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Major media companies, advertisers jump in online video 'Pool'

January 22, 2009 — 10:40am ET | By Pete Wylie

Tools

A wide swath of companies with online video presences announced a partnership to test online video ad formats, and the list of companies playing nice together might surprise you. Microsoft, Yahoo, CBS Interactive and Hulu.com are banding together in an unlikely consortium to try to convince more advertisers to spend on online video by optimizing ad formats.

The project is called "The Pool," and it is sponsored by Publicis Groupe's Starcom MediaVest, a major media ad buyer. Its partner agency VivaKi will also participate in the program, which they hope will create standards that ease the transition of dollars from traditional media to online video.

The media companies are joined by several prominent brand advertisers, like Allstate, Capital One Financial and Applebee's restaurants. They met in November and decided on five online video ad formats to begin testing in focus groups this week. The most well received formats will then be tested further on the media companies' web sites.

This partnership is an extremely encouraging development for content owners and online video advertisers alike, as many industry insiders have identified the lack of standards in online video advertising as a major roadblock to mass adoption of the medium by advertisers.

For more:
- see the Wall Street Journal article here