Jason Glickman is an internet advertising veteran, with a focus on emerging interactive technologies. Jason co-founded Tremor Network, Inc. and leads the direction of the company in all areas. Most recently, Jason was the co-founder of ContextualNet, Inc., a leading contextual and behavioral ad representation company. Jason was responsible for building strategic partnerships and managing the national sales team.
Corey Kronengold: It goes without saying that online video is a hot topic right now. Video ad spending is set to rise nearly 70 percent this year. How are you positioning yourselves in the market to capitalize on that influx of ad dollars?
Jason Glickman: Obviously we are an ad network, but we are also a technology company. We've got the technology to use as a hook to build our ad network and be a trusted technology partner for our publisher clients. And because of that trust, they give us more access to their high value inventory. One thing that is unique to Tremor is that we also allow our publisher clients to accept other third party network tags, so they can fill out their inventory with other networks if they want to.
Kronengold: How do you see behavioral targeting fitting into the video ad model specifically?
Glickman: Behavioral targeting for pre-roll and mid-roll ads is a powerful tool for both advertisers and publishers. Brand advertisers can utilize this technology to intelligently target their video ads based on a user's interests rather than making an educated guess based on the channel or content they are watching. This is a huge advantage over buying on television as it eliminates wasted impressions on consumers who were not in an advertiser's target. For publishers, behavioral targeting provides the necessary tool to turn video inventory that would have otherwise gone unsold into a highly valuable placement for their clients. This is especially powerful for user-generated video content.
Kronengold: How do you incorporate user-generated content or the social networks into a media plan for big brand marketers who may be afraid of attaching their brand to potentially undesirable content?
Glickman: There's definitely a limit to what I consider "good" user-generated content. Anything explicit or that an advertiser might be concerned with is a no-go. But if it's truly a generic run-of-network piece of content that you just don't know how to classify, like a funny clip of a guy making a big splash off the diving board, you can still reach those people effectively.
There is a ton of content there, and that's where the behavioral technology comes into play. Someone who wants to watch any of these videos might in fact be a user who is in the market to buy an automobile. So instead of saying, "That's not relevant," we know there's a good chance they are interested in seeing an auto ad. So the behavioral side opens the door to the billions of impressions that would have otherwise gone by the wayside.
Kronengold: Do you have a sense of how much growth is currently happening within contextual or behavioral targeting, and what factors are driving the most growth?
Glickman: I don't know the actual percentage, but I would be comfortable saying that it is significantly larger this year than last year and that number is sure to grow throughout this year and next. Some factors helping out have been a general education of the advertising industry, further acceptance of behavioral targeting by brand focused advertisers, growth in text and graphical contextual networks like Google Adsense and Contextweb.
Kronengold: What have you discovered about contextual and behavioral targeting in your experience that may not yet be fully understood by the industry?
Glickman: I think that the combination of both behavioral and contextual targeting for a single campaign is a powerful combination, and this will likely be implemented much more frequently this year and next. Both behavioral and contextual targeting are great tools for advertisers and publishers to take advantage of inventory that would have otherwise fallen into an RON category. However, behavioral can be better suited to define a user's demographic and interests through historical actions. Contextual is better suited to define the intentions of a user at the very moment and create targeted sub categories for pages in real time.
Kronengold: With your recent partnership with Tacoda, Tremor now offers both behavioral and contextual targeting for video. Are your pre-roll clients starting to use both technologies within the same campaign?
Glickman: We haven't run both together on pre-roll yet, but it's coming soon. We're doing contextual for our rich media network, and that works very well. We're now adding behavioral to the rich media network as well, so an advertiser can use a combination of both. In the in-stream environment, it's difficult to clearly identify what that content is. There needs to be better technology for classifying the content. Whether it be reading the SAP text or voice recognition, there needs to be some kind of analysis. It will be necessary as more and more people continue to upload content. Right now, there's no standard meta-data.
But that's where the real benefit of behavioral comes in right now. We know more about those users without needing to know specifically what they are looking at. The contextual comes in to play more with longer form content.
Kronengold: I have spent time discussing streaming video platforms and the video ad marketplace with your CTO, Jesse Chenard and with your VP of marketing, Tad Davis. You acquired Dynadco last year as well as some other smaller acquisitions. Can you talk about the synergies that you've created with those companies and how those contribute to differentiating Tremor from other ad networks?
Glickman: Tremor has a network of publisher sites and ad sales expertise. Dynadco had technical expertise with video ad insertion. The combination is a full-service video ad solution company with the necessary tools for both publishers and advertisers.
Kronengold: Advertising.com just announced their purchase of Lightningcast, effectively mirroring your acquisition of Dynadco. Both acquisitions create targeted pre-roll networks. What is your opinion of all of this activity in your space?
