BOSTON — We’ve had pre-roll, post-roll, mid-roll, in- and out-stream. But what if the future of video advertising lay more closely at the heart of the media that carry it?
That is what’s on the mind of Alex Drosin, President, North America, of Massive Interactive, a tech company helping build mobile and TV apps for TV operators and content owners around the world.
Massive mostly works with operators offering a subscription model. But that doesn’t leave out the prospect of advertiser funding.
“If it’s an AVOD model, traditionally that’s happened on the OVP (online video platform) side in the video space,” Drosin observes, in this video interview with Beet.TV.
“But, more and more what we’re seeing is clients that want to integrate brands/campaigns right in to the UI layer. What’s exciting is to see how you can achieve premium CPMs by integrating directly in to the UI level.”
Drosin is speculating about the move from delivering advertising in dedicated inventory holes in a user interface, to becoming part of the fabric of a UI itself.
Massive Interactive’s Axis software has helped build the apps for the likes of Channel 5 (UK), Foxtel (Australia) and Lionsgate (US), with a couple of interesting features – it’s hosted in the cloud, and it includes scheduling and subscription management, making it more than just about visual design and presentation.
One of those clients, Channel 5, found its My5 multi-screen app just saw an 18% year-on-year jump in streams. Massive also consults for broadcast operators.
But Drosin concedes the pricing of UI-level ads in OTT apps is still being worked out.
We interviewed him last month at the Progress Partners Connect conference. Our coverage of the conference is sponsored by Simpli.fi. More videos from the series can be found on this page.