Online Video Ads: Tools and Trends to Watch

At ClickZ’s Online Video Ad Forum yesterday, a fantastic line up of two dozen speakers offered up examples of their latest creative work and some shared info on tips and tools they think are worth watching.

During the day-long program at the Millennium Broadway Hotel, participants picked up intelligence on these things:

*Deep Focus’ Ian Schafer credited a subtle change in an ad-serving format with improving results for one video ad campaign he worked on. Historically when video ads ran on a site, a loader screen would appear and then the ad would start. A change in DoubleClick’s technology, he said, enables the video ad to launch immediately — without the loader screen. That change, he said, resulted in a 30 percent increase in the interaction rate for a video ad promoting “Recount,” an HBO film.

* In looking to the potential for a richer future for online video ads, Dorian Sweet, a digital strategist, pointed to a cool tool called PicLens. Using this tool, a Web site visitor can view photos or videos from a site such as YouTube on a “3D wall.”

* Vibrant Media, which has technology called IntelliTXT that enables advertisers to “buy” keywords in content and then serve up text ads, has extended that feature so video ads can be viewed when someone mouses over a keyword in a blog or other online content, according to one speaker.

* Making online video content optimized for search engine remains a daunting task. Even though there have been some recent technology advances, the culprit are objects in Adobe Flash multimedia technology that cannot be read by search engine bots, another speaker said.

For more in-depth coverage of online video ad campaigns and other trends, check out my column here on Friday.