“Going Local” through Personalized Digital Video
8th February 2012 · 0 Comments
A Chicago web surfer goes to CNN.com to check out the latest national or international news. Before a story’s video plays, a pre-roll spot for a discount hotel site comes on, hawking the latest deals on Chicago travel packages. Meanwhile, a viewer in Las Vegas clicks on the same news video — prefaced by a spot pushing the latest and greatest casino discounts. Welcome to the cutting edge of online marketing, a phenomenon known as personalized digital video.
How does it work? As with so many user-targeted ads on the Internet, personalized digital video makes use of the cookies collected on your web browser. The video assets of a company’s ad, including daily deals and geographic variations, are couched in a creative “pod” Based on your geographical location and whatever other demographics might be relevant, a special algorithm then analyzes that data dynamically, then pulls the right combination of video assets from the pod to deliver a geo-specific ad aimed directly at the person watching the video, wherever that person may be.
I’ve had an opportunity to see this extraordinary technology at work through my involvement with a legacy client from my Pre-Chief Outsiders days. This personalized digital video industry provider in turn worked with the agency that handled online advertising for this discount hotel advertiser. My client would manipulate the video assets of their 30-second television spot, essentially slicing the spot into about 500 different combinations, any one of which was ready to land in front of a specific viewer depending on the time of day, day of the week, the individual market, the deal of the day, et cetera. It’s an interesting juxtaposition, the focusing of a global medium down to the most local, personal level. You can now hit people where they live — literally!
Tags: free videos, go local, going local, local go, video, video clips, video editing, videos
