Thoughts from OMMA on the future of the online video ad market

Yesterday morning, I had the opportunity to deliver the keynote address to a room full of marketers, agencies, and publishers at the 2009 OMMA Video conference in New York. I spoke of video's fast growth and its near ubiquity with consumers, and took the time to outline three reasons why the online video ad market is poised for success:

• Scale is near...or here: YouTube is the world’s leading entertainment platform, with more content partners, more HD content, and a bigger audience than any other video site on the web. Millions of people come to YouTube to share and discover hundreds of millions of videos every day, offering brands access to the world's largest focus group. When you consider the power of our video network to deliver five million incremental daily impressions across premium content on sites like Crackle, Current TV, and eHow, we believe it's now possible to create online video buys that truly scale.

• Video is providing a more engaging experience: Every video now has the power to be a full-featured, rich media experience. Boone Oakley's new "website," H&R Block's "Don't Miss It!" game, and Nike's four-season fashion show, are only a few of the more innovative ways advertisers are using video in 2009. We're excited to see what else marketers will think of -- but it will likely use some of the tools under development in our TestTube.

• More measurement and accountability: With the advent of higher-impact units and better measurement, video has the power to be the most accountable medium in the digital space. After all, it combines the sight, sound, and motion of TV with the engagement and interaction of the web. Check out YouTube Insight for a glimpse of what we're doing in the analytics space.

Keep reading the YouTube Biz Blog for more of our thoughts on where the video market's headed, the medium's talked-about trends, and the latest developments at YouTube.

Posted by Eileen Naughton, Director of Media Platforms