Blogs have enjoyed money-making potential through text-based ads for a while now, but Vive Network wants to help bloggers take ads a little further.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based provider of multimedia ad-serving solutions hooks bloggers up with video ad dollars.
Ted Lang, a founder of Vive Network, told internetnews.com that the company will only work with blogs it deems are a good match for rich-media content, adding that some sites are better suited for text and banner ads.
He said the ad agencies Vive has talked with are interested in entertainment, TV, sports and automobiles categories.
Interested bloggers can apply to the ad service via e-mail on the company’s Web site.
According to Vive, the criteria used to determine a blog’s worthiness include its quality and content, the target profile of the blog’s audience, relevancy match with advertisers’ needs, and blog traffic and impressions.
The company designed a system so that bloggers, once approved, only need to copy and paste a few blocks of HTML for targeted video ads to begin appearing.
Vive is currently in beta with a number of bloggers and advertisers and during the next several weeks hopes to make it available to the general public.
Lang said Vive is working on a “hybrid model” for advertisers to
measure results based on either the number of viewers or click-throughs to
the advertisers’ Web site.
“This is a way for advertisers to reach unique demographics. Video advertising is very different from banner advertising, and blogs have their own unique audience.
“We have proprietary technology to make these ads relevant and targeted because we don’t want to jeopardize the blogs’ readership.”
While online video may have a reputation as being especially appealing to a
younger audience, research indicates it has a far broader appeal.
Consumers between the ages of 35 and 54 accounted for 45 percent of all online
video watched in 2005, according to a study released earlier this month by comScore Networks and Streamingmedia.com.
Also according to the study, 35- to 54-year-olds are 20 percent more likely to
watch online video than the average Internet user, while 25- to 34-year-olds
are 12 percent more likely than the average Internet user to watch a stream
online.
“Contrary to public perception, it’s not just ‘college kids’ or ‘bleeding-edge’ Internet users who are streaming videos,” Erin Hunter, senior vice
president of comScore Networks Media and Entertainment Solutions, said in a
statement.
Vive’s Lang said he expects advertisers to be creative in their approach to
marketing through blogs.
“The 30-second ad is something of a standard, but
sometimes that can be overkill. You can do something in 10 or 15 seconds
that can have a lot of impact.”
