New York -- John Lawson, principal of Convergence Services, Inc. and executive
director for the Mobile500 Alliance, argues that because cloud-based services
offer a more personalized experience, we should expect targeted advertising to play
a major role in driving mobile revenue.
That was one takeaway from the "Mobilizing the Cloud
for Video Revenue" panel during B&C/Multichannel's
"Cloud Power" event in New York
on Thursday.
"On a national level, we're starting to experiment with
targeted ads," said Doug Vance, ABC News' VP of product development.
Mike Rosellini, director, digital production development,
Hearst Television, argued that while targeted ads are becoming a larger piece of
the puzzle, adoption has still been slow.
"Ultimately, that's probably where it's going; it's
just not there yet," he added. "Most of the advertisements that we
have are loaded in a traditional fashion."
Ron Quartararo, director, media & entertainment, strategic
solutions, Verizon Enterprise Services, explained that since targeted ads are
still not a "defined science," most media buyers are hesitant. "You
always want to have that blanket coverage," he said, "but at the same
time have those [targeted ads]."
Vance agreed with Quartararo that traditional ads will never
completely go away. "I don't that personalized ads will make up 100% of
the buy anytime soon."
Lawson also lauded the fact that cloud-based services make
it easier to transmit signals to mobile devices because it's coming from
broadcast rather than the cellular industry. "The unicast architecture of
the cellular industry is wonderful for many things but receiving this video, it
doesn't scale very well," says Lawson. "To get video to mobile
devices requires a lot of bandwidth."
Aside from helping advertisers, he said that once this
technology really catches on, subscription-based services will play a major
factor.
