Chinese media agencies unite to back online video

The China Online Video Standardization Executive Committee (COVSEC) aims to have a written template, drafted and signed-off by all agencies, that outlines an advertising model for online video networks in an effort to shift traditional TV ad budgets to web TV, said Kenny Bloom, CEO VisiTek Holdings, which oversees the committee.

Bloom added that COSVEC aimed to have a draft with a standard montetisation practice completed by October.

According to Bloom, the standard would apply exclusively to video ads and TVCs on video sites, and would facilitate the co-operation of clients and media agencies’ television and interactive departments.

“The video industry started in the wrong direction and it need to be correcting itself over the next year or two,” Bloom said. “And it needs to be corrected - it’s the only digital industry where, the more users a video site gets, the more expensive overall operations get, so this really is a necessity for anyone who does video on the internet.”

Bloom added that the online video industry, which has struggled to build a profitable business model around the world, has modelled itself on YouTube. “A lot of people tried to follow that model and that has been proved not to work,” he said.

COSVEC additionally aims to standardise and simplify creative and ad placement and will enlist a third-party auditor and methodology to verify traffic data each quarter and measure the overlap in viewership between online and offline television.

Bloom added that China was the easiest market to launch such a committee because its online video-sharing market is the right size, with only a handful of major players including Tudou and Youku, and “with a large advertising spend and few entertainment alternatives in China it’s even more important.”