great to see live streaming of matches that aren’t broadcast on TV.
Hi Ben,
I asked myself that very question. My reading of the announcement is that it does not. But I’ve already left a message asking the question, and I’ll update when I get an answer.
Cheers,
Tim Burrowes – Mumbrella
Hi Ben,
Yahoo!7 Have now got back to me. it does not include live streaming.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Hey guys,
Video content is an area Transfer is definitely moving into, where we’ll be launching “Transfer Live” as to bring a true insight into high calibre talent. This initiative will allow the industry to get a feel for what senior people actually do in agencies across the Asia Pacific region.
Stay tuned!
b
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Yaay. ABout time! Online Video has been big since 1999. Back then our content was generating around 300k views per month. This was mainly because of distribution via partners AOL,Yahoo! Microsoft NineMSN, Optus, Excite, Real Networks etc. We even did a webcast of the Xgames from France.
We had issues back then getting agencies to understand banner ads were not as cool as they thought .
The probs they will have if they try to go with pre & post roll creatives is viewers finding the equiv content without ads & unless their using RTSP they will not be able to deliver the metrics when asked for by advertisers. They will only be able to talk about hits. With RTSP as the transport you can tell them exactly when they turned off or tuned in. Broadband has largely negated the need to use RTSP but it is a much better way to deliver vid for many reasons. Video on a webserver is still very clunky.
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I’ve shut down videos on the BBC News site and other sites because the ads are so long. I’ve even seen videos with ads LONGER than the following video content.
What’s needed for online video – particularly given the attention span length of the online video audience – is short, “sting” type ads. Preferably 3 seconds, definitely no longer than 5. You’re not preaching a lengthy corporate message or infomercial, you’re getting brand exposure and that’s all. Anything longer than that which is interesting and unique enough to not be switched off its worth its own standalone likely-viral YouTube status anyway. It doesn’t need to go in front of someone else’s video.
Remember admen: the first time you watch a TVC it’s at best mildly amusing, at worst irrelevant, irritating and offensive. The second time you watch ANY TVC it’s an absolute fucking annoyance. Having to sit through some goddamn bank’s 30-second pension scheme promo twice, then thrice, then four five six seven SCREENSMASHRAGEKILLKILLKILL times is beyond the reasonable extent of human suffering (take note BBC).
You shouldn’t even need to shoot new creative: the flash intros to a lot of websites would be ample for this, or just flash web ads (like the Mumbrella “get noticed” banner below – see I did notice it).
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Beautiful video. Evocative. Effective. Cleverness in its simplicity.
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Blipverts!
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