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ADOTAS Conversations: Dana Jones, Founder & President, Ultramercial

Written on
Jun 11, 2006 
Author
Jaime Gottlieb  |
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ADOTAS Conversations: Dana Jones, Founder & President, Ultramercial

A: ViewPass just recently hit the wires. How’s it been going over so far?

DJ: Well, we’re in talks with all the networks right now. They’re at different stages. We’re under [non-disclosure] with all of them, so I can’t really discuss it at length. A couple of them have intense interest. But it’s all four majors: Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC.

We’ve built a more fleshed-out version of ViewPass, which includes an element in which the viewer is started from the local affiliate’s website. The first availability—the first Ultramercial that’s sold to get in—is sold by the affiliate. So the affiliate is not frozen out of the financial model of this—which is a big concern that everybody has, especially the affiliate. [It] still supports iTunes or Google, or wherever you’re putting your content, even at your own site for sale. Or [you can] start from WXYZ TV to watch whatever show it is—[say] the first advertiser is the local supermarket chain or the local New York area car dealer—and you sell that first spot and that gives you a revenue stream, which allows the affiliate to start promoting this new way to gain access to content on their television station.

Then, [you'll be] able to ping it back. It’s some news, and some little banners, and this is a rich experience they can bring to their viewers. All the ads that are there would increase traffic to the websites, it would turn the website into a financial model, and they can also encourage people to continue to watch shows at their regularly scheduled time. So it’s not an “either/or”, it’s an “and”.

A: How do you get around the fact that nowadays consumers are so ad-blind, and they’re always multi-tasking?

DJ: The key is to build interactivity in the ad. With our ad unit—which is the only one that has this feature—the viewer has opted in to watching the ad. They’ve essentially made an explicit agreement with the advertiser before the commercial that says “I’m agreeing to watch these commercials in exchange for the right to watch the show when I want to watch it, which is right now.”

So, the smart advertisers build interactivity. A push-through ad that says “Here are three models of Honda—pick one of the Honda models.” Then that ad probably has a 15- or 30-second video clip in it. But then there’s more activity after that, such as a game, or show us a preference—”Pick the color of the car you like best.” This provides real-time feedback for the advertiser. It also provides proof that the viewer is watching—that they’re not getting up, walking away, coming back, or going to email. They won’t get to the end unless they’ve watched to the end and interact to the end.

A: Is the interactivity of the ad itself at the advertiser’s discretion, or is that something you work with them on?

DJ: We strongly recommend though it’s the advertiser’s dollar; they can spend it any way they want. The ads where the advertiser… I can tell you that Honda has done just a spectacular job of this. And we have a case study at our site. When they put interactivity into their ads, the level of activity inside the ad soars, and so do the click-through rates. They’ve run five, six, seven campaigns with us, from the click-through… The interactivity rate is around 30 percent, and the click-through rate is somewhere between 8 and 12 percent. So it’s high above the norms. And engagement time is very long—fifty seconds. You could push through the commercial probably in 30, 35.

A: Right. So what kind of challenges have you been facing here, and how have you come above them?

DJ: Even though we’ve been around for three-and-a-half years, we’re still scary to a lot of the content people. Not the advertisers, the advertisers love us. But no one will site through an ad, no one wants to watch an ad. Well, what’s your revenue model? You’re revenue model is advertising. So what are you going to do…give a crappy ad experience? With television, everyone’s been so well-known, that there are TV pods. Here’s one commercial, instead of nine segments inside of a primetime pod. So there nine commercials in a pod, but there might be five. And the other four are a news tease and promos for upcoming shows. That’s a lot of information that is rapid-fire. Here’s an opportunity for just one ad.

Our experience has shown us that people are completely willing to do this. We have so much data. But we still have that pushback. Our challenge is how we sell to the inside of our industry that Ultramercial has distinct advantages over pre-rolls. The pre-roll is easy to deploy, and that’s a big advantage, but from the viewer’s point of view, it’s something to look at the ceiling or go off and do something else and then come back to. At the end of the pre-roll, the content immediately starts. And when the content immediately starts, you’ve forgotten about who that advertiser was.

Ultramercials are started and pushed through by the viewer, and then they are ended by the viewer when the viewer decides it’s time to start the programming again. Now, in most cases, that’s immediately, but if you were interested in the sponsor, you’d continue to have this experience—drill down deeper into the ad, do whatever you want, and then you’re content is always there. Pre-roll lacks that.

A: So what are we to expect next?

DJ: Well, we have a very interesting new publisher partner—that I can’t say who that is. It’s a very, very exciting opportunity, and it’s very much outside of the box, and it’s with a big, big partner.





Reader Comments.

Dana: Are you Dana, bother of Brian Jones,lived in L.A. way back when…when we knew each other? I have stumbled on this web sight, some how and wa-la, magic. Say hello to Brian, how is everything? Congrats on your new venture..j

Posted by jody bodine eckhaiser | 2:48 pm on September 13, 2007.

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