An all-star panel of execs from Scripps, BrightCove and AKQA explored new opportunities for online video in this exciting Summit session.

Tuesday morning, Arise Communications President and iMedia contributor Andrew Rosenman led an exciting mainstage panel about "what's available today and what's available in the future" for marketing and broadband video. Joining Rosenman onstage were Adam Berrey, VP of strategy and marketing for BrightCove, Inc., Channing Dawson, SVP of emerging media for Scripps Networks, and AKQA Executive Creative Director Lars Bastholm.

Rosenman asked the audience, "How many people here have been involved in deploying any kind of video broadband campaign?" A number of audience members raised their hands, but that number dropped significantly when Rosenman asked how many had shot new video for the campaign. Rosenman's panel concerned that very question: the benefits of shooting new video for online marketing, rather than merely repurposing video shot for television. "Our theme is creativity," Rosenman said. "And I think you'll like what you see."

Scripps' Channing Dawson then took center stage, opening his presentation by noting that what distinguishes Scripps from other networks is that, "We own all our own content." This ownership enables Scripps to shift and mix content across platforms, from TV to online. Sporting 15 different broadband channels, Scripps served eight to nine millions streams in February, 2006, and it has more vertical networks and channels in development focusing on kitchen design, bath design, woodworking and others. The network will launch 10 new verticals over the next two years.

Dawson showed creative executions from two of Scripps channels: Living.com and Eat This, with Dave Lieberman, an original online show from FoodNetwork.com.

Emmy-winning Living.com, "a painterly site done by Dewey Reid," was produced in conjunction with marketing for General Motors' GMC trucks. The experimental design showcases "what is advertising in this new world that is broadband," Dawson said.

"We used our programming department and agency," and the two came together for the shoot. "Content was incorporated into this advertising space," including a virtual "showroom for cars." The two teams created short form ads as well as pre-roll: "Everything we run has a :15 or :30 in front of it," Dawson said. He then added, "What we're trying to take apart is this whole idea of content and advertising" and move it into non-linear from, "marrying the advertising and the content." Billed as "The Video Magazine," visitors to Living.com can move seamlessly from videos about redoing a remodeling a kitchen to GMC promotional videos that adeptly play with the remodeling theme.

Dawson then moved to Eat This, Scripps' "first original program with 13 original webisodes." Eat This is all about "designing for broadband." It places other content units (bonus footage, stills, recipes, et cetera) alongside the video, "trying to make it more like a DVD experience. We need to layer in text and layer in graphics," Dawson said, adding that it's "all very interactive and very cool, but also useful." From the marketing perspective, Scripps can integrate ads extremely easily, "even into the recipes."

AKQA's Lars Bastholm then took the stage to talk about perfectdarkzero.com, a site that "showcases some innovative ways of producing video so that we're not merely transferring television online." The site uniquely integrates online video, a website, email and mobile phones in to a promotion for the Perfect Dark Zero Xbox game.

A visitor to the site is greeted by protagonist Joanna Dark, and then prompted to enter the name and cell phone number of a friend onto a virtual piece of paper. The message is then emailed to the recipient, whereupon the visitor sees more footage, including a scene in a morgue. A body in the morgue has a toe tag with the recipient's name on it, a challenge to play Perfect Dark Zero online with the sender. When the recipient receives the challenge, the sender gets a call on his or her cell phone. 

BrightCove's Adam Berrey then took over and described "some of the stuff that we're seeing in the marketplace, and… some of the solutions we're trying to create for marketers and advertisers." BrightCove was started out of the belief that the internet is "the next major distribution channel for video."

Berry then articulated "two major strategies that we're seeing content owners pursue." The first is the development of new content channels, like Scripps. "They start to create new ways that you can reach consumers and buyers." The second strategy is that "content is moving out of specific contexts and starting to be distributed in ways that aren't always predictable" but which also "create new opportunities," Berrey said.

BrightCove's essential mission is to provide "a set of underlying services that make it possible" to pursue the two strategies, Berrey said, and to develop "marketing solutions that move beyond the box."

Berrey then presented two examples of BrightCove solutions: TOGA, a recently launched National Lampoon channel, and ExpoTV.

College-oriented TOGA features "great short form content" combined with ads. "They're running pre-roll with synched pop up and with synched banners," Berrey said, noting that the industry is moving away from "disrupting the experience" of the video and preferring overlays. Broadband enables video design with the "full service of rich media to work within."

With ExpoTV, Berrey described a different strategy, "the advertiser as publisher" combined with consumer generated media. ExpoTV features nearly 1,200 consumer generated video pieces about products featured on the site, "turning consumers into spokespeople about the brands" and creating "a medium where consumers are engaged in a much more meaningful dialogue about product and brand."

Berrey then showed the audience the BrightCove console, a tool "organized around the tasks of the programmer or the producer" that enables producers to arrange content and automatically create players.

The panel then moved into a discussion, with Rosenman asking the panel to talk more about the advertiser as publisher. Scripps' Dawson Channing observed, "One of the trends we're finding is that the traditional agents' breakthrough creative no longer have the keys to the kingdom" in a world that includes consumer generated media and publisher-created content.

When, for example, Scripps worked with Home Depot, the advertising was "just as important as the content...  because people are interested in buying things for their homes or their kitchens." A key new job for Scripps is to convince the advertisers that "they're now content producers."

As traditional TV producers move increasingly into advertising roles, agencies in turn have to change because consumers want to consumer advertising as content, Channing said.

Rosenman then said that it was time to hear about "the role of the creative agency" in this new world and turned to AKQA's Lars Bastholm.

Taking the long view, Bastholm pointed out that moving from the simple HTML plus graphics world of 1996 to the multitude of different options today was a move "from cave paintings to rocket science in 10 years." With paradigms shifting every 30 days, "we're challenged with coming up with new metaphors… to tell stories in a medium that is constantly evolving."

Rosenman then asked the panel, "Who will play the role of translator?" in the new world of publishers, agencies, producers and consumers. "Does the agency bridge that gap," or is that role left to entities like BrightCove, Rosenman asked.

"It comes down to really great content," Bastholm observed. "The problem is going to be getting the big Madison Avenue behemoths" to see the changes that are happening.

"It's collaboration," Berry said. "We're all trying to solve the same set of problems here, and no one's got the crystal ball... There's the collaboration between content creator, advertiser, and service or technology platform provider.... Without that collaboration, there's no way to come up with innovating advertising solutions." 

Brad Berens is executive editor for iMedia Communications.

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