Last year, comScore published a comprehensive report on the evolution of the video advertising industry entitled ‘Surviving the Upfronts in a Cross media world’ directed to those who have yet to take the leap into the age of online video advertising. Their findings were, as always, insightful and left little scope for naysayers to argue that television advertising alone is sufficient to gain maximum reach on any given campaign.

One of the most interesting comparisons made in the report was the content/ad ratio between online and television media. TV ads currently make up about 25% of all content on air while online video ads occupy a meager 1.5% of all online video content. comScore believe that there remains “immense opportunity” for online video advertising to grow and states that ad spend with online video isn’t proportionate to the engagement levels it achieves.

The reality is that many businesses don’t have the budget or in-house expertise to adopt these new technologies and therefore get left behind as the online video ad ship sails away.

Viddyad saw this problem. As excitement spiraled around the possibilities of online video ads, we saw that many SMB’s could never afford to produce a professional video ad and some would be put off by complicated technologies. We have developed software that allows the user to make a video ad in a few easy steps to promote their business online using high quality stock images and videos. Thus removing barriers to entry to the online video advertising world and allowing businesses to invest more time and money in the distribution of their video and less in the production.

As audiences become disengaged from traditional text and display adverts, video ads offer a solution to inspire and impress potential customers. Troy Olsen and Jeff Loquist (shopperschoice.com) once quoted that ‘If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million’. We agree.

Source: comScore (2012), Surviving the Upfronts in a Cross Media World