Real-time bidding has gained appeal with major brands, but the idea of using exchange buys for awareness campaigns often spurs the question: How do we measure this?
Videocentric demand-side platform Dennoo is getting some attention for the guarantees it offers buyers for its time-based “cost-per-view” pricing model as an alternative to bidding on CPMs.
“In CPM buying, there is no ‘time’ guarantee; it is just an impression guarantee along with viewability measurement guidelines” said Mukundu Kumaran, Dennoo’s chief product officer. “CPV buying helps brand marketers to achieve their KPI goal of reach and frequency and improves customer engagement.”
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Dennoo charges only on a CPV basis. Buyers pay only if Dennoo’s DSP is able to deliver a full 10 or 15 seconds of the ad. The company focuses heavily on video RTB, which has obvious appeal to major brands focused on TV buys. The CPV fits well alongside a number of guaranteed viewability products, such as Google’s ActiveView.
Akio Niizawa, president and CEO of Japanese ad giant Dentsu’s digital shop, Cyber Communications Inc., is ready to deploy CPV as a hybrid branding and performance metric for online video. CCI is an investor in Dennoo, which raised $2 million between the start of 2013 and the summer from a variety of Japanese funders. The company also maintains an office in Tokyo.
Six-person Dennoo also wants to measure the relative effectiveness of in-stream and in-banner video ads. Another video ad firm, Tremor Video, is gambling that in-stream ads will prove to be more brand-friendly, while in-banner ads will continue to attract performance-based campaigns.
Dennoo primarily supports in-banner video ads, though Kumaran concedes the model has lost favor.
“Today, in-banner is not much used for video ads,” Kumaran said. “So, Dennoo introduces features like ‘auto ad-pause’ which helps branding campaigns to make sure that the message is not lost and is only played when ad is 50% or more viewable. … In the case of in-stream, an ad is shown to audience before the content can be viewed, which could be a huge distraction to the audience.”
