The past several days have been ripe with intriguing video-marketing data points coming out of the 2017 Digital Content NewFronts. Here are eight figures that grabbed our attention:
1. Video advertising spend explodes
According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the average annual ad spend around original digital video content—defined as being professionally produced for digital consumption—will be $4.4 million for 2017, nearly doubling from $2.4 million in 2015. To arrive at that finding, the IAB surveyed 358 marketing and media buying professionals—with about half working at agencies and half on the client side—who manage annual ad spends larger than $1 million.
Video is a hot space across the board, the trade organization found, with the average digital/mobile video ad spend increasing 67 percent from 2015 to $9.4 million this year.
2. Twitter rebounds
Twitter lost its Thursday Night Football livestreaming rights recently but did get some mojo back this week. It announced 16 new content partnerships, including deals with Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the NFL, the PGA Tour, The Player’s Tribune, the WNBA, Bloomberg Media, BuzzFeed News, The Verge, Live Nation and IMG Fashion. Check out all of the additions here.
3. Accuracy counts
Bloomberg surveyed a segment of its audience to see if they’d actually watch its shows on Twitter, and 73 percent of respondents said they regularly would do so. “Bloomberg stands for accuracy,” commented Twitter COO Anthony Noto.
4. B/R’s social game
Social is key to why Bleacher Report has more than 400 million regular millennial users. For instance, it apparently gains 8,000 Instagram followers every day and now has 4.3 million followers on the platform. It uses Instagram, Facebook and YouTube to especially push videos and GIFs.
5. Effective animation
Also, Bleacher Report has an animated series called Game of Zones that features characterizations of pro hoops stars. The show is getting a 90 percent completion rate on YouTube and garnering 100 likes for every dislike.
6. Ad-supported videos
YouTube is going after traditional TV ad dollars with 40 new programs. Ryan Seacrest, Ellen DeGeneres and Kevin Hart will headline a few of the shows, the video platform revealed at its Brandcast event in New York on Thursday. It also announced Johnson & Johnson will sponsor a talent competition called Best Cover Ever produced by Seacrest. So, J&J has reversed its stance of cutting budget from YouTube due to the brand-safety concerns that arose in March.
7. Snackable numbers
Group Nine Media was formed in October with a $100 million investment from Discovery Communications as an umbrella company for Thrillist, NowThis, Seeker and The Dodo. Group Nine claims to have more than 50 million fans and 4.5 billion monthly video views across all of its brands.
8. Lady viewers galore
Female-focused Refinery29 said viewers watch 13 million hours of its video content every month—that’s up 600 percent in a year—with 300 million streams. Refinery29’s network of social accounts and video distribution platforms, it said, reaches more than 500 million consumers globally.
Bonus stat: theaters and home theaters
Let’s move off the NewFronts grid to close this one out. National CineMedia, which runs in-theater ads in 97 markets, this week interestingly teamed with Mediaocean to help agencies coordinate ad buys in terms of combining NCM’s video cinema inventory with television-targeting company Spot TV. It’s a theater-and-home, one-two punch. NCM’s premovie ads are seen by more than 750 million people annually, per Nielsen.