Glickman: We see it as a good thing for the industry that the bigger players are jumping in. That helps wake up the agencies and direct advertisers; it helps bring those bigger budgets to online, particularly on the video side. They've been waiting on the sidelines, but now that the Fox's and ABC's of the world are creating these video portals, instead of doing regular TV shows online, a lot of these budgets are starting to come over.
When you look at why, it's really the medium that speaks best to them. They are used to the content-break-content-break model. The user has their audio turned on, and they are ready for video. It's a natural place for that budget to go. The rich media, expandable banners, and in-banner video don't get that much of those budgets.
AOL coming into the space commands a lot of respect and attention from the agencies. The greater percentage of those TV dollars coming online the better it is for all of us. And the natural place for it to go is pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll video.
Kronengold: There has been a lot of talk about "online upfronts" lately. Do specific types of content lend themselves to an "upfront" or does all online video deserve an upfront?
Glickman: Upfronts apply to many types of content, particularly any content that can be behaviorally targeted, where we can zero in on user characteristics. In the near term, upfronts online will flow to larger players and spill over to the second and third tier publishers. Long-term, we see online and TV as one contiguous platform, and to a large extent, upfront buying will always be a key component of that marketplace. We are planning upfront schedules for portions of our inventory, but they may not follow the time frame for traditional upfronts.
Kronengold: Do you view the upfront as something that is being tested as a model, or as something that will firmly take hold in the online world?
Glickman: Upfronts are definitely in the beta test stage for the online marketplace, but will start to gain traction first with the rich media and video content. We won't likely see a lot of upfront momentum for search, for example, any time soon.
Outside of the networks putting their content online, there really isn't that "big premiere" feeling. When I see an upfront, I'd like to see the TV people hold back some of their budgets and reserve it for online. The greater percent they can hold back and plan for online, the better. They don't need to spend their whole budget upfront online at once, but I'd like to see them hold back 10 percent or 20 percent for online.
Kronengold: The IAB just issued its latest broadband video guidelines. Without the physical constraints of a banner ad, do you believe there is there are reasons that you shouldn't serve any length ad into any length content?
Glickman: Our technology lends itself beyond just the commercial pods. We can also rotate in a graphic unit. It can be a logo or a transitional ad. It doesn't need to be a 15 or 30 second spot. It can be a five second video intro.
Kronengold: Are you seeing a shift towards people shooting more content specifically for online?
Glickman: It's just starting to get into the heads of people. We're still seeing a lot of repurposed TV content, but we are pushing for shorter, 10-12 second online specific spots, especially for short form content. A user doesn't want to sit through a 30 second ad to watch 45 seconds of content. But for longer form video, 30 second spots placed in the middle of a 10 or 20 minute long video is more than acceptable. But advertisers are starting to see that a 10 or 12 second ad provides a better user experience.
Kronengold: I recently read about a proposed idea similar to CPA or CPC models where advertisers would only pay based on completion rates of the video. Why would or wouldn't that work for a pre-roll network?
Glickman: For starters, with pre-roll there is a huge amount of branding that goes along with watching the ad. Even if they watched 25 percent or 50 percent of it, they're still going to remember that ad. There's also the companion ad units that stays on the page. So they may not complete the video, but they do see the companion ad. There's a value to that piece, and it's not something can't be taken for granted and charge nothing for. Or there could be a giant premium built in to make up for that kind of loss.
Kronengold: With all of the activity and buzz in the video area, Tremor is obviously well positioned for growth. Where do you see yourselves at the end of the year?
Glickman: We're going to be significantly bigger at the end of the year and in '07 with a ton of new advertisers and publishers, new features and technology that we're developing right now. It's going to be a very fun ride. But the mantra of the company is going to stay the same. Building that elite ad sales network for premiere advertisers with the best inventory. Segmenting by behaviors. Segmenting by channels. But it will be a fine balance between having enough inventory to sell and enough advertisers to fill it. It's like the chicken and the egg.
Kronengold: When we see you speaking on your next panel, what will it be? Are you a video guy or are you a targeting guy?
Glickman: I think I'm a video guy looking at how we can improve the video space for advertisers and publishers. I'm also a big proponent of the longer form content, so I'm looking at how solutions will develop for that. Our technology works very well, and we'll be talking a lot about how the mid-roll ad units will be as valuable as or more valuable than a pre-roll unit. The users are already engaged in the programming, and it provides a lot of opportunity for sequential ads. Right now the darling is pre-roll, but I think that is definitely going to change.
Corey Kronengold has been an evangelist for the convergence, online video and rich media space since 1998, bringing insight and understanding of new and complex technologies to clients, analysts, media and the general public. A graduate of Boston University's College of Communication, Kronengold has worked with leading digital brands including 121Media, Eyeblaster, Billboard, TDK, Launch.com, and NHL.com.
