Latest Eyeblaster Global Benchmarking study released

Eyeblaster have just released their latest Global Benchmarking study covering the impact of dwell time on online advertising effectiveness. Key findings include:

• The longer people spend engaging with your creative, the more likely they are to convert - not exactly rocket science but good to get statistical confirmation of this
• High engagement web environments increase dwell time for your ads when they're placed within them - again, intuitively you'd expect people to be more attracted to content delivered in an environment they trust and spend time with online
• Ads that visibly impact over and above a publisher's content drive dwell times up - in a low engagement online setting compelling content is always going to win out
• Video creative increases dwell time by 29% - video is, not surprisingly, still the king in attracting online interest

Yahoo Secures Online Premiership Rights

Yahoo have secured exclusive UK online rights to the Premiership for the next three season. The deal will put five-minute highlight packages of every match on Yahoo.co.uk.

Highlights will be available from midnight on Sunday after weekend matches and at midnight the same day for midweek fixtures. Yahoo! will also own the rights in the UK to syndicate all or part of the Premier League highlights content to third parties, allowing Yahoo! to put together advertising packages for major brands. We imagine online betting companies will be all over this opportunity to access premium video content.

Richard Scudamore, chief executive of the Premier League, said: "The way fans access Barclays Premier League action is growing ever more diverse and sophisticated. The online highlights package is an important medium for supporters of all our clubs to be able to follow match action."

This is a bit of a surprise as most were expecting Sky to re-secure the rights after it was widely felt that Virgin failed to suitably promote (or sell) their EPL assets so it will be interesting to see if Yahoo! can do a better job.. Either way, it launches Yahoo! firmly back into the video market from a fairly low current position.

Valentines Day Massacre

What to do when Valentines day falls on a match day?

Nice piece of content work from Puma just in time for Valentines day.

Uniqlo Calendar

Japanese retailer Uniqlo's website is a wonder to behold.

We love their use of content to make their site not only a showcase for their products but also something both useful and interesting.

We could watch it for hours (but we're not right now cos we're at work, right?)

WeVee - Sharing the UK Film Council archive

Sharing previously restricted or hard to find resources seems to be the order of the day. Perhaps this is linked to increased nostalgia as the nation buckles down to the reality of recession and post recession Britain? As the website states:

WeVee is a unique collaboration between content people and web people in answer to a UK Film Council brief to bring film archives to brand new audiences. Our challenge is to unearth our regional history of archive film and video, searching out the gems and making them available for users to edit into their own WeVees using our unique online edit tool. WeVee is about making and sharing your own meanings about the past, reflecting on where we’ve come from and where we’re heading to.

So far, there are 174 clips in 6 categories - Celebrating, Getting About, Going to Work, Living Your Life, Speaking Out and "Random". We can see lots of uses for this from teaching the youth of today how different life was only a short time ago (topically, there are rather a lot of Bournville related clips on the front page at the moment) to VJ mash-ups (copyright permitting). Well worth taking time to explore.

Gillette Rock Documentaries

In a nice change from the old-school tour sponsorship, Gillette Uncut will launch a series of Rock documentaries at the end of the month featuring the likes of the Black Eyed Peas and Blink 182.

“Music plays a big part in the lives of young men,” says Steve Fund, Gillette global marketing director. “Gillette UNCUT shows a side of artists that’s rarely, if ever, seen – going backstage to show how they prepare, including styling and grooming, and the moments of doubt they experience before taking the stage.”

Google Plans to monetise Street-View

Interesting news from Google (reported at ReadWriteWeb), who have just been granted a patent for a new piece of technology based around Google street-view.

In essence the technology they have developed uses augmented reality to allow advertisers to advertise on signs and billboards that appear on street-view. This is an interesting way to monetise street-view but there is obvious potential for problems as Google at present are planning to sell the space using a bidding system in much the same way as they do through search.

What if a billboard owned by a theatre is bid on by a competitor who then uses it to advertise a rival show?  Would the theatre have the right to complain / sue? Surely that the owners of the billboards should be due a share of the revenue, a process that could prove very difficult to implement?

What do you think?

Nike, Art and the London Marathon

British illustrator James Jarvis has teamed up with Nike to create a short animation entitled "Onwards". The rumour is that James Jarvis will be running the London Marathon this weekend in a specially designed yellow suit built for him by Nike. That sort of knowledge is exactly the right sort of in-depth engagement that fans can talk about (if it is indeed true!). The project was proposed and produced by Jarvis with the end result being, what he hopes, "a much more equal collaboration with a brand". This is a rare example of a company supporting an artist without overbranding their work and taking away it's independent feel - the only references to Nike are small credits at the beginning and end of the animation where they are thanked for their support.


Onwards from akqa on Vimeo.



Thanks for this spot Chris.

Smoke and Mirrors and Rice Krispies

In a strange case of ‘now you don’t see it…now you do’ branded packets of cereal could soon be appearing in the kitchen of the Big Brother house in the UK as part of a plan from Endemol to insert product placement into catch-up content that is viewed online.

The super-indie has signed a deal with MirriAd, which specialises in digitally inserting CGI overlays into film to look like they were part of the original footage.

The technology will allow the indie to generate revenue by embedding branded props, signs, logos, videos or animations into the likes of Deal or No Deal or Coleen's Real Women when they appear on commercial catch-up content websites.

Product placement is banned in programmes produced for UK -television but there are no restrictions on embedding advertising in online content.

Can’t wait to see cupboards full of ‘pukka’ Baxters Soup in Jamie’s Kitchen or Catherine Morland munching on a ‘Sub of the Day’ in catch-up versions of ‘Northanger Abbey.’

In-game advertising

We talk a lot about brands generating content to tell their brand story. An equally effective communication is full integration within the content already sought out and consumed by the target audience. In this example, to reach young men, the Scottish Government have seamlessly woven their advertising messages, and even a TV ad, into the online gaming environment. What's more, this is a media first - restricting the messaging to Scottish IP addresses only.