--Round-Up of Recent VOD News from Virgin Media
UK cable operator, Virgin Media, announced Wednesday the findings of the first-ever trial of dynamic advertising on its VOD platform. The three-month trial saw ads from various brands (including Kelloggs, Lurpak, O2, John Frieda, COI Army, Alberto, General Motors, Royal Mail, Littlewoods, Bodyform, John Lewis, Warner Bros. and Anchor) inserted around selected on-demand programs from Virgin Media TV, Channel 4 and Warner TV, and delivered to 100,000 homes across north London.
According to Virgin Media, 54% of trial participants were positive about advertising when watching on-demand content from commercial broadcasters; and 65% preferred to see ads before their program (i.e. "pre-roll" ads), with ads that lasted 30 seconds proving to be the most popular format (note: Virgin says 39% of respondents preferred 30-second spots in variations of 10-, 30- or 60-second spots). The company also says that a plurality (42%) of participants favored ads that were relevant to the programming they were watching: for example, hair care ads before "Britain's Next Top Model" or ads for home products after "Grand Designs." "There is a clear opportunity for on-demand television to deliver relevant ads to an engaged and growing audience," Virgin Media's chief commercial officer, Mark Schweitzer, said in a prepared statement. "Our TV customers watched more than half a billion on-demand programs during 2008 and the service's popularity has grown by over 60% during those 12 months. By continuing to develop our on-demand TV platform, we can offer even more great content and choice to viewers, a compelling opportunity for advertisers and the potential for an additional revenue stream to broadcasters."
Virgin also says that the ad trial drove a 62% increase in the spontaneous awareness of brands and products among trial participants (49% spontaneous brand awareness post stage, from 30% mid stage), that awareness of individual ads increased by 27% (56% prompted ad awareness post stage, from 44% mid stage), and that overall campaign recognition also increased 27% (62% overall campaign recognition post stage, from 49% mid stage). "On-demand clearly provides an actively engaged audience and this engagement is likely to have contributed to an increase in embedded advertising awareness," Mark Brandon, director of platforms at ids, the advertising sales house that handle's Virgin's ad sales, said in a prepared statement. "We look forward to further discussions with advertisers and agencies about our on-demand offering in due course."
The trial used SeaChange International's AdPulse system, which inserted ads before and after on-demand content in real time, so that campaigns could be kept up-to-date and specific to time-of-day or region. Virgin says that the trial matched ads to program genres, tested a range of ad lengths (including single 30-second pre-rolls, consecutive pre-rolls and end rolls), and updated campaigns weekly. The number of ads was capped with a limit on the volume of programs that had ads placed around them. Virgin also worked with SeaChange's VOD content arm, On Demand Group (ODG), for content aggregation, and worked with both ODG and Rentrak to measure content performance throughout the trial. ids and Channel 4 Agency Sales managed the advertising space for the trial.
In other recent VOD news from Virgin Media:
--In February, ITV Player--the free, online catch-up service of the UK's largest commercial terrestrial broadcaster, the Independent Television Network (ITV)--launched on Virgin's VOD platform, joining catch-up services from the BBC, Channel 4, E4, More4, Bravo, Living and Virgin1. 40 hours of ITV's programming (including shows from the broadcaster's ITV1, ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 channels) are available on the platform every week for seven days after their linear broadcast, alongside a 500-hours-per-year line-up of other shows from ITV that is available on Virgin's TV Choice VOD offering. A selection of ITV on-demand programming is also available in HD.
--In February, the company announced that its subscribers had watched 516 million VOD programs over the course of 2008. In addition, the company said, its VOD service generated a "record-breaking" 56 million views in December alone, and its popularity grew by over 60% over the past 12 months, with 52% of the company's 3.5 million TV subs now regularly using the service, and with average views per user per month rising from 23 in Q4, 2007 to 30 in Q4, 2008. Virgin attributes the growth of the service in large part to the popularity of the BBC iPlayer, an online catch-up service that launched on its VOD platform last May (note: Virgin is the first TV platform to offer the BBC iPlayer): according to the company, the BBC iPlayer had generated 95 million views on its VOD platform through the beginning of February, with monthly viewership increasing from 10.5 million views in June to 17 million views in December. Virgin says that its VOD platform now accounts for around a third of all BBC iPlayer views. "The launch of BBC iPlayer on our TV platform was a real tipping point in consumer understanding of on-demand, and we'll continue this success with the launch of ITV Player," Virgin Media CEO, Neil Berkett, said in a prepared statement. "As we bring the nation's favorite TV programs to them, on the box, via PC's and on their mobiles, we are redefining how people watch TV." Virgin also says that music videos are proving popular on its VOD platform with, for example, recent number-one singles from "X Factor" finalists, Alexandra Burke and Leona Lewis, generating over a million views. It claims that the launch of skippable music-video playlists on the service has encouraged increased use, by letting viewers explore new music and easily find their favorite tracks. In addition, it says that its movies-on-demand service, which is operated by FilmFlex, experienced 10% month-on-month growth in December (thanks to the availability that month of box office hits such as "Iron Man" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"), and totaled over 35 million buys through February.
--In February, the company launched a Sci-Fi & Fantasy area on its VOD platform. The new service, which features up to 150 hours of programming from Warner TV, FX UK, ContentFilm and Virgin Media TV, including such classic shows as "Star Trek" and "Babylon 5" and such contemporary series as "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," is available at no extra charge to customers of Virgin's XL package or its TV Choice VOD package. Virgin promoted the new service by offering a selection of sci-fi content, free-of-charge, on its Virgin Central VOD channel throughout February.
--In January, the company launched sports programmer Setanta's Setanta Replay service on its VOD platform. The service offers coverage of major sporting events (e.g., Barclays Premier League games, FA Cup matches, World Cup qualifiers and more) for up to seven days after their live broadcast. The service is available to customers of Virgin's XL package and its TV Choice VOD package at no extra charge.
--In January (not April 1st), the company announced that it was "conducting research into shows that appeal to the whole family, including our beloved pet dogs," and that it was "considering plans to introduce a bespoke TV-on-demand section containing shows that appeal to dogs as well as their owners."
