Youku taps Mirriad to boost Samsung ad campaigns and support video streaming growth in china
NIVA ads in China’s largest video streaming platform are just tip of spear, represent billions in untapped ad revenue for streamed content
London – Oct. 26, 2016 – As television viewership continues to shift online, China’s leading streaming service, Youku, is successfully leveraging Mirriad’s native in-video ad technology to expand advertising opportunities for brands and generate incremental revenue. Leading the charge is Samsung, who just launched a third NIVA campaign this September to advertise Samsung Home Appliances within fifty episodes of five popular television Youku streamed dramas.
Youku has a jumpstart on the NIVA marketplace in China through an exclusive deal with Mirriad, whose patented native-in-video technology integrates high quality brand imagery directly into Youku’s entertainment content. Mirriad has transformed brand integration, simplifying and streamlining the process to create a simple user experience ideal for large organizations such as Samsung. Through Mirriad, Youku’s content is now available to brands as ad inventory that can be traded as standardized ad units.
“With the Chinese video market expected to quadruple by 2020, Youku represents an important strategic partnership for us to grow the NIVA marketplace,” says Mark Popkiewicz, Mirriad CEO. “What we’re seeing here echoes a trend we’re seeing worldwide, as viewers flock to online video and advertisers follow after – primarily with pre-roll ads. As audiences grow weary of an oversaturation of pre-roll ads, our technology provides a new opportunity for brands to reach a wide audience in a way that’s impactful yet respectful of the viewer experience.”
This is Samsung’s third major campaign launch leveraging Mirriad’s NIVA technology with Youku, including successful campaigns for the Samsung C Series phone launch this summer. With the current campaign Youku’s massive audiences will experience signage of the latest from Samsung Home Appliances – including a TV, Washing Machine, Refrigerator and Purifier embedded as native advertising into fifty episodes of five popular dramas.
Youku’s success with NIVA in China shows the enormous potential to create advertising opportunities and deliver incremental revenue on other major video distribution platforms such as YouTube. Music videos in particular – which represent circa 30% of YouTube traffic – are optimal for NIVA ad integration. In fact, Mirriad estimates NIVA represents a $2 billion ad revenue opportunity that is currently untapped. The opportunity for brands is equally compelling: Nielsen found that brand presence in music videos can contribute to a lift of 8 percentage points, on average, in purchase intent and improved perception.
