The Importance of Buying Quality in Video

This piece ran in iMedia a couple weeks ago. I thought I'd post it here in case you missed it.

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There used to be two kinds of traditional agencies. One kind believed that placements in highly rated shows worked better on a dollar-for-dollar basis than ads placed in low-rated shows. The second group believed that "a GRP is a GRP" and, therefore, one should buy the cheapest GRPs in a daypart.

The corollary was that half the world paid premium CPMs for top 10 shows and the other half didn't. I confess to have always been a proponent of the second view. In my opinion, a person watching "Jake and the Fat Man" reruns can be just as passionate about his TV choice as a viewer of a hot show.

But online video is a different world entirely. In my view, there are four tiers of video content quality:

* Broadcast quality and content
* Professionally produced and screened content
* Pro-am and positive UGC
* Rants and negative UGC

Because the range of online video content is so large in terms of quality, subject matter and production values, brands need to take extra care that the environments and content they support meet their minimum standards of acceptability.

Nearly everyone agrees on that. But this view takes a purely negative perspective on the issue. It's essentially saying, "We don't want to be anywhere awful." Fine for as far as it goes, but should we view video content beyond of a binary prism of acceptable and unacceptable? Can great online content actually increase the impact of our advertising and, in and of itself, drive improved brand perceptions simply by dint of our being in it?

Sadly, there is precious little hard research on the subject. My online searches for studies uncovered exactly none.

In the absence of research, we all need to make decisions on where to run ads and how much to pay for one type of content over another. As a starting point on how to do this correctly, here are five reasons why paying a modest premium for high-quality video content may well be worth it as a means to deliver valuable brand benefits through your online ad program.

1. Content quality is something brands can still control. In a world where "the consumer is in charge," brands need all the edge they can get to create appealing images. Although I suspect the impact of content quality on brand perceptions is only moderate, moderate is far better than nothing.

2. The industry is getting better on contextual targeting in premium video content. Context can certainly deliver positive benefits in terms of pre-screening eyeballs and ensuring greater attention to relevant messages. It is now getting easier to buy by context, whether overtly or through site selection. That's on high-end content. But as for the cheap stuff? Nobody knows what's in most of it. Automatic brand protection screening systems can usually keep us out of prurient vids, but to my knowledge they can't contextually target yet.

3. Premium content is largely positive. I am a huge believer that the tonality of content affects brand impressions. When people feel good, they'll feel better about the brands they find in what made them feel good. And premium, professionally produced content is much more likely to be upbeat and positive than lower-tier content, which is loaded with questionable UGC and rants.

4. Premium content is often "destination" media, low quality content is often a "time killer." Although I have no empirical evidence with which to prove this theory, I am convinced that much low-quality content is low involvement -- something to view when there is nothing else to do. There are, of course, exceptions... highly viral content like the vids of Britney defender Chris Crocker certainly attract engaged eyeballs. But for the most part, I suspect that such engagement is unusual.

5. Viewers understand the need for ads on premium content, but may be less accepting on lower-quality content. Most research shows that consumers are willing to accept pre-roll and other forms of advertising when paired with high-quality video content. Something has to pay for these productions; consumers understand that. But for lower-tier vids, which are frequently short or have low production values, the value proposition may be less apparent to consumers. I imagine that, to viewers, YouTube running the skateboarding dog clip seems essentially free to all parties -- that no ad is necessary to show this content. Few would question pre-roll on a "Desperate Housewives" episode; many might on a video of a skateboarding dog.

On the issue of quality, UGC is a bit of a googly at the moment. Certainly there is great, contextually targeted UGC that could be quite brand enhancing. I'm thinking, for example, of some of the "how to get this look" videos on YouTube, or the UGC Burger King raps. Why wouldn't Cover Girl and the King want to be right there in places like that?

But advertisers remain less willing to support UGC -- not because of what it is, but rather because of what it might be. Certainly the automated porn detector technologies out there help make UGC environments safer, as will video and auto-recognition technologies. So that's good news for the future.

The other challenge, of course, is that there is a lot more lower-tier inventory out there than premium stuff. So brands need to be prudent about the sorts of premiums they are willing to pay to be associated with the best content.