This week marked the end of
Rocketboom's Ebay auction for a week's worth of end-roll advertising. The auction started at $500 on January 30th, climbed to $7,500 within two days, stalled at $14,999.99 on February 2nd for six days, then spiked near the auction end to close at a whopping $40,000.
Paul Berg points out that
Jeff Jarvis estimated the ad's values at $8,000 per episode in a
New York Times article (
Times Select) in December 2005. Keep in mind that Jarvis' estimate was based on many fewer daily viewers than
Rocketboom has today.
Will Rocketboom consider their auction a success? I imagine they'll be pleased if their $40,000 auction managed to establish an $8,000 per episode market value for their site. Considering that they had little to no previous ad spots to refer advertisers to, they seem to have done well, but
Jarvis chides big agencies and advertisers with much deeper pockets for not jumping at this unique opportunity. Once they've had a chance to study this new ad format, chances are pretty good that they'll find some money for this new ad channel. One example can be found at the end of the
February 6th episode ending ad for
30Boxes.com.
Heather Green reports in BusinessWeek that Rocketboom may have some contracts in the pipeline from large US advertisers.
Technology Evangelist tested piggybacking on Rocketboom's ad auction concept with
an auction of our own. We came up a bit short of the $40,000 Rocketboom's auction garnered, bringing in a less-than-whopping $157.50. Our winning bidder will certainly get their money's worth at that price. I think it's safe to assume that both Rocketboom and Technology Evangelist will be able to look back in a year and say, "Remember when our advertising only went for X?"
How does online video advertising differ from traditional TV advertising? - More measurable audience - Tracking downloads is much more precise than TV ratings systems.
- Much more targeted audiences in many cases - Online content can draw a loyal following that may not justify a TV channel or show, but is very valuable to appropriate advertisers.
- Web integration - What's easier: enticing someone to get up from the couch, turn on their computer, then go to your company's website for more information or simply typing an address into their web browser after seeing your ad in an online video?
1. Posted by: auction sites on June 28, 2007 10:51 PM:
Its a shame I didnt see this a while ago, I found this intriguing. I love the idea, and could target a huge audience at random depending on the auction instead of narrow appeal.