Jumptap Adds Video To Mobile Advertising Mix PLUS Q&A With CMO Paran Johar
In brief: Following up on news and developments coming out of this week’s explosive and insightful MMA Forum in NYC with a look at Jumptap’s decision to add video to its premium mobile ad network. A Q&A with Jumptap CMO Paran Johar connects some of the dots in the company strategy moving forward.
Jumptap keeps them coming. Last month it was all about Consumer Intelligence, which MSG covered in detail here. To recap: The aim is to put consumers in control of their advertising by allowing them to choose the advertising they will accept on their mobile phones. This week the news is Jumptap’s decision to add of video to its premium mobile ad network through a technology partnership with iVdopia (for pre-app interstitials) and Limelight Networks, (for in-stream video, including pre roll, mid roll, post roll). The move effectively establishes Jumptap as a one-stop shop for search, display, rich media, video and in-app advertising.
Interestingly, iVdopia recently introduced a new twist on video ads it calls Viper Ads, which make the most of device capabilities for a more tightly integrated, interactive mobile video ad experience. We learn from Light reading Mobile that iVdopia powered a cool campaign for the iPhone that allowed users to push away the “sands of time” on their touchscreen to reveal a menu of interactive options related to the movie Prince of Persia. The post quoted iVdopia Chief Operating Officer Chhavi Upadhyay as saying that [for a recent campaign] 89 percent of people who watched a Viper ad, which was 27 percent of the total, actually took action on it too.
RICH MEDIA PAYS
Jumptap beefed up its rich media offer in April through a partnership Medialets and Crisp Wireless. The tie-up paved the way for the creation of what the companies call a Unified Rich Media Ad Platform, allowing advertisers and publishers to take advantage of a variety of ad units including configurable click through actions, tap-to-video, tap-to-audio, scrolling shakable, take-over-branding, location-aware – and more.
As Adam Soroca, Chief Product Officer and General Manager of Jumptap put it in a press statement at the time: Delivering a broad array of highly-engaging, rich media ad units for mobile apps and the mobile Web is the best way to expand an advertiser’s campaign reach and increasing a publisher’s fill rates and eCPMs. “Rich media campaigns are proven to drive higher levels of user engagement, more than any other media, with demonstrated increases in message lift association and higher CTRs.”
mobile video ads from jumptap
Jumptap is equally bullish about the outlook for video, and draws from Nielsen figures to make a strong case for high engagement and better response rates. Driven by the significant increase in smartphone penetration, mobile video usage is also on the rise. In the U.S. people spend an average of three hours and 37 minutes each month watching video on mobile phones. Connect the dots, and mobile video ads present advertisers with a significant opportunity to deliver messages that drive engagement and deliver higher ROI.
Indeed, just today Orange UK said it is expecting a big boost to its mobile TV viewing figures from the World Cup. Mobile Entertainment quotes the mobile operator’s head of sport partnerships and services Steve Wallage as saying: “Based on the surge in demand for mobile TV during the Ashes last summer, we expect viewing figures could rocket by at least 74 percent during the World Cup.” (Unfortunately, Orange doesn’t disclose how many viewers it has in total – so a 74 percent increase could be massive or minor…Nonetheless, mobile video is clearly gaining traction.)
INTERVIEW WITH PARAN JOHAR
To get the inside track on the announcement and some new Jumptap stats, I caught up with Paran Johar, Jumptap CMO. Huge thanks to Julie Ginches, who heads up marcom, for arranging this briefing on the fly!
MSG: So, now Jumptap is a one-stop. Why the focus on scope?
Paran: Whether it’s search, display advertising, rich media, or video, or – on the other side – branding or performance, they [advertisers/publishers] can come to Jumptap and get a comprehensive solution. That’s the number one reason for this announcement. Number two – from the publisher side – it’s about providing the same scope of services to help monetize their traffic. So, whether it’s to monetize display advertising, rich media or mobile video, we provide solutions for all of that. In addition to that, this [deal] allows them [publishers] to monetize it for premium advertisers for brand engagement, or if they have remnant inventory, for performance advertisers.
Having a one-stop-shop or one resource, makes the buying process simpler. There’s only advertising partner for an agency to do search, video and rich media. What is even more important is to have an open system. We offer an open system for rich media, which we announced [the Unified Rich Media Ad Platform]. It’s multi-platform and multi-handset, that is our approach. That is more important because an advertiser fundamentally doesn’t care what handset or what OS they’re running on; they care about they have an audience. That’s why an open approach is really going to be the one that wins in the long run.
MSG: Getting back to video, several execs have told me they are seeing more interesting in video. What are seeing that makes you excited enough to add it to the mix?
