VOD and interactive TV technology provider, SeaChange International, says that it has begun shipping a new, open standards-based, dynamic advertising-insertion solution for VOD, called the AdPulse On Demand Advertising System. The solution–whose claimed capabilities include ad refresh and rotation, granular targeting and detailed reporting–is targeted at cable operators offering free VOD programming: SeaChange claims that consumers are now watching over 180 million free VOD programs per month.
According to SeaChange, AdPulse integrates directly with operators’ VOD platforms to make run-time insertions into on-demand streams, so that fresh ads are spliced on the fly, as soon as a subscriber orders an on-demand program; advertising assets are managed separately from program assets. This, SeaChange says, reduces lead times for ad placement from weeks to minutes, and enables variant versions of ads to be rotated in and out of service and individual ad copy to be refreshed either per a schedule or on the fly. According to the company, the system can target ads in accordance with geography, demographics, "psychographics," and viewing characteristics: advertisers define their targeting parameters in advance, and the system then executes a targeting decision at the time of insertion, based on the set-top ID of the subscriber requesting an on-demand asset.
SeaChange says that AdPulse tracks and measures ads independently from program assets and thus collects viewing data tailored to the needs of advertisers, allowing accurate and detailed analysis of the effectiveness of each of their ads. The company claims that the data the system collects is designed to meet the requirements of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA): it includes such datapoints as which subscribers received the ad; in which programs the ad was inserted; the date, time and duration of ad viewing; and details of trick mode (i.e. fast-forward, rewind, pause) usage during the viewing. AdPulse aggregates data from all subscribers and rolls up results across multiple VOD sites. The system’s tracking capabilities can, of course, also be used to gather information on viewing of long-form ads.
According to SeaChange, AdPulse can support ad campaigns that combine linear ad insertion with non-linear forms, including dynamic, long-form and interactive spots that link to additional video. It also supports the insertion of advertising into applications such as games-on-demand and user interfaces. The system is based on two software components: Axiom Content Dynamics and the AdPulse On Demand Advertising Manager. The former, which is part of SeaChange’s widely deployed Axiom operational software, stores, manages and processes playlists; tracks and reports plays and subscriber activity during individual ads; splices and plays multiple assets back-to-back, with what SeaChange says are "seamless" transitions; and sets up a programming interface for applications to provide playlists to VOD systems. The latter, meanwhile, is the platform’s backoffice system: according to SeaChange, it provides operators with a Web-based interface to define inventory, enter orders and metadata, and view reports; and automates ad lists, delivering ad schedules and insertion instructions to any number of centralized or distributed VOD servers. The Advertising Manager component also includes the Atlas On Demand Interface from digital marketing technology provider, Atlas, which enables ad agencies to view inventory, order ads and collect reports. SeaChange says that AdPulse integrates with its QuickSilver Input Workstation and its Ad Metadata Editor, in order to ingest ads from tape, and with its DigitalX Ad Automation Transcoder, in order to automatically source spot libraries and create new files in any format required for on-the-fly insertion.
Click http://www.itvt.com to subscribe to our free email newsletter, which contains all the news stories you see on this Web site, and additional breaking news and scoops, in-depth features, interviews, screenshots, videos, and other exclusive content you will not find anywhere else.
Filed under: Technology
