When people talk about user generated content, we mostly think of stupid home videos, dogs on skateboards, guys getting hit in the groin by object after painful object.
But in the following few clips, I’m asking for your feedback. What other content shouldn’t be monetized? Is there any? Is the debate between brand advertisers protecting their brands vs. direct response advertisers that will run anywhere a complete farce? Or are HP and Canon just willing to take advantage of the cheaper, available content farther down the tail? Does it matter? Does it matter to you?
Click to enlarge the stills, but you can see from the images, this isn’t the type of content you’d normally associate with traditional brand advertisers. Worse still, the HP post-roll ads are a minute long and running against clips that are 4 and 10 seconds long.
Click Here To Play Insurgent Video
Click Here for the Video about unloading 40,000 pounds of cocaine.
Update: OVW was contacted by HP’s PR folks earlier today and informed us that they are seeking comments from the appropriate departments. We’ll keep you posted….
Strange. Very strange. Is this just a case of ads being placed poorly?
I don’t think so. If you consider VideoEgg’s mission to monetize user generated content, it makes a lot of sense. They provide an “opt-in” model for advertisers to reach people viewing content that isn’t traditionally safe for brands. This would certainly qualify. But it is my humble opinion that it isn’t an accident. The ads pop up over and over with multiple advertisers.
I love the idea that these videos were ripped from LiveLeak and then posted on Video Egg. I think the article should be about infringement of peoples content as well. I wonder if Video Egg just takes a feed from Live Leak in order to drive its traffic. Hmmm. real fishy..
I do not believe that to be the case, Blurber. Military.com appears to be using the VideoEgg player as their standard player for all videos. Without knowing the details, its difficult to say what content arrangements they have in place with other content syndicators, video aggregators, or between VideoEgg and LiveLeak directly.
This kind of footage is shown all the time on CNN preceded and then followed by an advertisement. Should CNN not run ads opposite some types of footage? Open up Time magazine… photos of the same thing. NYT… ditto.
Yes, it is. However, airlines pull their ads in the wake of plane crashes, so there is precedent for avoiding specific types of news.
More importantly, though, is the decision to advertise on this type of content in general, not necessarily this specific piece of content. We aren’t looking at newsclips here. We’re talking about user generated / provided content that many brand advertisers have made the decision not to advertise with.
All opinions are valid, and we’re just glad you weighed in.
Boy, this sure screams for ScanScout’s Brand protector. There is obviously no intelligence behind the ad serving or management here. Military.com obviously has ample content that can be monetized. Just….not this.
Hi,
To answer a few of your questions:
Q. “Strange. Very strange. Is this just a case of ads being placed poorly?”
A. Yes and no. In this case, the overlay was appearing next to an inappropriate video by accident. Video Egg does have to option to flag which videos they do not want to show ads on. The ads I am referring to are the overlay ads that are sold through their network. Some of the prerolls and postrolls that are sold through Military.com, show regardless of the content.
Q. “I love the idea that these videos were ripped from LiveLeak and then posted on Video Egg. I think the article should be about infringement of peoples content as well. I wonder if Video Egg just takes a feed from Live Leak in order to drive its traffic. Hmmm. real fishy..”
A. Liveleak videos have a watermark on them for a reason – so when people rip their videos, their site will be advertised somewhere else. These videos are public domain to our knowledge. If anyone claims copyright of the material (and can prove it) we pull it down, just like Youtube would. The content that appears on Military.com are user generated videos – the videos could be coming from anywhere on the web including Liveleak.
And to comment on some comments made:
“There is obviously no intelligence behind the ad serving or management here.”
There is a manual review of every video, and VideoEgg can choose whether or not to have ads played with the video. In this case, it was an accident.
“This kind of footage is shown all the time on CNN preceded and then followed by an advertisement. Should CNN not run ads opposite some types of footage? Open up Time magazine… photos of the same thing. NYT… ditto.”
We agree, and the debate continues…
If you have any other questions I would gladly answer them.
By the way, I am not a spokesman for Military.com and my views do not reflect those of Military.com.