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VOD Ads Hit ‘Watershed Moment’ with Real-Time Insertion

The video-on-demand advertising space faces a significant hurdle in the fact that ad insertion platforms have been unable to swap ads in and out of the content in anything close to real time. In fact, until now, most ads have been “baked in” to the content, which made it impossible for the ads to change until the content itself changed.

Now, however, Sunflower Broadband - which services 30,000 homes in and around Lawrence, Kansas - is inserting ads for the movie Jackass: Number Two from Paramount Pictures into Comedy Central VOD programming on the fly. It is also able to swap the ads in and out within hours, according to Mediaweek.

The system will view data and analyze the effectiveness of each ad. MTVN will be able to gauge viewership and adjust the ad message as the film is released and in the days after it hits theaters, writes Multichannel News.

The campaign is being handled by Mediaedge:cia.

“This is a real watershed moment for VOD advertising and what MTV Networks can offer its clients,” says Carolyn Everson, senior vp, ad sales strategy and biz dev, MTV Networks. “Sunflower’s test allows for almost real-time ad insertion, and allows us to give our clients something they’ve wanted since the beginning - timely, highly targeted VOD advertising opportunities.”

Comcast was the first operator to offer an active VOD ad-insertion program, and is working on trials that will allow it to move content in and out in a matter of days.

Last year, VOD advertising accounted for only $50 million of advertising’s total media spend.