Bumper Ads now available on Medialaan-De Persgroep network

Medialaan-De Persgroep follows the trend of online video market and launches a new format. Bumper Ads is an unskippable 6 seconds spot that may be used in-stream on the Long Form Network (pre-roll and mid-roll positions). Bumper Ads may be already booked as a part of best Premium video Network of Medialaan & De Persgroep.

There are two main advantages for online video campaigns: price and reach. Saleshouses have usually a basic price based on an 15 seconds spot. Even with a 6 seconds spot, the price used to be the same. Introducing Bumper Ads format means paying a lower fixed price less  and reaching more people.

Even if they are unskippable, Bumper Ads remain an user-friendly format thanks to their length, which allows to deliver a direct message in a short time. With this new format in addition to other formats we see an opportunity as a reminder of or an echo with longer spots.

Brand Safety Update – YouTube removes Sensitive Content Category

Starting in September, YouTube has done some changes on their Brand Safety settings via the two campaign management platforms: Google AdWords and DV360 (former DoubleClick).

Until now, we were capable of choosing which sensitive topic we wanted to exclude. The platform gave the opportunity to select among categories like Social Issues, Tragedy or Sensational. For a maximum level of safety, we excluded all of them.

The new Brand Safety settings will give us three different levels: 

• Limited Inventory — Exclude most types of sensitive content 
• Standard Inventory – Default access to the majority of videos which meet standard requirements
• Expanded Inventory — Maximize available inventory by being present on some sensitive content

Our recommendation is going into Standard level for the size of the inventory, but continue with Brand Safety settings from our side by excluding sensitive keywords and topics related to religion, social issues, politics, etc. However, we are always flexible to our clients specific requests. .

Search: more flexibility for advertised brands

More visibility with the new Google text ads

Find out how to add a third headline and a second description to your campaigns.

Expanded text ads were released in July 2016, but with this new release from Google, we can now speak of “Super expanded text ads”. This is not the official name of course, but starting from August, you are able to add a third headline and a second description to your text ads.

The character limit will stay the same for the headlines but the description lines allow us to add 10 more characters to the text ads. 3 headlines and up to 2 descriptions will provide a better visibility for advertised product or service.

Also new: Responsive search ads

 Responsive search ads have the same look and feel as the text ads (now with 3 headlines and 2 description) but takes advantage of Google’s machine learning in order to show the best combination depending on the search query and historical data. You can provide up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions for a single responsive search ad and Google will decide which one to show.

We definitely recommend to use the larger text ads as well as the new responsive search ads since they will take up more space in the search results and will be more relevant thanks to their flexibility.

Youtube Music also in Belgium

Youtube Music is about to be  active in Belgium as well. This new streaming service will have two possible entry points, either free or paid. The latter will be ad-free for 9,99 € per month (same price as for Spotify premium and Apple). Youtube Music consists of an app that will first be based on videos you may have liked on Youtube video. The algorithm will then learn and adapt favorites on Youtube Music based on specific listening habits. Purpose is also to propose recommendations based among others on geolocation. It will also enable “Google search” functionalities to retrieve any music number that you may want, even when you do not know the title

For perspective, paid streaming in Belgium generated 29.7 million € turnover in 2017. According to the Global Web Index, the most popular services in Belgium is Spotify (25.5% of 16-64 years), followed by Google Play Music (9.4%) and Sound Cloud (6.7%). Google Play Music is the predecessor of YT Music, and will go on anyway.

Trusted media environments more effective, magazines argue

Trust and trusted environments recently made the news. So the global Edelman Trust Barometer showed that consumers' trust in online platforms declined (-2 points, 51% agreement) while trust in journalism peaked to an all time high in 2018 (+5 percentage points, 65% trust in source for general news and information). This summer, by means of neuromarketing techniques, a Dutch survey conducted by Sanoma showed that ads on trusted platforms were more effective when it comes to brand preference. In the UK, Magnetic Media also emphasized the added value of trust in media. They relate this to findings made by Peter Field *: media plans including print, and more precisely magazines, are 40% more effective than plans without this medium.

* Peter Field, together with Les Binet, have published 3 major reports on marketing effectivenes in 10 years, the latest one in 2017.

Illustration: a campaign from MMA US, that emphasizes the importance of trust in magazines.