The Fifth Network's director of product and innovation reports back from the NY Video 2.0 conference with ideas for video advertising's next frontier.

We are just now in the beginning of the game when it comes to the different video experiences online will offer. The ad models that will support these experiences are also in flux, but as the future is not so far off, we need to start thinking about what advertising products will be right for a forthcoming new class of internet video just now coming on the scene.
 
Last week, during the NY Video 2.0 meet-up, an interesting comment was made regarding some strange new ad products that have gone into testing. One experience was that, as the user is watching a piece of long-form content, an interstitial, seemingly from out-of-nowhere takes over the whole screen for five seconds and then plops the user back into the show they were watching.

While not long, nor exciting (the ads are static gifs) from what i can tell, the experience is somewhat jarring. The people testing this ad product admitted that this is not an ad experience that will make it into their final product, but they did stir conversation among many of us about much of the experimenting currently going on with a number of different new advertising experiences.

As with all developing internet ad products, each will need to target users with extreme relevance and the least amount of user annoyance the medium can afford. This is quite a large task … as any of the major portals will attest.
 
One thing that stuck out in my mind was the readiness for a full screen video experience which starts playing in full screen at the very beginning of the experience. Unlike many of the current video platforms, which tend to make you lean forward from one asset to the next, the upcoming video full screen experience will take over the screen so that users can happily lean back and, if so inclined, enjoy the show reclined.

Many of you will say "hey... some proprietary video players like The Fifth Network player can go full screen already..." but these experiences currently start off with video contained in a player window.

With the fast approaching world of default full screen video experiences, agencies and vendors are now building and testing ad products that will work best when the lean forward experience shifts and a TV-esque lean back experience comes to the masses.
 
What's the Big Picture?
When going full screen you are more likely to have longer pieces of content, and interaction will thus become more deliberate. Advertisers will have to create targeted units meant to drive interaction in much different ways within these experiences than they currently do.
 
Certain points in the actual content, as well as designated advertising segments, will become the key interaction points. Engagement will become a hugely important metric and I see the day when, with longer form content, users will be driven to engage and interact with particular points in the content where the show solicits feedback.

Some of these actual call outs will be sponsored and customizable in a much simpler fashion than has been done with OnDemand TV and the like. Also, with online, the bonus of potential interaction is greatly heightened.

This interaction will be, in accordance with internet best-practices, "optional" for the user, so the units will need to perform a balancing act between being TiVo-proof and in-your-face, and being impactful.

What of the Ad Experiences for this new Video Experience?
The online video advertising experiences of the future, and especially full screen online video, will be much more valuable to the advertiser than the simple television commercial of today. The online video advertising experience will be driven by both the video playback experience and the video content type. Interaction will depend largely on both the creative calls-to-action and the relevance of the content to the user.  
 
When we look at the initial transition of the video commercial to online, and then to this impending transition to full screen viewing, research has shown that, on average, the medium best supports commercials shorter than 30-seconds. While the optimal commercial length for online may be shorter than for television, the value of the interaction will almost certainly increase for the advertiser in most situations.

With full screen video applications and implementations there will be changes and growth in the advertising and marketing opportunities. Transparencies and branded backgrounds will flourish and call outs during five-second spots will encourage users to "stay tuned" for interaction-heavy end caps occurring later in the show or at the end.

The full screen web will also have less clutter in that most experiences will allow for one ad per commercial break, as opposed to four to six. The full screen ad experience can and will offer the marketer and audience the opportunity to connect with each other while the content experience continues. An example would be a 5- or 10-second interstitial for the new Chevy Denali; a message appears and tells you how you can gain access to some secret content or enter some limited-time contest. Even if the ad is only the equivalent of a pop-up, the brand recognition will be much higher than that of a 30-second TV advertisement that is fast forwarded through.

So what's the first step?
As for the operation and implementation of these video experiences and ad experiences, upfront savvy, vision, investment and some guesswork will be needed.

In order for the online video advertising business to scale, it is certain that the video products themselves -- from a targeting, scheduling and tracking point-of-view -- need to be accomplished with less effort than it takes today.

But since this is only the beginning, I know for a fact that this will all be unfolding before our eyes shortly.

Ben Barokas is the director of product and innovation at The Fifth Network. Read full bio.