Ricky Sutton, Author at Oovvuu

News costs money, not having it costs more, as we are all learning

Advertising, Content, Customers, Insights, News, Technology

When I was a journalist, media was elementary. Binary. If you didn’t have the best front page, millions of paying readers missed the scoop their money deserved. The pressure was intimidating and taught me the concept of survival of the fittest. Moaning just didn’t cut it.

Later, I was news editor with a global team and the most-read front page on the planet. I rubbed shoulders with smart, uncompromising editors, whose names and reputations were indelibly linked to their papers’ century-old brands. Together, we toiled under a shared anxiety for ever-bigger scoops.

Over this past decade, the Fourth Estate has been battered. Relentless attacks from Google and Facebook, hiding behind Section 230, have left their mark. Fighting a one-sided battle has left the once-proud media lion resembling an injured gazelle.

We are seeing the consequences. The near-collapse of local news reporting, the ensuing crisis in public trust, the rise of fake news and political polarisation, a spike in hate speech and intolerance, clickbait and collapsing CPMs. These are symptoms of a neutered media – felt most keenly in local news – and caused by the unchecked rise of Google and Facebook.
Ricky Sutton, Oovvuu CEO

Now this is changing. Scales have been removed from our eyes and we are in the dawn of a media revival, driven by the unerring human values of trust, brand and truth. Facebook is blinded by tech and a myopic perspective that doesn’t care. History that will judge them. Google knows it though, and let me tell you why.

When I first wrote a version of this article in 2017, I proposed a plan. It was before Cambridge Analytica, before we knew the shocking extent of Facebook’s data abuses, before YouTube’s paedophilia rings, Google’s sex scandals and billion-dollar global advertiser boycotts.

We had created Oovvuu a few years earlier to help journalism by partnering broadcasters and publishers to put a relevant video in every article in the world. Every broadcaster was handpicked as a trusted source. Every publisher too. Together, we would create a new, video-led way of reporting the news, and create trust on a scale that would rival the duopoly.

Once achieved, we would use it to repatriate billions from Facebook and Google back to the journalists and broadcasters reporting the world.

We went public in a keynote at The International News Media Association, announcing 100 broadcasters had joined our mission, providing feeds of breaking news video and long form programming to publishers. More than $2 billion of constantly-updating news video, available to any trusted publisher via a simple-to-use, one-touch technology.

Partners included the BBC, Bloomberg, The Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France Presse, PBS, Deutsche Welle, ITN, Euronews, Press Association, Canadian Press, AAP, Techcrunch, The Guardian, Sports News TV, ABC Australia, 24.com Africa, Eyewitness News, NDTV India, TRT Turkey, VPRO Holland and many more.

Publishers there to listen included The New York Times, Schibsted, The Guardian, News Corp, The Irish Times, Trinity Mirror, Sanoma, RussMedia, Mail Online, The FT, Axel Springer, The UK Telegraph, Archant, Newsquest, Newsweek.

At the time, the media industry resembled two elephants in a sea of ants. The New York Times and Guardian were vanishingly small in comparison to the duopoly, yet just the top 26 publishers working together had a larger audience than Facebook. It felt like there was something we could do.
Ricky Sutton, Oovvuu CEO

Oovvuu set out to mobilise the media industry to work together to create a new, bigger and better elephant, this time based on truth, brand and trust. A few years on, we are gaining traction.

Many of the world’s largest publishers have since joined, and we are in contract negotiations with more than 100 more. We have opened offices in New York, San Francisco, London, Singapore, Mumbai, Cape Town and Istanbul. We are hiring 50 new staff to support the US media alone.

Our tech has also transformed. In 2015, when we launched Compass, a tool that embeds in reporters’ workflows that can read articles, watch videos and match them together in less than a second, it so impressed IBM Watson and Amazon, they both funded us. Soon after Intel joined.

Now, tens of millions of people in 143 countries benefit from breaking news video they could not previously access. News articles are being enhanced, publishers have access to the video they need and broadcasters are distributing to new markets in an instant.

More videos are going in more articles more quickly, with more than 250 journalists using Compass daily to make better recommendations. We didn’t set out to be a poster child for machine learning, and be invited to speak at the largest conferences in the world, but it happened.

You see, we are journalists, and it is in our DNA to learn. When we keynoted at IBM Think in Las Vegas (above) to 35,000 engineers I opened by saying: “Technology can be learned, but trust must be earned. I know that because I am speaking at the world’s largest AI conference, and I can’t write a single line of code.”

We are not alone in learning. The world has also learned what Facebook is all about.

