SMBs in the entertainment vertical love video advertising. We’re talking movie theaters, event venues, catering, on-demand performers*, etc.. As is conducive to their craft, they’re big fans of online video, particularly website and YouTube videos. They’re also big on cable and broadcast TV.

This is according to BIA/Kelsey’s latest cut of SMB survey data (information below). On average, these Entertainment SMBs spend 12 percent of ad budget on video, much more than overall SMBs. When applied to their high ad spending, this notably produces an average annual video spend of $4,000.

This class of SMBs are also heavy users of social media of all types, and have a high interest level in advertising and marketing services. This is the wrap: Entertainment SMBs are good prospects for video and social media products. They use a lot, spend a lot, and they have their antennas out.

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These were a few of the top-level findings of the latest cut of LCM 18, focusing on SMBs in the Entertainment vertical. Clients of BIA/Kelsey can access this report through our client portal. The report is also available for purchase, and more information on the LCM survey is here.

*SMBs in Entertainment is a roll-up category that includes: Restaurants, Bars, Hospitality (Catering/Hotel), Music, and Entertainment – miscellaneous.

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Verizon‘s announcement today that it will buy AOL for $4.4 billion is a bid to get beyond dumb pipes and airwaves to get deeply into mobile and video. By doing so, Verizon, a $200 Billion company, hopes to play on more of a level playing field with other major telecom players combining access to content and personalization services, especially Comcast (with NBC U) and AT&T (with Direct TV.)

The all-cash deal provides a 150 percent return for shareholders in AOL from when CEO Tim Armstrong came on board in 2009. The price is 17 percent above the current stock price. And at the lower price — which may ultimately be even lower if some of the content properties are sold — a lot less is riding on it.

Have you seen this movie before in 2000, when AOL was disastrously sold to Time Warner for $165 Billion? A lot of the same synergies are being discussed: video on demand, personalized content and subscription revenue.

But this time, it is really all about mobile; video on mobile; and the prospect of converting (or selling) 2.1 million dial-up subscribers that continue to be AOL’s biggest moneymaker. Indeed, AOL has built or bought a powerful arsenal of mobile ad serving and video tech, especially LTE Multicast, which uses its cellular network to broadcast live video.

In our view, content is not likely to be an important factor here. It would have been more important if AOL had merged with Yahoo, or with Microsoft. The biggest “what if” probably involves MapQuest, which has technically lagged behind mapping leaders but retains a powerful, verb-like brand in that space. Given Uber’s $3 Billion bid to buy Nokia?s HERE, it may ultimately emerge as an important factor in the deal — much more so than Huffington Post.  AOL’s sizable effort to make Huffington Post into a super content portal, including a major local dimension, failed dramatically last year. Similarly, Armstrong’s huge, multi-hundred million dollar effort with hyperlocal site Patch amounted to very little.

To some degree, we also see Verizon’s acquisition of AOL as an acqui-hire. Verizon has stumbled around advertising for several years but not had an impact. It also has made some small investments in content and classified properties, but hasn’t been confident enough to really spend. Its biggest effort was a promotional program with the NFL to broadcast games for free.

We like the statement issued in the name of Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam, who we note, has long had his eye on geo-targeted advertising. “Verizon’s vision is to provide customers with a premium digital experience based on a global multi-screen network platform. This acquisition supports our strategy to provide a cross-screen connection for consumers, creators and advertisers to deliver that premium customer experience.”

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Karen Traversi Kovalesi, President & CEO, Geary LSF, a San Francisco integrated digital marketing agency, told BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL that marketers and brands must think across media and organizational boundaries to bring customers to a transaction decision.

“You get business results, not just business tactics,” she said. “Omni-Channel is a mindset, not just a business practice.” Geary LSF must work to create unique combinations of digital messaging and engagements to bridge he national/local marketing challenge, Taversi Kovaleski told the audience, sharing examples from three industries, professional placement, healthcare and consumer products.

“Local reigns supreme,” she said. “Brands get people to the door, but once they are engaged they are looking for something personal about the purchase — these are local decisions.” Even in B2B purchases, which many believe are fairly cut-and-dried standardized decisions, the individual wants to be informed very early in the process, which requires multiple messaging options to address the lead. In the consumer space, too, there are many touchpoint along the way rather than a single monolithic campaign “But many of our clients, we find, are not doing that,” she said.

She pointed to three clients: Kelly Services; MedStar Washington Hospital Center, BumbleBee, the seafood company.

