Finding ways to monetize the popularity of video-on-demand has long been on cable operators’ wish lists. Yesterday, Bresnan Communications announced that it was ramping up a dynamic VOD advertising trial with several vendors.
Traditionally, VOD ads were pre-encoded into VOD streams, which made for static ads that couldn’t be changed on the fly to reflect newer ad campaigns or current events. With dynamic ad insertion (DAI), the ads can be selected in real time based on criteria that includes variable factors such as time of day, context, content and location.
Bresnan has launched a DAI trial in the Montana markets of Billings, Bozeman, Helena and Missoula using standards-based technologies that allow it to manage and deliver timely advertiser messages to VOD viewers. Bresnan has its master headend in Billings.
As part of the trial, Bresnan has integrated the capabilities of three cable technology innovators: Arris, Avail-TVN and BlackArrow.
“Bresnan’s on-demand services and libraries are growing exponentially to keep up with burgeoning customer demand,” said Kelly Enright, regional vice president of advertising sales for Bresnan. “This trial will grow the value of our video-on-demand platform to both advertisers and content partners as we begin to offer a completely new advertising model. Dynamic ad insertion offers an exciting opportunity to develop campaigns that provide relevant, measurable and highly effective advertising to a growing audience and allows programmers to manage on-demand advertising inventory for the first time, while developing a whole new stream of advertising revenue.”
The new DAI technology integrates with Bresnan’s existing VOD architecture, enabling standardized metadata and workflow processes for the delivery of content information and advertisement data between the Avail-TVN Adoniss Asset Management System and the BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System, as well as ad placement and inventory allocation capabilities that use Arris’ VOD ConvergeMedia platform and the BlackArrow Placement Opportunity Information Service (POIS) and Allocation Manager.
Bresnan, a broadband telecommunications company founded by Bill Bresnan in 1984, serves more than 320,000 customers throughout Colorado, Montana, Wyoming and Utah. Comcast is among the companies that have a stake in Bresnan.
