Online video companies are in New York this week trying to convince marketers to spend more of their ad budgets with them. It's the second year of the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Digital NewFronts--online video's answer to the upfront ad buying season that occurs every spring in Manhattan.
Presenters so far have included the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO), Hulu, AOL (NYSE: AOL) and CBS Interactive. Others, such as Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Disney Interactive, Univision and Zynga, are still set to present.
Google's YouTube is said to be lowering the minimum amount of money it will accept from marketers in commitments at this year's event.
"Last year we were rigid," Lucas Watson, vice president of sales and marketing for Google, told AdAge. In 2012, the company reportedly asked advertisers to commit at least $10 million. "We got a few big advertisers with huge checks. We got a lot of feedback about being inflexible so now we are breaking them down into more manageable chunks," Watson added. This year the minimum is $1 million, according to AdAge.
Online video publishers used the event to release a host of announcements about new original programming, partnerships and business deals. Among the announcements: AOL's HuffPost Live will be carried on Mark Cuban's pay-TV network AXS TV, and Yahoo will distribute World Wrestling Entertainment content online beginning this summer.
For more:
- The New York Times had this story
- AdAge had this story
- Variety had this story
Special report: New advertising formats, timing could help monetize online video advertising
Related articles:
Report: Online video increasingly drives consumer purchases
Online video gets bigger piece of ad budgets