Top-10 “OMMA Video” Insights & Favorite Twitter Posts

Here at NYC’s OMMA Video conference with discussions about online video, monetization, engagement, advertisements, mobile video, and so on.. here are my top 10 insights, followed by my favorite Twitter posts. 

1. Everyone seems to think advertising dollars should fund production. But if I’m a marketer, I’m not diggin’ that model. Shoot- I wanna sell product not finance creative. 
2. There’s a Starcom “pool” coming soon will change everything. Unfortunately I wasn’t paying attention so I have no idea what a pool is.
3. Way too much emphasis on interruption marketing (interactive ads and companion banners) versus promoting with relevancy within the content. Oh well. It’s OMMA.
4. More of a mind meld of industry insiders (as opposed to brands/advertising budget holders). Not many actual clients represented, perhaps because this space is so new. The celebrity was Andy Markowitz (Kraft) who was widely quoted. Eileen Naughton, Google Media Platforms, also got the crowd excited announcing that FRED is making more than $1 million dollars per year. YOW.
5. Online video is still only about 3% of video consumed, so the cable guys don’t look too worried… yet.
6. Some guy named Phil Leigh (Inside Digital Media) spent most of lunch convincing me that PCs are being connected to television sets like crazy. Not just the early-adopter nerds. He has a white paper about it, but it’s $1500… and I could afford a full media center for that.
7. Because this event involves a lot of online-media buyers, the gay/hetero mix was far higher than 1 in 10.
8. Monetization discussion, moderated by Digitas’ John McCarus, began with a recount of all the online-video studio casualties in recent weeks. Clearly nobody was making any money yet, and some are going back to broadcast.
9. Lots of discussion about what to measure, but not about sales… more about “engagement” as defined by time spent. 
10. “Only $5000 per 1-minute of production” was a way to boast over efficiency. I like the “$10 per 1-minute of production” rule better. 

Here are the best tweets.The winner of the “best Tweets from the OMMA video conference” goes to Corey Kronengold (ckronengold). Daisy Whitney is MC’ing, but recently lost the hip jean jacket and her tweets are lacking zest.

• Mobile piracy doesn’t seem to concern the panelists – yet.
• 58k iphone apps as of this week.
• More internet connections for UGC on mobile than the wired PC — Nihal Mehta,
• YouTube’s “Fred” is making a 7-figure income says Eileen Naughton from Google here at #ommavideo
• Andy Markowitz of Kraft “We’re not doing online marketing, we’re doing marketing in a digital world.”
• Gordon Borrell doesn’t expect local advertisers to adopt models where they have to manage
• “How do we move from promoting our content to where content promotes us?” Andrew Markowitz, Kraft
• “Relevancy has become an increasingly elusive goal,” Andrew Markowitz, Kraft #ommavideo. Time should be the new currency of media, Kraft marketing exec says
• “If Google can be an agency, and agencies can be technology providers, Kraft can be a content provider.” – Andy Markowitz/Kraft #ommavideo
• PointRoll just showed brilliant Visible World-like web tool for marketers to customize auto banners
• idea that we can somehow make online video ad units that consumers will love to watch is charmingly naive.
• “The Pool will raise the watermark on the entire online video industry.” – Alan Schulman, #ommavideo
• ckronengold “we aren’t in in a position to author best practices in online video.” A. Schulman #ommavideo
• “We know one thing — pre-rolls suck.” — Joe Mandese, editor, MediaPost at
• moderator says “pre-roll sucks” but Tracey Scheppach of SMG restates as “preroll doesn’t take advantage of empowerment”
• Starcom exec says we will move past pre-rolls and to new online video ad formats #ommavideo (via @DaisyWhitney)
• Ckronengold: We’ve discovered an ad unit that will replace pre-roll as the workhorse – The Pool #ommavideo. Details, please. Before the panel ends.
• joebobatl Ugh – just saw a conference attendee leave the bathroom w/out washing his hands. #hazardsofconferences #ommavideo
• thisjenn #ommavideo cocktail hour is a cash bar. Interesting.
• ckronengold What is a Hit? Seibert: The question is “What did it cost you and is it efficient, and for advertisers, can you do it again?” #ommavideo
• RE engagement, I tell people that “you can’t tell how much someone weighs with a yardstick.” #ommavideo 
  • Measurement + Meaning = engagement