The idea of pushing ads in front of the user is nothing new. It's been used in television advertising for many years. This time, however, these TV ads appear before or during a streaming video online. Aside from the familiarity of these ads produced in the same way as TV ads, marketers turn to social video and mobile platforms to boost brand awareness and user engagement because of the fast-growing market for dynamic and interactive video content. The current advertising technology also allows marketers to target specific viewers, cap the display frequency, place ads within relevant content, and engage with more users through interactive ads.

Video Ads Viewed by a Target Audience

On the surface, advertisers may have gone back to placing their video ads, which mostly consist of TV spots re-engineered for online marketing, in front of a faceless, nameless global audience. Yet, online video advertising works contrary to the traditional style of broadcasting adverts to a general audience. Advertising networks employ an automated cookie-based system of identifying user preferences based on referral URLs and the surrounding content. In particular, the system selects the ad to display based on keywords found in the video's closed captioning tracks, production scripts, blurbs or annotations, and speech-to-text transcripts.

Frequency Caps for Pre-Roll or In-Stream Ads

Marketing reports from advertising networks in 2011 and 2012 have shown that ad viewers tend to complete mid-roll ads more than any other display option. Performance-wise, the completion rates for pre-roll ads in videos that run longer than twenty minutes indicate there's a higher tolerance among viewers to watch these 15-second spots before watching the rest of the video content. These video ads build positive attitudes and beliefs towards the brand as long as viewers encounter these ads infrequently with some variety in content. The ad network's management system takes care of balancing the number of times the ads appear and the ad types to display. Otherwise, this marketing technique creates brand rage among web users more than it produces real consumer value.

Viewers Respond Well to Interactive Videos

This advertising solution works because it provides viewers greater control over the kind of video ads to watch through interactive menus and promotional opt-ins from companies. For example, in-stream ads and overlays on a page may ask web users to watch a 10-second video ad in exchange for coupons and freebies. Another way of engaging users is to introduce the video ad before they can access the webpage where they may download eBooks, industry reports, freeware, or other valuable content without paying a cent.

Generally, contextual advertising also pushes online ads into the line of vision of web users matching the brand's demographics. In addition, users also interact with Flash-based animation and images in banner ad displays. Yet, these techniques don't work as effectively as native advertising does with on-target video ads. Viewers have developed banner blindness and go to great lengths to block these invasive methods through browser add-ons.