Where's the Outrage Over Online Video Viewership Claims?
Marketers Need to Understand What 'Most Watched' Really Means on Web
Bob Dole famously cried "Where's the outrage?" during his presidential run against Bill Clinton. I'd like to revise that, with a twist, when looking at some recent internet video viewership numbers: I'd add in "where's the analysis?" to "where's the outrage?"
My beef: 2 million views, across 16 episodes, works out to roughly 125,000 views per episode. And if their views followed the typical online-video trajectory, the first episode probably accounted for more than half of those total views, with the balance eking out 50,000 or less.
However you slice it, however, that's hardly enough views to put "Vidas Cruzadas" into the top 100, let alone the top three. Here at Revision3 we've got a lot of shows with more than 2 million lifetime views -- and a couple that consistently do better than 150,000 an episode. Two million's not bad, but it certainly is nothing to write home about -- or to shoot off a press release over.
But it's not just Univision and Multichannel News that are off target here. During the past few weeks there have been numerous other mysterious web video numbers bandied about, with little or no analysis or skepticism in any of the reporting.
Over at CNet, Yahoo called its show "Prime Time in No Time" "the most watched original show in the history of the internet," claiming 280 million streams in the 20 months or so since it launched last March. I guess Yahoo (and CNet) have never heard of Fred, Machinima or Smosh, three of the 17 YouTube channels -- akin to shows in YouTube verbiage -- that have each delivered more than 280 million views since they launched.
But wait, there's more! Internet news site Mashable rolled out a "top 10 most watched" list with partner Visible Measures, claiming to show the most-watched web series for September 2009. The numbers are impressive, with Fred coming in at No. 1 with almost 21.5 million views, and Smosh with 13 million. How, exactly, are those views counted, though? The Mashable reporter didn't know, but was nice enough to introduce me to Matt Cutler, VP for marketing and analytics at Visible Measures. His response: "For the charts we publish with partners like Mashable, we're using publicly sourced data that is self-reported by the 150+ video sharing destinations that we cover with our Viral Reach Database."
But just how realistic are all these "self-reported" views? Visible Measures follows the IAB's standard reporting guidelines in its own internal metrics, which logs a view after only a paltry three seconds of watching. But those "self-reported views" from just about everyone else out there are far more generous.
According to a study from video aggregator TubeMogul, nearly every site -- including Yahoo and YouTube -- count a "play start" as a view, even if you only watch for a fraction of a second. And what happens if the same person stops, then restarts a video, because of connection or buffering issue? Nearly everyone counts that as yet another view, further spiking the numbers. And what about AutoPlay -- where a video starts to play when you load a web page, even if you didn't ask for it? Those are routinely considered views as well, both on video-sharing sites and on social-networking services.
Take the Slide Funspace application, for example, one of the top add-ins to Facebook. When a Facebook users loads up the application, a video starts playing automatically. During my last visit, episode five of what was recently touted as "Facebook's First Hit Series" started playing immediately, without my asking for it.
Is that a view? Yes, according to the currently accepted state of video measurement on the internet. But should it be? I think not. It would be like channel surfing past "ESPN 8" on the way to Monday Night Football, and having Nielsen count you as a viewer of the Dodgeball Championship on "The Ocho."
I don't mean to disparage the programs I've called out. Most of them are very entertaining, creative and enjoyable to watch. But to call any of them a monster hit based on what appears be at least some inadvertent or drive-by viewership seems a bit disingenuous. Or as Dan Brekke, one of the best news editors I've worked with used to say, it's "an opportunity for investigation."
So if the reporters from Multichannel News, CNet and Mashable won't do the digging here, you'll have to. Before signing off on an internet video campaign, make sure you get the answers to the following questions:
How do you count views?
Find out whether they count, or discount, AutoPlay views. Also, ask how long someone has to watch before a view is counted as a view. For many, it's simply a play start, others follow the IAB's three-second rule. These numbers are very important, especially because another recent study from TubeMogul found that more than 50% of online video viewers clicked away within a minute. Engagement matters, and three seconds does not an engaged experience make!
How about multiple views from the same user?
This is also a big deal, particularly for those unscrupulous video producers trying to game the system. According to Tubemogul, "it is common knowledge ... that YouTube caps views at 200 per IP address." That means someone can hit play on a video 200 times, and log 200 unique views of a video. Multiply that by just a few users, and you have the online video version of "click fraud."
How many views do you get for each episode?
Make sure you get a per-episode number, rather than an average for all episodes. Most scripted episodic series have a huge open, but subsequent episodes can tail off dramatically.
Is viewership growing, shrinking or steady?
A mature internet video show with a committed audience should have a consistent per-episode viewership number. If it's all over the map, or declining, it's a sign of either artificially enhanced viewership, or a drive-by, non-committed audience. Results are better when the audience is committed.
How do you count unique viewers?
It's very difficult on the internet, especially in a hyper-distributed world, to figure out exactly how many unique viewers watch a group of episodes. Find out where those unique viewer numbers come from: are they unique web-page visitors for show and episode pages, actual unique viewers of all episodes, or something else?
Where do the views come from?
It's important to know how many of those views happen via a producer's website as opposed to distribution partners such as YouTube and Metacafe. Sure, you can build engaging, repeat audiences on those platforms, but typically your most enthusiastic audiences will gravitate to the show's home base.
Do you pay for any views, or are they all organic?
