Atlas Launches Web-Based Video Advertising Capability for Marketers and Publishers

WebKnowHow
Wednesday, November 1, 2006; 03:33 AM

Atlas, provider of marketing technologies, announced the release of its Atlas In-Stream Video product for serving online advertising, allowing an unprecedented level of accountability for web-based in-stream video advertising. With Atlas In-Stream Video, online marketers and publishers have the ability to place in-stream video ads on the web as easily as display banners, plus accurately measure the conversion and reach of these campaigns across a multi-site media plan.

By offering third-party ad serving for the full spectrum of digital advertising formats -- banners, search, rich media and now in-stream video -- the Atlas Digital Marketing Suite is enabling more avenues for creative optimization and improved targeting. With one single, integrated view of online digital marketing metrics, via the Atlas Digital Marketing Suite, marketers discover insights across digital channels, and between brand and direct-response marketing efforts.

“The Atlas offering for video on the web is a great complement to their video-on-demand offering with the added benefit of a medium that scales,” said Benjamin Ezrick, media supervisor, Neo@Ogilvy. “Being able to aggregate reach and optimize video ads across multiple media platforms is becoming crucial for media buyers.”

Unlike traditional video ads on television, in-stream video offers levels of measurement and accountability never available before. In-stream video is the video ad placed before and during video programming on video sites, through a video player, allowing advertisers to reach audiences that may be seeking video content through non-linear, on-demand channels that present a challenge to reach via broadcast or cable TV. Atlas provides detailed metrics including impressions, conversions, user interactions with companion ads, return on investment (ROI) and conversion rate by creative, placement and site, as well as brand exposure duration metrics.

“As video begins to transform the online environment, advertisers and publishers are looking for technology solutions to assist them in the delivery and workflow of digital video,” said Scott Ferris, senior vice president and general manager of Atlas Emerging Media. “Atlas is dedicated to pioneering and delivering the most relevant and effective video-serving tools in the industry -- whether the video is rich media, VOD (video on demand) or in-stream. We have been working with innovative publishers, distributors and marketers to bring the kind of video optimization and analytics marketers have come to expect from online display media.”

Atlas also supports rich-media video banners, and VOD advertising. In the past year, Atlas has announced partnerships with the leading video-on-demand providers: SeaChange (May 2005), C-COR (July 2005), TANDBERG Television (June 2006) and Concurrent and Everstream (July 2006). In September, the technologies of Atlas and SeaChange enabled a groundbreaking trial: A dynamic ad insertion campaign for on-demand television, conducted by a national network, MTV Networks, Sunflower Broadband and Mediaedge:CIA. As television media becomes more addressable and fragmented, advertising agencies are looking for technology solutions to assist them in the delivery and purchase of on-demand media. Atlas intends to assist these agencies as well as programmers and operators to complete an on-demand advertising buy from purchase to delivery.