Kelly is a global leader in workforce solutions. Over the past few years, the workforce Kelly supports has changed to emphasize skills over location — work can now be performed anywhere. Hiring companies no longer need to see Kelly reps. It allows Kelly to reach more potential business partner/customers through digital, which opens an engagement process that can be fulfilled largely online. Individuals doing the work, however, do like to talk to someone, to get the personal touch, so Kelly must balance its hiring company-facing messaging with local opportunities for business talent to connect and learn about the opportunities with Kelly.

“The question is ‘How do you fill that pipeline when you don’t have as many local offices?'” The Kelly offices used to define the for workers who may now interact with the company first and primarily through digital channels. But when there is a physical engagement, it must align with and reinforce the online message.

The Kelly Services brand has evolved and they need to harmonize that message in marketing channels as the markets continues to morph based on new technology. The change cuts both ways. For example, Kelly now fills senior positions. It’s not just about the typing pool of its early years.

“Are the right level of people thinking of me in terms of finding their [employment] opportunity?” Traversi Kovaleski asked. The answer as “no” too often, she said.

When Kelly Services wanted to enter the IT talent market, they partnered with Geary LSF. Rather than doing traditional recruitment messaging, they launched a thought leadership content marketing program targeted at the people they want to place, senior level IT managers. Using thought leadership content across channels was critical to showing Kelly understood the IT market. The outcome was that IT pros did start to reach out to Kelley and they filled their pipeline, giving them the human resources to succeed in the IT placement market.

“Content marketing did work — now we can leverage across to other areas,” she said, including native advertising and mobile, as well as SEO aimed at recruiting talent to the IT space.

“It’s about measurement. We start to layer the insights using geo-targeting, feedback and attribution to understand how they work together to achieve brand goals,” Traversi Kovaleski said. The campaign continued to develop and now includes video on LinkedIn aimed at recruitment and brand awareness for Kelly in the IT market.

MedStar Washington Hospital Center, a Washington D.C. specialty hospital that is nationally known, with a have a regional marketing footprint.

The question, “How can they draw patients from other regions?” defined the project. Because MedStar provides services to a network of hospitals, the campaign had to succeed without cannibalizing partner hospitals in the region. Ultimately, the campaign aimed at reaching potential customers two or three states away, as well as globally.

The Geary LSF plan targeted patients based on condition, using SEO to connect with people with specific illnesses. Starting with that paid search, it delivers urgent patient engagement. Next, “we need to get them to make an appointment,” even across state lines. Here, Traversi Kovaleski said, video and social come into play. Patients find common cause in social environments, where doctor recommendations are shared based on actual experience with MedStar.

“People want to understand the doctor and the tools they’ll use.” At this point in the funnel, Geary LSF introduced video stories. “They are small and consumable and can be displayed with localized slugs to deliver relevant messages.” How do I engage an individual to take action, she asked and provided the answer: Video and social.

“Facebook can play a more integral part in the final step [to a transaction],” she added. In healthcare, the sharing of experience can trigger the final outcome. In reviews, Facebook isn’t a last-click experience, but it’s an important step that must be augmented by marketing tools. The human touch is essential to the healthcare market, she concluded. (See BIA/Kelsey’s Healthcare Vertical Industry report, released last week.)

With BumbleBee, Geary LSF had a different problem. BumbleBee is a product brand competing in retail environments with other products.

BumbleBee is in the midst of the rollout of its new “SuperFresh” frozen seafood currently in select cities and stores across the U.S. They select key stores in markets, so ZIP Code targeting is not appropriate, because a store could be very remote to many people in a postal code region.

MaxPoint, a Geary LSF partner, allowed BumbleBee to use intent targeting within a ZIP Code, providing more granularity in the message and targeting customers of specific stores. At the point of engagement online, typically a coupon offer, video was effective to point consumers to the stores.

This push model will eventually give way to opt-in coupons delivered on the phone or an in-store kiosk, Traversi Kovaleski said. These “pull offers are more humane and engaging. “We not doing anything ‘too crazy,’ she explained, but the brand must think in terms of a series of steps that marketers need to exectue on to deliver the client’s desired results by moving customers efficiently from initial brand awareness to a buying decision.

When asked how BumbleBee use beacons, Traversi Kovaleski said the use of MaxPoint data to identify specific geo-targets will make the engagement more personal. Early geo-fencing efforts by the brand were “a little creepy,” so she is urging clients to use opt-in couponing. She said the move to pull versus push will demand very personalized offers.

