FilmOn’s CEO Alki David announced, on the eve of the television industry Upfront presentations to media and advertisers in New York City, that FilmOn will guarantee the quality and placement of the online video ads that it runs for advertisers on the site. FilmOn will run only one online video ad per page and each ad will be featured in the large FilmOn player at the top of the page.
According to a shocking story in the New York Times, more than half of online video ads are not being seen by users due to poor placement or inferior player pages. This scam-like treatment of advertisers is creating outrage throughout media and at FilmOn.
The article calls out Yahoo!, Crackle, AOL, and indeed, even The New York Times itself for being part of this problem.
“By many estimates, more than half of online video ads are not seen, either because they are buried low on web pages or run in tiny, easily ignored video players on those pages, or run simultaneously with other ads,” David Segal writes. “Vindico, an ad management platform company, deemed 57 percent of two billion video ads surveyed over two months to be “unviewable.'”
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“We have always featured only one video ad per page and that ad has always been featured in the main player at the top of the page,” David says. “Going forward, we will guarantee our policy of one video ad per page. If we do not deliver on that promise, we will refund double the advertiser’s investment in that campaign.”
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“Our advertisers and our global audience of 40 million unique users deserve a quality experience on the site,” said Jeff Stern, head of sales and marketing. ”This guarantee will ensure that advertisers get what they pay for.”
According to eMarketer, online video generated $2.8 billion in advertising in 2013 and is projected to grow to $8 billion by 2016.
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The guarantee will be in effect beginning June 1, 2014.
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SOURCE: TVMix.com
