Video: TV Envy Ten Years Later

The TV Envy is over.

It took ten years for our industry to graduate. Year after year, we would obsess over what TV did right and what online video needed to do to earn its sliver of a $60B+ business. While Digital Video is still nascent, it is no longer envious. Ten years later, digital video is taking aim at TV and with a few important adjustments, Digital Video will be a proven game changer within the media world.

So in this Upfront season, it is important for the Digital Video industry to serve notice. While TV begins to lock its buyers down and get into negotiations over the coming weeks, the Digital Video industry has to do the following three things.

First, we need to be price competitive. For many advertisers, it is a non-starter if one medium is priced out of the more traditional media options. Digital Video, for a long time, has been pricing itself out of the market. Leading publishers would go public about how their inventory was sold-out at $40 and $50 cpms. This publicity has hurt our medium and made it harder for all of us to convert big brands from TV.

Second, we need to sell better. TV’s salespeople are some of the best salespeople in the business. I’ve worked with many of them during my days at CBS and Warner Bros. I’ve competed with most of them. They come dressed for success and know how to close seven and eight figure deals. Digital Video can take lessons here. Digital Video sellers must come better prepared to speak in a consultative fashion, educate the marketplace, sell an achievable plan and deliver.

Lastly, we must lead. For Digital Video to reach its potential, we must, as an industry lead the marketing community to tap new and innovative techniques and solutions that will effectively differentiate Digital Video from TV and other forms of media. For instance, three years ago, BBE launched its first online program Cube Fabulous. Through partnerships with Honda, AOL and Monster, BBE integrated products into a quality program and distributed the episodes with unprecedented success.

Leading efforts like this allow our industry to differentiate itself and demonstrate what is so special about Digital Video. So it is the combination of (1) price competitiveness; (2) better selling and; (3) leadership that will allow Digital Video to earn its growth going forward.

We will make this happen here in 2009. That’s why ten years later, the TV envy is officially over.