It’s notable that in each case she cited, video played a critical role. It puts a face and voice on a product or service, and is a vital complement to social, where largely anonymous interactions can be converted to personal engagement.

The mindset of omni-channel is to think across boundaries within your organization, to segment markets and address customers individually, Traversi Kovaleski said. She added that it is critical to think of supplementing organic search with paid search which moves consumers toward individually meaningful experience. Personal touches in user experience are critical. It must be combined with measurement, which can be “less specific than we currently like,” to support an omni-channel marketing process.

Asked by BIA/Kelsey’s Charles Laughlin about the toughest part of the national/local process, she said “Consistency when going to the field.”

With BumbleBee it is message alignment is easier because it is a corporate message defined by product, she explained. A Kelly, on the other hand, may have locations battling with one another locally, which needs to be curbed to ensure consistent messaging to the market. This echoed a key message from yesterday’s sessions about franchise marketing: Messages must be focused on the customer instead of the “local battles” franchisees or different teams within a business may think they are fighting.

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Video is quickly becoming one of the most transformative areas in digital tech & media. It’s right up there with mobile and social media. In fact, its quickly colliding with both of those areas as underlying mobile technology and social behavior compel new formats like Vine and Instagram Video.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. How are video business models forming? How are the traditional owners of video production and distribution evolving in such a quickly changing environment? And what does it mean for local video and other important areas like video ad sales?

BIA/Kelsey analyst and Managing Director Rick Ducey is tracking these areas pretty closely and I recently got the chance to pick his brain on a few topics. One theme that seemed to thread throughout these sub-topics is video’s tipping point: Where and when will it happen? The Q&A with Ducey is below.

Q: How is the macro environment changing for video consumption patterns, and what does that mean for those in the business of delivering and monetizing video?

A: The TV Everywhere authentication model used by cable operators is a bit clunky in terms of the user experience but it has value. Netflix is teaching us the “binge viewing” paradigm of releasing an original series all at once. Letting viewers connect to “their” content on various devices and networks is huge. But we need better content discovery across platforms like linear television, VOD, DVR, Internet, and OTT services like Netflix and Hulu. A seamless and powerful interface with a solid business model can drive a lot of change fast. Everybody from Intel, Google, Apple, Tivo, cable MSOs to Amazon and others have their toes in this water.

Q: Mobile technology and behavior is also creating a multi-screen world. What challenges does mobile present for video delivery and monetization?

A: As consumers adopt multi-screen behaviors, programmers and advertisers will follow. For example, ESPN research shows viewers consume ESPN content across an average of four screens. The tipping point will come with the ability to plan, execute and attribute ROI across screens. This involves the transactional platforms that brands and video publishers use; measurement and reporting systems; optimized creative for different screens; and the complementary effect of cross-screen campaigns (we know that broadcast plus mobile video campaigns drive more lift). And it’s not just screens, mobile is such a killer in this category in terms of growth potential, it gets to measuring and attributing user targeting and behavior inside mobile apps since that’s where a lot of traction and engagement occurs.

Q: Drilling down to local, What are some of the ways that Local Television is adapting to today’s changing video environment?

A: Most video advertising is on broadcast television. National spot advertising is sold on Cost Per Point compared to the rest of the video world that is sold on a CPM basis. It’s sort of geeky, but it will be a potential large tipping point if spot TV converts to selling on CPM basis as it reduces a lot of friction in the buying process. We’re doing research on this point for the Television Bureau of Advertising. Of course local television is quite well monetized but another tipping point will come through driving more video monetization in other channels including desktop, tablet and mobile. Most video consumption is still plain old fashioned linear television.

Q: So how does all of this impact the entrenched ways that video ads are bought and sold?

A: Yes, interrelated to all of this is the way video is bought and sold. Often at agencies there are separate video and digital planning and buying teams. Same on the video side. When buying and selling is oriented to video — as a content type with different affinities and values on different screens — and that’s all plugged into pricing and attribution big data algorithms, we’re off and running.

The post Where is Video’s Tipping Point?: A Conversation With BIA/Kelsey’s Rick Ducey appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Video is quickly becoming one of the most transformative areas in digital tech & media. It’s right up there with mobile and social media. In fact, its quickly colliding with both of those areas as underlying mobile technology and social behavior compel new formats like Vine and Instagram Video.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. How are video business models forming? How are the traditional owners of video production and distribution evolving in such a quickly changing environment? And what does it mean for local video and other important areas like video ad sales?