It's easy to buy video views, especially if you count AutoPlay, below the fold, three-second experiences as a view. Some marketing is obviously preferred, but if more than 10% or so are purchased, that's definitely a red flag.
~ ~ ~
Jim Louderback is CEO of internet video network Revision3. For more details on these issues, you can reach him at jim@revision3.com, or follow him on Twitter: @jlouderb
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The answer, in part, is that one of the great promises of the internet was the ability to more accurately measure engagement. In fact it isn't that difficult to accurately measure viewer engagement online - many companies have developed video players that provide very detailed information around video consumption.
I suppose the reality is that no media company wants to promote the fact that the average viewing time for it's 5 minute online hit show is less than 1 minute.
If everyone starts calling a quarter a dollar, then everyone with a Washington has four bucks!
So many content producers are being asked by advertisers to present the same market penetration they would get in traditional advertising. This comes from a lack of understanding by the advertiser, and a lack of understanding of this new landscape and its benefits from the content producer. The easiest way for them to bring advertisers on board is to give them numbers they can appreciate, which is a direct result of not being able to sell the value of your product (the audience) so you sell the value of your numbers, which don't exist.
There are true number out there that Jim and Brad at Revision3 are envious of, just as we at ChannelSnap iTV are envious of Revision3's numbers, but we continue to sell the value of our dedicated, passionate and loyal audience to our advertisers, and we drive ROI based on their product fit for our audience and vice versa, we don't take advertisers that will fail because of an audience/brand mist-match, and we are very honest about our numbers, how long people watched (which drives pre-roll sales) and how many times things were clicked on (we do clickable interactive video), that is the only way for them to derive true ROI from our product and justify future advertising with us.
Why do you think GoDaddy has been an advertiser of Revision3 since day one? It is because Brad sells value and backs it up with proven ROI.
My message: sell value and not numbers and you will always win. The folks selling ridiculous numbers are a bump in the road, just like website designers were in the mid 90's, eventually, they will take themselves out of the market and the true value players will remain.
Erik Boles
http://ErikBoles.com
http://twitter.com/ErikBoles
This medium is still very new - there is bound to be chicanery. Let's just hope these overzealous marketers don't destroy the credibility of the medium.
BTW: You can trust the guys over at TubeMogul. They are good people and their tool set is fantastic.
Pete Monfre
Enzoology.com
Two things to add: the value propositions not often considered or easily quantified are A.) the brand equity built by making a web video buy with a primo content producer such as Rev3 and B.) the cost savings on the production end.
I don't mean pre-post-interstitial per se, but the brands that get integrated into the content. The CPM basis doesn't do justice to the way a brand can leverage that juxtaposition (and quasi-endorsement) in a targeted way. Brand x can leverage a mention in Diggnation for instance, in sales materials more so than if they fork over cash to produce their own (likely cheesy) spot that has a very low chance of being seen. In that regard, I think web video producers who are held to CPMs get the shaft.
I run a podcast, I'm in touch with quite a few other podcasters, and I am constantly surprised at the way they will interpret their numbers. For instance, one podcaster I recently talked to was looking at XML hits (The RSS file that serves a podcast to subscription services) and thinking he had over 4,000 subscribers to his show. The truth is that this number only references how many times the feed was looked at, not how many times it was engaged.
This is not a slam on the podcaster. We're all doing our best with our shoestring budgets. But it does highlight that without proper analysis and insight applied we can be vastly mislead by the numbers we're given. In this particular case, the real number of listens to the show was in the hundreds, not the thousands. This is a significant difference that is only magnified when a show does become widely popular.
I've been following your rant on this point for some time Jim, reading both the original post you did on your blog and your exposition on the subject on This Week in Tech. Keep fighting the fight. We'll definitely be covering this issue on The BeanCast this week. (We cover marketing and advertising issues.)
Bob Knorpp
Host of The BeanCast Marketing Podcast
Posts every Monday @ http://beancast.us and iTunes
While many publishers have been serving limited forms of video content for years, Online Video Advertising is still very much in its infancy. By way of example, the IAB VAST and VPAID video advertising standards were released last year. In contrast, standard online ad creative (celebrating its 15th birthday this past week) launched formal standards for the IAB Universal Ad Package (i.e., the four standard creative ad sizes) in 2003 – eight years after the first ad was delivered.
Five years makes a material difference in the online world. Since 2003, essentially all major publishers and 3rd party ad servers have gone through the Media Rating Council (MRC) auditing process. The message; we're actively engaged in refining standards and guidelines to make our industry more transparent, accountable and verifiable.
Jim mentioned many reporting issues. We're in agreement in principle, the state of Online (and Mobile) Video reporting will need to improve dramatically over the years ahead. The good news is many of the companies mentioned in the article (Univision, Yahoo!, YouTube/Google and MetaCafe) are active members of the IAB and contributing to the Digital Video and Ad Ops Committees. By way of example, the Digital Video Committee has an Auto-Play working group to address the very issues mentioned in the article. (And while there is no "3-second" rule, there is a standard to only count an online video ad after it's been fully buffered and initiated.) We recognize we'll need to invest time to address how we measure 'interactive' video streams.
We're not adverse to critique. In fact, we welcome more active 'devil's advocates' within the IAB membership; not only more publishers, but more marketers and agencies to improve the digital video advertising supply chain.
Best regards,
Kevin Conroy
President
Univision Interactive Media
Ralph
http://www.verticalmeasures.com/services/video-marketing/