Paran: If you remember our last release was all about consumer intelligence, driving relevancy to drive engagement. That is one side of the coin. The second part to drive engagement is really about the creative, right? Mobile video is that next evolution in mobile creative. Certainly rich media is the first step, but the one right after that is sight, sound and motion — which is obviously video.
We know from Nielsen that mobile video users grew 57 percent to 17.6 million year over year, and that they spent an average of 3 hours 37 minutes. But what is even more interesting is the type of viewing they’re doing. It’s a much more active environment versus on the PC or on a TV, where people are much more in a passive state. When you’re watching video on your cellphone, you’re 100-percent focused on it, and so we felt this was a great way to round out our offering for advertisers.
Mobile video ads engage
MSG: Beyond being a one-stop-shop, what is the interplay between the formats and approaches you are offering here? I’m thinking about the focus on relevancy here…
Paran: They all work in conjunction with our focus on consumer intelligence to drive engagement. When you package all these pieces together, they work together to drive user engagement. On the relevancy side, it’s allowing consumers to manage their own profiles. On the creative side, it’s allowing advertisers to have these multiple formats. So, click-to-video, allows a big movie studio like Sony to promote their trailer in a new way. Consumers can literally, click on the banner and then watch the movie trailer. With interstitial, we’re allowing pre-roll. So, after you have downloaded an app and you’re opening it, we allow advertisers to insert pre-roll into that. Finally, in-stream. If you’re watching a news clip – say, on CNN.com — prior to you watching the content, you will see a 5 to 15-second pre-roll ad.
The innovation really doesn’t come from the actual ad unit itself, because you don’t want to provide more hurdles for advertisers to learn something brand new, a new way of doing something. What we are providing is a framework that they’re comfortable with – and certainly a nice extension of the PC Internet – coupled with targeting parameters that allow them to drive engagement.
MSG: High engagement is part of it. But what about the CPMs?
Paran: CPMs for video, you mean? It ranges – depending on placement within the app — from a low of 15 to a high of, say, 25.
MSG: What are the rollout plans?
Paran: We’re in the process of lining up our beta advertisers and we’ll be live probably within the next two weeks. We’ve got about half a dozen advertisers who are going to be the initial beta testers of this for the product. They’re actually buying the inventory and we’ll be launching them live in about two weeks and probably announcing the results in about five to six weeks. Right now, we’re in the process of announcing it, (a) telling the market that we have mobile video and (b) selling it, selling the first opportunities for advertisers.
MSG: Your last announcement is about putting consumers at the center of their experiences. Does this extend to mobile video ads?
Paran: The ultimate open approach is really allowing the consumer to be part of it, and we’re taking the leadership role.
MSG: Video is part of the opt-in package?
Paran: Yes, absolutely.
MSG: Let’s catch up on the other partnerships you have and the objectives…
Paran: Number one, with Crisp and Medialets: what’s exciting with those partners, and new partners that we’re going to be bringing on board, is that it allows an advertiser to plug directly into our system and run their current rich media initiatives. We have our own rich media package, so — if they’re not working with a partner — they can utilize that. That’s why we are and will continue to take an open approach to the eco system in general.
To give you an update on Jumptap in general: we have seen growth at a rate of about 30 percent quarter over quarter. And the reason for that is really simple. It is our open approach. Apple is really taking a walled garden stance and – you know this better than anyone – their pricing structure of a $10 CPM+, or $2 CPC – that is getting an incredible amount of push-back from advertisers.
Ours is much more simple, much more in line with what advertisers are used to. Whether it’s on the branding side for a premium mobile ad network or whether it’s on the performance side with our CPC performance ad network, we get to benefit from both sides.
If you look at Apple, they’re really trying to capture the big brand dollars. Google is known for performance and their acquisition of AdMob really kind of illustrates how they’re really going after the long tail. We sit in the middle. We have our premium business, so we get the benefit from the growth by brand advertisers. We also have our performance CPC network, so we get the benefit from the direct response advertisers as well.
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Prior to the briefing, Jumptap also provided MSG some key data points.
By way of background, the Jumptap Premium Ad Network delivers the broadest reach and highest quality video ad inventory including 50+ million monthly impressions from premium publishers and applications including Mobi TV, MSNBC, Best of YouTube, iBasketball, iBowl, Movie Challenge Lite, and MovieFX. Advertisers can reach audiences across a broad array of content categories including entertainment, utilities, games, music, news, sports, and a wide range of devices including Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Jumptap also offers comprehensive creative management and sophisticated campaign analytics.
Advertisers on network: Over 350 premium and performance advertisers
Mobile ads served or page impressions: 8 billion performance & 900 million premium
Unique mobile users that see ads: 55 million
The breakdown: 34% IPhone, 10% RIM, 7% Android, 2% Windows Mobile, 1.5% Palm OS
