Cloud-based video services provider Brightcove is upping the ante in the competition to attract media companies and content owners to the online video space. The vendor announced that its Brightcove Player now supports HTML5 VPAID 2.0, which makes it possible for customers to eschew Flash and instead run JavaScript-based interactive ads.
Separately, the vendor announced a new turnkey product, OTT Flow, designed in partnership with Accedo, which enables media companies to go direct to consumer with their video content.
Getting more content providers online quickly is a big initiative for OTT ecosystem players, making Brightcove OTT Flow an interesting option in a growing field of end-to-end delivery providers.
But its addition of VPAID compatibility is perhaps more important because of the challenges that online video advertising is currently facing -- and in tandem with that, the challenge to monetize ad-supported video. Interactive ads using Flash face an uphill battle due to its security issues: last year, for example, Mozilla temporarily blocked all Flash content from its Firefox browser until an acceptable patch was put into place.
In that regard, HTML5 VPAID ads are much more likely to be seen and interacted with. "Leveraging HTML5 VPAID can lift engagement either via click-through or interaction, by more than 389% over mobile VAST ads, which means this addition could have a remarkable return on spend for advertisers," said Sizmek's Jaime Singson, director of product marketing.
Likewise, advertisers and ad platforms are increasingly using VPAID technology. Tremor Video, for example, recently partnered with Integral Ad Science on a "VPAID to VPAID" setup that provides real-time data between Tremor's ad delivery platform and IAS' analytics service. "The important thing with VPAID to VPAID is it's a real-time integration," said Lauren Weiner, president of buyer platforms at Tremor, in an interview with FierceOnlineVideo. "The more timely and relevant the data is that's going back and forth between a partner and ourselves, the better it is to make smart decisions."
Brightcove customers using its version 5 player along with the Google IMA integration with HTML5 "preferred" or "only" selected will automatically be able to run HTML5 VPAID ads.
"The HTML5 VPAID format is not new to the industry as a technology or standard, but it is still in its infancy in terms of ad execution and deployment," Singson said. Brightcove's adding support for the format will boost VPAID's presence in the online video ecosystem, and could help solve at least one nattering problem for the ad industry.
For more:
- see the release
- and this release
Related articles:
Brightcove tackles ad blocking, latency with cloud-based insertion solution
Improved OTT user experience, increased devices boost video worldwide, reports find
Apple, Google technology moves set challenge for online video advertisers