I was recently recalling some meetings in or around the year 1999 or 2000 where we agonized over how to, when to, and even whether to spend time trying to figure-out the realities of digital video advertising. We just knew that it would be here soon enough, but we wanted to be ahead of the curve of course.
It was pretty darn easy to imagine lunch with the board and have someone ask, harmlessly enough (yeah, sure), “So, Steve, what’s our digital advertising strategy look like for the next three years?”. Images were instantly conjured-up that included more than few “um’s and uh’s”…invariably sprinkled with phrases that had the word “depends” in there (no pun intended)…usually associated with network concerns. All the while working hard not to revert to the tried and true technobabble tap dance that may be invoked in an attempt to lose those who think they “should” know of what we speak and address topics for which we may not be fully prepared to discuss. Basically, your garden variety deer-in-the-headlights scenario was typically avoided. Ugh.
Well, in 2005 there seemed to be a real surge in the number of companies showing-up as enablers of, providers of (content, services, etc.), and overall brilliance mavens in the world of digital video…in particular digital video advertising. From networks to content providers, marketers were suddenly able to get some real help and see some of the possibilities as now affordable and deliverable. This made both professionally produced (and premium priced) as well as user generated video content gain quick ground as a credible, if still “potential”, revenue stream.
The availability of high speed internet connectivity along with new compression technologies made a big difference in the speed with which adoption could occur. All of the promises that those us in the high-speed network infrastructure space were making were actually starting to occur. Too bad we were originally promising it in 1998-2001…from our $200 128k DSL connections to the behemoth ILECS manifest destiny attitude to drive HFC to every man, woman, and child in the world…pardon me, I digress.
We all knew the early players, Windows Media Player, The FeedRoom, Yahoo’s launch and promises, and MSNBC all who were indeed early in this space but most of us struggled to see a clear path to revenue. Digital video advertising was expensive…certainly when compared to the CPMs associated with more traditional TV-based work. The prevailing wisdom prior to 2005 was that this whole digital video world was going to be about subscriptions, not ads. Today, of course, we have huge marketers producing and serving-up copious volumes of beautiful high-quality online video advertising. And ringing the register they are.
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