The truth was revealed by six devastating exposes in The Guardian, Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wired and Der Spiegel, and more are emerging every day. Billions have been wiped off the company’s value, Zuckerberg has terrified the world with robotic apologies to the US Congress, and across the world, demands for anti-trust action to break them up are gaining momentum.

The likelihood of which, Dina Srinivasan, entrepreneur turned anti-trust specialist told the Digiday podcast, is “imminent and very high. The market is spewing out warped outcomes and tweaks at 10,000ft need to be made”.

Facebook will continue to make money, like bad companies before it, but it has been exposed. The halo has tilted and now, well, it’s just another greedy company hiding behind a friendly logo.

Facebook’s woes have been a heat shield for Google, which does all the same things on a far bigger scale. YouTube has taken some hits, and responded with the usual empty apologies and promises, but Google as a whole is just six headlines from the same fate. Mountain View is worried, as it should be.

I know this personally because they reached out to me, and media leaders I work with, asking what they should do.

This creates a point in time opportunity for the media, Google and the world, and it starts with maths. Google is meant to be good at maths, so there’s hope.

A billion people watch news video daily. Typically, they watch two videos each a day. Non-Oovvuu publishers only have video in seven per cent of their articles. Oovvuu increases it to 40 per cent.

The Oovvuu solution means more people, watching more video. With US publishers boasting enormous numbers of page views, and years of trust, this is a perfect marriage to create brand safety, with engaged audiences at the duopoly’s scale.

Google had 172 billion page views in November 2019. Facebook had 42 billion. The top 50 publishers in America combined had 98 billion.

Trusted videos, in trusted environments at these scales, with the premium CPMs of video, represents a business-changing revenue of $100 million a year in new revenue for the larger publishers. That’s be the difference between more closures and mergers, and a sustainable future reporting the news.

Google wrote $42 billion in ad revenue in 2018. Facebook a further US$34 billion. One in every four dollars came from video, and eMarketer says it be one in three soon, so, shifting billions to publishers and broadcasters for reporting the news in video can be done.

That sum is sufficient to end the scourge of fake news, reboot the media earnings, make truth and information free and distributed, and it is in the best interests of Google to help as the anti-trust clouds gather.

There is nothing safer than a Reuters video in a New York Daily News article, or the latest on a virus pandemic from AFP in The Chicago Tribune. The world needs trust for our society to maintain stability.

Media is our mission, technology is just our tool. Brands and agencies hurt by the scandals of the past two years also know they need brand safe content and engaged audiences at scale. We know this because the three largest in the world, Group M, IPG and Dentsu Aegis all have trading deals with us.

All that is needed now is for publishers to step up…

Oovvuu’s documentaries will transform your video earnings and engagement

Advertising, Content, Customers, Insights, News

Oovvuu believes that news media reporting will increasingly reliant on video, that is why we work so hard to ensure every publisher has a relevant video for every article.

Typically, this involves embedding a short clip to a news article, telling the story in greater depth, and creating a lucrative new monetisation method via a pre-roll ad.

Pre-roll video ads – ads that run before a video – command ad prices up to 20x that of standard display, meaning the value of every page view is transformed when video is added.

People love it. Editors love it. Advertisers love it.

Some progressive publishers though are going a step further, and creating Netflix-like video hubs where their visitors can access brilliant and thought-provoking documentaries.

Oovvuu provides thousands of long form films, across multiple genres, to enable any publisher to make the leap into long form.

Play Stuff

The best execution we have seen with the Oovvuu catalogue has been Play Stuff, the video section of New Zealand’s premiere publisher Stuff.

visit play stuff

Oovvuu has also built video on demand hubs at West Australian Newspapers in Perth, and Media24 in South Africa.

Average viewing time on our hubs across the world is 16 minutes, and with mid-roll ads adding to pre-rolls, they can generate 4x the revenue of a standard pre-roll.

Hubs also extend reader engagement with news sites into the weekends and evenings.

If you are interested in exploring a hub solution, drop us a line.

To set the scene, these are 10 most watched Oovvuu documentaries so far in 2020.

The Whale

The true story of Luna, a young, wild killer whale who tries to befriend people on the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island. Filled with love and bitter sweet, it charts the difficult relationship between man and nature. Narrated by Ryan Reynolds.

More Than Bees:

Fifty years ago, Einstein warned: “If bees disappear, mankind has only four years left to live.” Without bees, there is no pollination, and fruit and vegetables could disappear. Billions of bees have died in the past 15 years. How worried should we be?

The Thread:

In the aftermath of the Boston marathon bombing, social media became a factory for accusations and rampant speculation. The Thread pieces together interviews, posts, Tweets and YouTube videos to reconstruct the terror attack through the hysteria of the internet.

