Sunday, November 16, 2014

Yahoo Bulks up Video Ad Offering w/ New Acquisition

Yahoo announced that they have acquired a hot video advertising company called Brightroll for $640M. Brightroll has been around since 2006 and has over $100M in revenue; the company is independently profitable and focuses on creating a unified, automated digital video ad platform that can serve, measure, and buy ads across a variety of devices and formats. Interestingly, because of the size of Brightroll and its considerable financials, its one of the unusual acquisitions that will actually ad to Yahoo's bottom line substantially as well as position it well for future trends in the video ad space.

More specifically, the acquisition represents a chance to make a long-term strategic play on the value and growth of video ads. Video ads remain relevant and interesting because they are the form most favored by brand advertisers; more than simple banner or display ads, video ads are able to connect with an audience and convey a message in a way that helps build brand personality, awareness, and attachment. The acquisition could jive well with Yahoo's other positions in digital video and publishing.

Looked at another way, this is one step closer to allowing brand advertisers to get the same kind of efficacy and audience access in online video as they do in offline TV video. TV video ads are a mature vehicle that's well developed, have standardized measures of efficacy, and have a huge audience. Video ads can match in terms of audience reach and targeting, but fall far behind in terms of standardized metrics to measure success and track performance. Brand advertisers are used to having these, which impeded online video ads. Brightroll's platform aims to solve this, and I think it's a savvy move on Yahoo's part to bulk up their position in this area.

Source: http://www.marketingtechnews.net/news/2014/nov/12/yahoo-bulks-video-after-640-million-brightroll-acquisition/

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