Brightcove Goes for Brand Advertisers in Pair-up with Tremor

Video platform and network Brightcove wants more relationships with brand advertisers, and video ad network Tremor Media has them. The two firms, competitors in ways, have aligned in an ad network partnership by which Brightcove will make inventory from its premium network available to Tremor’s pre-roll video advertisers. The deal gives Brightcove brand advertisers and Tremor access to a broader swath of inventory. The two companies also aim to help establish video ad guidelines through the alignment.

Tremor has a “large pipeline of nationally recognized brand advertisers,” said Adam Gerber, VP, ad products and strategy for Brightcove, who added the partnership “ensures strong ad rotation.” As many online video watchers know, high-frequency of the same pre-roll video spot doesn’t make for the best user experience. “One of the challenges of broadband video is that of scale,” added Gerber, who believes more advertisers means less ad redundancy.

Neither firm would quantify the amount of impressions to be added to Tremor’s network; however, content will come from more than 400 sites in Brightcove’s “select” tier of publishers such as Ford Models Videos, TasteTV, Shipwreck Central and WealthTrack. The video inventory to be supplied to Tremor is vetted based on criteria like content quality and length; chosen clips typically will run between 90 seconds and two minutes. In all, Brightcove includes over 3,000 media producers in its network, and pays them half of the ad revenue derived from running ads in their content.

Ads will be sold by Tremor and targeted by category or on a custom-channel basis. The CPM-based pre-roll spots will be accompanied by a banner or expandable banner, and can be frequency-capped. Neither company would reveal terms of the deal.

Both firms have decided to use the relationship as a means of establishing video ad standards, by accepting only ads of 15 seconds or less. According to Randy Kilgore, chief revenue officer at Tremor, advertisers understand the importance of shortening video ad durations, but they are “still lagging behind” in actually producing briefer Web spots.

“By no means is a :15 pre-roll an ideal, but I think we’re on a path towards an evolved format,” said Gerber.

Though this is the first such relationship for Tremor, Brightcove has paired with video ad network Brightroll for the last few months to facilitate clickable post-roll direct-response ads in Brightcove inventory. Brightcove also sells advertising direct to agencies and advertisers and has sales staff in Chicago, New York and its Cambridge headquarters.

According to Gerber, Brightcove expects to develop additional partnerships with more third party ad networks in the future. “Our blended model of sales will evolve,” he continued.

Brightcove last week announced it will syndicate ad-supported video from CBS News across the Web through its Syndication Marketplace. The company also recently signed video platform clients Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive and Hearst Newspapers.