Vlast:

When Russia’s richest oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin to be more democratic, he was arrested, convicted and his oil company seized. The film traces his dramatic rise and fall at the hands of Putin’s secret services.

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story:

Lee Atwater is a political rogue who mentored George W Bush and led the Republican party to historic victories, make liberal a dirty word and transforming the way America votes. Viewed through the lens of Trump’s Presidency, it explores his role in America’s shift to the right.

How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer:

Six degrees of separation is a fascinating idea, that everyone in the world can be connected in just a few steps. What if this isn’t a myth? What if a network theory also applies to viruses, terrorism and fashion trends? How can we use such knowledge?

Missing Presumed Dead:

While passing an Australian antique shop, filmmaker Gerard Reed happened upon a wallet belonging to a World War 1 German soldier. Fascinated by the find, he decided to investigate and learn the fate of the German soldier through the mists of time.

Frontline Fighting: Battling ISIS:

Three untrained British volunteers with no family connections to the Middle East heed the call to take up arms with Kurdish fighters to reclaim a besieged town from ISIS. Like many called to arms, they find themselves entirely unprepared for the raw atrocities of combat.

Inside The Russian Info War Machine:

Russia’s information war machine is gearing up. From state owned media to shadowy hackers and trolls, a new army is pushing the agenda, manipulating public opinion, undermining democratic governments and attempting to alter world events, but how does it all work?

Digital Addicts:

Children are becoming addicted to mobiles, harming their development and causing possible long-term damage. That’s the story, but what are the facts? Medical experts follow young patients to explore how their brains are affected by constant exposure to screens.

Oovvuu and publishers launch global ad solution for video monetisation

Advertising, Customers, Insights, Technology

Publishers usually ask us to help them increase the amount of video they deliver, because they want to be more competitive, or report the news better, but the more we delve into the detail, it eventually boils down to money.

Oovvuu has a proven track record of growing publishers’ video traffic by as much as 30x, which is the right strategy as the video advertising market is already US$52 billion and rising 40% year over year (source: Interactive Advertising Bureau).

Many publishers though have a shock learning as traffic rises, which is that getting to those buckets of advertising gold is harder to access than it first appeared. The are several reasons:

Facebook and Google’s YouTube have used their monopolies to soak up as much as 90 per cent of the advertising supply.
Publisher sales teams have failed to recognise the complexity of selling video ads, versus say display.
Agencies and buyers are often overly bullish, promising to divert spend to publishers, which then doesn’t happen, and
Programmatic advertising, while appearing to be simple, is in fact entirely reliant on the Google ad stack and rarely provides commercially relevant CPMs.

It sounds hopeless, but it’s not. Publishers are actually well set for a video future, for four indisputable reasons:

A billion people watch news video daily, and want more.

Publishers need more video to meet demand.

Broadcasters have video but needed global, instant distribution.

Advertisers wanted brand safe environments, and engaged audiences at scale.

It’s this last point that Oovvuu realised needed a different solution.

Typically, publishers’ video ad sales fall into two groups:

About 30% of ad inventory is sold at premium CPMs by the internal sales team, known as direct sales. This is high yielding, but expensive and time-consuming to do.

Another 30% is sold programmatically, that is automatically delivered via integrations with third party ad supply companies. This is easier and cheaper to integrate, but the ads are typically low yielding. More often than not, they are uncommercially useful to publishers.

The rest of the ads go sold. A disaster.

Oovvuu realised publishers needed a third way to sell ads, to fill the unsold inventory via a backfill solution, so we took a playbook from the more progressive publishing groups around the world.

Publishers have begun to realise that to compete with the scale of the duopoly, they must work together, to create a consortium that can collectively bargain for a share of ad spend. Negotiate once at scale, with distributed benefits. A good example is The Ozone Project in London.

In South Africa where Oovvuu has grown publisher video traffic more than 30x in the past two years, agencies and publishers dropped historical enmities to ask Oovvuu to create a single advertising solution for them.

Now, Media24, The Local News Network, Business Insider SA, All4Women, Caxton Magazines, TisoBlackStar, The Independent, The Daily Maverick and across more than 100 publications have joined forces in Oovvuu’s first video private marketplace.

Run by Oovvuu’s head of advertising success James Fisher, and powered by Rubicon Project, it makes it easy for marketers to access premium brand safe and highly viewable video inventory across all the publishers and genres, within a single deal ID and a click of a button.

Since June 2019, local agency groups including Group M, Dentsu Aegis and IPG Media Brands have been actively running video deals through here.

Most importantly, they are seeing better results in key performance metrics like viewability, completion and click through rates than they are on other ad formats and partners.

