The Fifth Network's director of marketing defends pre-roll and tells us that doing online video the right way is more important than doing it at all.

The awkward silence had lasted about 15 seconds when my grandma asked aloud for someone to come carve the turkey. The awkward silence had begun when, upon handing out the last of the presents, everyone realized that everyone had forgotten to get Aunt Kay a gift.

Figuring it would be wise to be in control of the largest knife in the house, I emphatically volunteered to help Grandma, jumped up from the couch and ran to the computer room.

Having never carved a turkey, I saw at as wise move to look up directions and watch a quick video about the subject. While http://turkey.google.com produced nothing, to my excitement, , I quickly found a number of smaller niche sites with turkey carving instructional videos, all about three to five minutes in length.

I picked one of the sites and before the video began, a pre-roll advertisement came up for a Cooking Magazine subscription and Recipe Collection. I clicked the companion banner, signed Aunt Kay up, and then proceeded to learn how to carve like a pro.

Pre-roll saved Christmas.
While the rest of the 2006 was less focused on the wonder and glory of advertising, I felt that -- like Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol," and Uncle Scrooge in "Mickey's Christmas Carol" -- I had learned a lesson that I had to share with the world. I turned that lesson into my New Year's Video Resolutions, and they follow below.

Next year I will:

1. Be nicer to pre-roll: I for one am no longer part of the horde of people who, while buying and selling pre-roll inventory, scoff at it as an inferior ad solution. When done correctly (that is, contextually targeted, demo-targeted, frequency capped and combined with a companion piece) it typically garners fantastic results. Research says that users find in-stream ads annoying, but I believe that this is so because it usually is not done well and because people are still getting used to an ad-supported, video-centric internet. The pre-roll solution works and deserves to be part of the online marketing mix.
   
   
2. Stop insisting that simply adding video to a campaign is a solution: Last year, I wanted advertisers to slap their video assets on the web so they could watch their interaction rates grow, but that's just not reality. Video needs to be done right. It needs to be employed by in-stream ads just as much as it needs to be coupled with in-banner interactive features in video ads. Video needs to be targeted, tracked, optimized and it needs to speak to the user. With all the fervor around video, I cannot in good conscience say that repurposing a 30-sec spot from TV is as affective as producing video that is shot for -- and speaks to -- users when they are in a lean-forward, internet-frame of mind.
   
   
3. Stop promoting video to everyone: Perhaps, not every site needs syndicated video or even a video experience. I mean, it's not like a recent OPA study stated that video is becoming more and more important for users and advertisers alike, or that audiences on sites with branded original content tend to have attributes and purchasing behaviors that place them in the upper echelons of desirable target markets for numerous types of advertisers… ah, ahem, well… I guess I already broke that resolution.

This year is already shaping up to be filled with growth and opportunity. There's talk of video pervading the B2B market, the corporate communications market, new realms of the business-to-consumer market and even making new in-roads in the consumer-to-consumer market. ABI Research even released a new estimate that, by 2011, the market for online video will be $1.87 billion.

This shows that there's more than one way to carve a turkey, and a lot of it to go around.

Bradley Werner is the director of marketing, The Fifth Network. Read full bio.