Video search engine blinkx has introduced a new format, Un-roll Unit, to enable companies advertise their brands on online television throughout a video.
Un-roll integrates a brand with relevant programming on the web and serves up multiple touch-points, including contextual overlay ads and logos, throughout the viewing. The unit begins with a branded curtain that draws back to reveal the video and a branded blinkx video player when the video has fully buffered.
As the video plays, touch-points such as overlay ads and logos appear at contextually relevant moments within the video. The format is available through blinkx AdHoc, the company’s contextual advertising platform for online video.
Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO of blinkx, said: “We’re proud to offer our advertisers an alternative to traditional pre- and post-roll video advertising. Although click-through rates for pre-roll advertisements tend to be positive, some viewers are reluctant to watch 30 seconds of advertising for videos that sometimes last only one minute. Now, using the Un-roll, brands and agencies can tell their story through highly targeted advertisements.”
Shell Oil and MediaCom have already deployed the new ad format. Shell Oil plans to establish an effective mechanism for communicating their alternative energy initiatives to international audiences.
Stefan Bardega, director of Digital, MediaCom, Shell’s digital media agency, said: The blinkx Un-roll unit is a new format to the market that provides high impact branding in and around online video content, complete with a return path to garner response.”
