While the internet yellow pages and city guides are selling advertorial video for small businesses, the biggest player of them all continues to aggressively pursue this emerging opportunity. Google has teamed with SpotMixer to give small businesses the ability to churn out their own videos and traffic them on Google’s Adwords network, both online and on TV. SpotMixer allows small businesses to upload their own video, combine it with file video, add graphics and edit it into a commercial spot or longer-form advertorial video. Google provides the ad network, which now includes quite a few television partners.
Google’s ultimate play here is giving its advertisers the ability to target its video ads on TV by zip code as well as audience — combined with its existing online products — enabling a whole new universe of video advertising to the tune of billions of dollars. (For example, a restaurant can’t afford a TV ad that goes out to an entire market, but they can certainly afford it if it’s targeted to a particular zip code.) Meanwhile, local TV companies are neglecting this opportunity because of their prohibitive cost structures and lack of technological investment. In the next 4-5 years, it’s quite possible that pure plays will challenge local TV stations in the video advertising business in total dollars across any medium. Now, wouldn’t that be interesting?