BIA/Kelsey analyst and Managing Director Rick Ducey is tracking these areas pretty closely and I recently got the chance to pick his brain on a few topics. One theme that seemed to thread throughout these sub-topics is video’s tipping point: Where and when will it happen? The Q&A with Ducey is below.

Q: How is the macro environment changing for video consumption patterns, and what does that mean for those in the business of delivering and monetizing video?

A: The TV Everywhere authentication model used by cable operators is a bit clunky in terms of the user experience but it has value. Netflix is teaching us the “binge viewing” paradigm of releasing an original series all at once. Letting viewers connect to “their” content on various devices and networks is huge. But we need better content discovery across platforms like linear television, VOD, DVR, Internet, and OTT services like Netflix and Hulu. A seamless and powerful interface with a solid business model can drive a lot of change fast. Everybody from Intel, Google, Apple, Tivo, cable MSOs to Amazon and others have their toes in this water.

Q: Mobile technology and behavior is also creating a multi-screen world. What challenges does mobile present for video delivery and monetization?

A: As consumers adopt multi-screen behaviors, programmers and advertisers will follow. For example, ESPN research shows viewers consume ESPN content across an average of four screens. The tipping point will come with the ability to plan, execute and attribute ROI across screens. This involves the transactional platforms that brands and video publishers use; measurement and reporting systems; optimized creative for different screens; and the complementary effect of cross-screen campaigns (we know that broadcast plus mobile video campaigns drive more lift). And it’s not just screens, mobile is such a killer in this category in terms of growth potential, it gets to measuring and attributing user targeting and behavior inside mobile apps since that’s where a lot of traction and engagement occurs.

Q: Drilling down to local, What are some of the ways that Local Television is adapting to today’s changing video environment?

A: Most video advertising is on broadcast television. National spot advertising is sold on Cost Per Point compared to the rest of the video world that is sold on a CPM basis. It’s sort of geeky, but it will be a potential large tipping point if spot TV converts to selling on CPM basis as it reduces a lot of friction in the buying process. We’re doing research on this point for the Television Bureau of Advertising. Of course local television is quite well monetized but another tipping point will come through driving more video monetization in other channels including desktop, tablet and mobile. Most video consumption is still plain old fashioned linear television.

Q: So how does all of this impact the entrenched ways that video ads are bought and sold?

A: Yes, interrelated to all of this is the way video is bought and sold. Often at agencies there are separate video and digital planning and buying teams. Same on the video side. When buying and selling is oriented to video — as a content type with different affinities and values on different screens — and that’s all plugged into pricing and attribution big data algorithms, we’re off and running.

The post Where is Video's Tipping Point?: A Conversation With BIA/Kelsey's Rick Ducey appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Eyeview and G/O Digital have brought a personalized and hyperlocal flavor to the Go Local Awards with their program to help appliance retailer Conn’s use video to distribute its local circular content. The awards, co-presented by BIA/Kelsey and Balihoo, showcase innovation in national to local digital marketing.

Eyeview Sales Director Ben Flaccus walked us through the program. Conn’s key challenge was finding a robust way to deliver its weekly circulars in an era of declining print newspaper circulation.

“We were able to combine the wealth of data that exists within online circular environment — in this case through G/O Digital’s ShopLocal circular warehouse — with the most powerful medium for delivering messaging, which is video,” Flaccus said.

The Go Local Award winners will be announced this week at BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local: The National Impact conference in Atlanta.

Watch this video to learn more about the program, how it worked and the results it produced.

The post Looking Ahead to Atlanta: Eyeview Goes Granular with Video appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Sightly has launched a new video ad platform aimed at allowing local marketers to target their video ads to a highly customized audience.

According to today’s announcement, the new platform, called TargetView, allows advertisers to serve ads tailored to specific consumer’s device and location at the time they view the video.

The emphasis on multi-screen is key since more and more video is being consumed on mobile devices. The new platform is also well timed to the increasing importance of national to local, with big brands increasingly interested in reaching highly targeted local audiences.

“With TargetView, we have built a next generation video ad platform that delivers personalized video ad content to micro-targeted audiences in hyper-local areas on every screen,” said John McIntyre, founder and CEO of Sightly, in today’s news release. “The level of relevancy that highly-targeted ads deliver will forever change how people view and interact with advertising — completely disrupting the industry as we know it.”

