Trend #2: The Rise of the Ad-per-view System

 

Currently, text-form ads placed on search-engine sites are the most popular online advertising format, with video ads a distant fourth. However, Advertising Age predicts that video will be the fastest growing format in the next five years, eventually rising to the number two spot.

Courtesy of Advertising Age, 2007

I believe that online video advertising will grow even faster than that. Whereas in the Old World video content could only be accessed through one device, consumers in the Converged New World have many options, from PCs to cell phones to video game consoles. This trend, combined with the giant success of Youtube, signals a great demand for searchable video content in the future. When content providers eventually develop an advertising model that will allow them to capitalize on this demand, huge growth for the format is inevitable.

Research suggests that consumers are willing to be exposed to advertising in exchange for viewing high-quality video, as long as this advertising does not interrupt the viewing experience. Therefore I predict that websites will increasingly adopt an Ad-per-view system. Here's how it would work: consumers would use their computers, cell phones and televisions to browse web sites. Each time the viewer selects a video clip, he would be prompted to view one or multiple commercials, depending on the length of the clip.

In order to further engage the consumer, brands can provide a choice between several of their commercials, possibly including consumer-generated ads.

Here's an example of how this would all work. After the user selects a video clip, he would be prompted the following message:

This video has been brought to you buy Snickers. Before proceeding to the viewing site, please select one of Snickers ads below.

 

Alternatively, to increase the chance that the consumer will actually be interested in the product or service being offered, websites could offer ad-per-views from several different brands. These commercials should be in non-competing product/service categories (ie., a consumer should not be given the choice between a Coke and a Pepsi commercial), so as to not give an unfair advantage to dominant brands. The consumer would then choose between one of several commercials for the same brand. Here's an example:

 

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