A summary of the most exciting recent news in online video in the US, US-Hispanic and Latin American markets. If you’re trying to keep up, consider this your one-stop shop.
US/US-HISPANIC MARKET
Amazon is ready to compete with YouTube: The e-commerce giant has launched a service that allows users to post videos and earn royalties from them, called Amazon Video Direct. The videos will be free to watch and will not have ads, but viewers can also opt to rent or buy videos they like.
Time Warner Cable claims that online video companies are lying about how much more effective in reaching audiences they are than linear TV. The company made the interesting decision to hold an event at the Newfronts, which are usually set up by digital media companies doing their best to 
make television irrelevant. Fred Bucher, chief marketing officer at Time Warner, pointed out that cable is digital as well, and that its video ad delivery is much more effective than other online video platforms.
According to the Digital Content NewFronts’ Video Ad Spend Study, there has been a 114% increase in investment in original digital video programming over the past two years. Details on other interesting findings in the report here.
Yahoo conducted a video report with Nielsen and Hunter Qualitative, and revealed that on the one hand, horizontal landscape ads are more effective than vertical landscape ads in terms of increasing affinity for brands, but on the other hand, portrait ads are far more effective vertically. Auto-start video ads in native environments were also found to be particularly effective, generating 51% better aided recall, 10% higher brand familiarity, and 4% higher brand affinity compared to user-initiated ads.
As a part of its efforts to expand its presence in online video, Twitter has paid $10 million for the rights to stream 10 Thursday night NFL games without authentication, with 15 ad slots for each game. The digital platform will also introduced advanced targeting tools for video ads in the fall.
Magna Global, whose clients include Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, and Fiat, announced at NewFront that they have agreed to buy $250 million in video ads from YouTube. David Cohen, president of Magna Global North America commented, “We have negotiated a meaningful share shift from linear television to digital video.”
AdWorks, AT&T‘s advanced advertising services unit, claims that they saw a boost in sales for advertisers between 19 and 87% in a recent trial of multi-screen, multi-device addressable advertising conducted with Opera Mediaworks. TV advertising increased sales by 19 percent, and 27 percent when a consumer received the same ad on both their TV and mobile device.
Condé Nast Entertainment announced plans to expand its premium digital video network with three new incubator programs designed to discover and develop the next generation of storytelling talent, more video content, increased data capabilities, a distribution partnership with Comcast further adding to the company’s comprehensive distribution across more than 50 platforms, and industry-first measurement for branded content video performance.
Virool, the video distribution platform for marketing professionals, and Rubicon Project, which operates a giant open advertising marketplace, have created a new vertical video unit for advertisers and editors. The product, called Vertical Reveal, will help scale programmatic advertising to bring video ads to buyers and sellers on mobile devices.
Revelist.com, the recently launched millennial women website from CafeMedia, is reporting record digital video performance and traffic growth, exceeding 1 million monthly visitors and 76 million video views in its 3 months in market.
New trends in online video monetization, measurement, engagement and many more aspects of the emerging OTT market will be explored at the Latin Online Video Forum during PortadaLat in Miami on June 8-9, 2016. Get your tickets at early bird price now!
LATAM MARKET
According to a report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), online ad investments grew by 24% in Chile during 2015. Over the last five years, Chile’s online advertising grew from less than $50 million yearly business to current $160 million. Chile’s Internet penetration is also impressive – there are 76 connections for every 100 inhabitants – and the country has one of the highest broadband penetration rates in the region.
Telefónica has announced that it spent $100 million to update its LatAm satellite hub in Peru in order to support online video
growth in the region and expand its Movistar Play SVOD service, which it claims will be available in 12 coutries by the end of 2016.
According to the Global Programmatic Advertising Spending Market 2016-2020 report, global programmatic advertising spending could grow at a CAGR of 20.56% during the period 2016-2020, as programmatic advertising picks up speed in LatAm and the APAC region.
Argentinean newspaper La Nación has launched a daily live online video newsfeed to target mobile audiences.
HBO has announced that basic pay-TV subscribers in Chile with HD encoders and TVs will be upgraded to premium HD HBO package in order to improve the user experience.
watch 11.1 hours of content per week digitally, versus 5.2 hours on TV.