BIA/Kelsey is bullish on the online video ad market. Our most recent U.S. Local Media Forecast calls for online video advertising to grow at an 31.5 percent CAGR from $1.6 billion in 2013 to $6.3 billion in 2018.

McIntyre will speak at BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local: The National Impact conference, on a Day 3 Superforum entitled, “Brands and Local Market Video Opportunities.”

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I attended an intriguing breakout session — “Spreading the Word: Advanced Strategies for Content Distribution” — at the ad:tech conference today in San Francisco’s glistening Moscone Center.

The session  featured a presentation by Alex from Digitas, who walked the audience through the conception and implementation of a social-centric campaign to introduce a new taco at Taco Bell. A new menu offering is a big deal in the QSR world.

To launch the new taco, Digitas went to great lengths to construct a series of “speakeasy” videos, in which the new taco was essentially hidden from taco-starved millennials, and they had to go to great lengths to get one. This contrived scarcity was intended to create a groundswell of consumer demand — which is exactly what it did, propelled by social media.

To make all this happen, Digitas flipped the typical sequence of using “Paid, Earned, Owned” media to “Owned, Earned, Paid.” They used the content of the “speakeasy” videos on their own sites, which generated tremendous interest among their hungry followers who proceeded to post, Tweet, blog, and Instagram about this new taco to all of their followers. Media paid by Taco Bell then picked up both the original vignettes and the first wave of social media, and amplified everything. This became a self-reinforcing cycle, until something like 3 billion impressions were earned. Of tacos.

Key takeaways

— “Paid, Earned, Owned” media can be used in a creative sequence, to maximize the impact of a campaign.

— Content can work across the spectrum, at all points in the purchase funnel.

— When advertising on mobile, the advertiser needs to be “in the content feed” — because most mobile devices don’t support a side column of advertising adjacent to the content.

— If the advertiser comes up with the right message [for its audience], “the message will find the fans.”

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This year will be the beginning of the end for printed Yellow Pages and the end of the beginning for native advertising. This reflects just two of the “Analyst Picks & Predictions” that BIA/Kelsey published this week.

Other 2014 analyst predictions honed in on the evolution of search and discovery, the growth of the “sharing economy” and the burgeoning impact of digital agencies, and many other topics relevant to players in the local media and promotions ecosystem.

In total, seven BIA/Kelsey analysts weighed in with 15 predictions, with many more left on the cutting room floor. Last week, our analyst team previewed some of the predictions on a Google Hangout. Tomorrow, a team of analysts will highlight a few of the predictions on a webinar at 2 p.m. U.S. Eastern time.

Over the next week, BIA/Kelsey analysts will also post their “unabridged” predictions for 2014, offering predictions in their area of expertise that didn’t make it into the published predictions. Check out mobile analyst Mike Boland’s full slate of predictions, and look for other analyst to weigh in with theirs in the coming days.

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After a remarkable 2012 in political advertising sales, many local television stations this year felt in a comfortable position. Even with all of the online and social advertising options available and used by many political campaigns, local television stations still garnered a substantial amount of that total political spending. Other major advertising categories, such as automotive dealers also continue to increase their spending on local television stations. As a result, BIA/Kelsey projects a continued increase in local television stations’ advertising averaging 3-4% per year over the next few years (higher in even numbered political/Olympic years, lower in the odd years). For the overall forecast, including television, click here.

Investors also had renewed confidence as the price of publicly traded television companies soared, up by over 185% in the first three quarters according to BIA/Kelsey’s stock index of local television station companies.

But, perhaps nothing is more assuring to local television stations than the continued use of local television stations by many digital/online companies. According to a December 2^nd Wall St. Journal article, many digital/online companies are turning to television to broaden their advertising campaign to attract new customers. While many had historically only used online advertising, their switch to television highlights the ability that television stations provide – mass audience reach. For example, Eharmony.com, a major online dating service reportedly is spending 75% of their total advertising budget in television.

Of course, local television stations cannot just rest on this additional advertising. It must continue to “reinvent” itself to compete against the ever expanding number of new competitive media. At next week BIA/Kelsey’s Leading In Local conference these new media will describe their advertising growth strategy.

Yet, much like radio stations in the late 1990s that aired ads from their competitors such as local yellow page companies (use the resonant voice of James Earl Jones), local television stations must have a similar sense of satisfaction when they sell advertising time to these online/digital companies.

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