Feedback includes:

Wow, this is really impressive, haven’t seen such good performance in a while – Group M South Africa

When compared to other partners the Oovvuu click through rate achieved is quite above theirs, which is great to see – Dentsu South Africa

We are really happy with the performance of view rates, this is a fantastic cost per view – IPG Media Brands South Africa

Oovvuu achieves market leading results by delivering a great user experience.

All Oovvuu videos are user initiated. That means they are click to play, rather than autoplay. While this means video views fall, it requires an engaged audience to earn a play, and therefore commands higher yields.
Oovvuu video is premium and highly engaging. We only work with broadcasters like the BBC, Bloomberg, Euronews, The Associated Press and more meaning people trust what they see, and
We set a high bar on contextuality, meaning the Oovvuu video you find in a page will relevant. We can do this because we have one of the world’s largest content catalogues across more than 60 genres.

The proof is in the numbers.

This service is currently only available via programmatic unreserved deals, for any bespoke, direct or guaranteed video deals. Oovvuu inventory is also available for the publishers to sell directly.

For more information or to submit your interest please contact james.fisher@oovvuu.com, chris@oovvuu.com or adops@oovvuu.com

Five disciplines to make your video strategy profitable and sustainable

Advertising, Content, Customers, Insights, Technology

Oovvuu’s founders ran video for global media companies for almost a decade. Viewing was rising, ad rates were frothy yet all our businesses made multi-million dollar losses.

We asked peers for their secrets but found they were all in loss too. How could it be? What were we doing wrong? Was something endemically broken in our industry?

In 2014, we quit our jobs to create Oovvuu to find out. Our mission was to put a relevant video in every article and create a profitable video model for media.

We have been dissecting the global video economy ever since; streams, ads, devices, viewer behaviours, engagement.

We have traced the shifting consumption of a billion consumers, the fragmentation of devices, the evolution of content from short form to long, the evolution of ad yields and the importance of trust, all against the backdrop of Facebook and Google’s dangerous duopoly.

We have attracted powerful partners. More than 100 broadcasters including the BBC, Bloomberg, Reuters, AP, AFP, Business Insider and The Guardian now trust Oovvuu to distribute their programming daily.

IBM Watson and Amazon have invested in helping us develop our tech. Now Intel have joined too.

What we have learned together has uncovered some core disciplines that publishers can take advantage of to become profitable in video.

Audience:
If content is king then distribution is queen. Acquiring an audience is expensive. It costs Netflix ~$125 to acquire each new customer, but publishers already have huge audiences. Audiences who trust news brands and are engaged. That makes publishers well placed to succeed. If you have a big audience, are you really making the most of that advantage?

As a rule of thumb, two million monthly video viewers will generate $1 million in gross ad revenue annually. Think on this though. It only takes the top 26 content providers and publishers to work together to have an audience comparable with Facebook. Isn’t that worth doing?

Content:
Oovvuu has streamed 100,000-plus videos, across 60 genres, hundreds of millions of times, to news hungry audiences in 143 countries for more than five years. We know what audiences want to watch, how they are willing to engage, and which ad formats drive the best returns for publishers and agencies alike. It’s one of the reasons the content providers work with us.

Our Compass tech can literally read stories at the speed they are published and get the right video to your news team in less than a second.

Technology:
Oovvuu’s founders have been working in video since before YouTube, Facebook, and the iPad. We have devoted tens of thousands of hours to solving its challenges, to become deep subject matter experts.

From online video platforms, to content mix, to ad tech, to storage and tech, from CMS integration, reporting and analytics, we have done it all. At our core, though, we are journalists. Passionate about supporting our industry. We have lived your challenges, that’s why you can trust us as a partner.

Sales:
A billion people watch news video every day, and still want more. We have grown video inventory for publishers by as much as 30x, but hitting video KPIs is only half the battle. Google’s YouTube and Facebook now dominate the ad market, commanding as much as 85 per cent of video ad revenue in some markets.

Oovvuu works hand in glove with your ad sales teams, offering market insights, actionable insights from peers and even backfilling ads with programmatic solutions if you need. If you grow traffic, we will help you grow revenues alongside it.

Positioning:
All videos are not equal, and where you position them in the article is critical. The right video in the right position can command a 34% click to play rate. That is, if your article has been ready 10,000 times, 3,400 of those views will lead to a video view, and an ad.

Using the wrong video in a grab for volume, or putting the right video in the wrong spot, can cost you millions over the course of a year, and deny your audience access to video they want. We can help. Oovvuu has won multiple awards for its work, being described as a gossamer thread for publishers to follow through the often confusing fog of video.

We roll these learnings up into our world-leading Compass suite, giving you the video, tools and insights you need to get to video profitability.