I hope I’m not revealing any secrets here: the best approach to advertising of any kind is going where most people are. Right?

That’s why we are talking about video so much today. That’s why TV is still the second largest source of entertainment for many people. Therefore, it is the second-largest advertising platform.

It is no secret what comes out on top in that regard: the internet. The rise of streaming platforms and such social media as TikTok has proved yet again a very simple thing: we do love our video.

And here’s another thing you don’t need to prove: we hate ads.

Let’s see how your streaming business can make video ads better with dynamic ad insertion both on TV and the Internet.

Defining ad insertion

But before we talk about ad insertion, let’s take some time to figure the notion out.

When it comes to placing ads on TV, you would have to determine the slots for advertisement videos before airing the content. Most of the time, ad slots break up the content of similar duration. For instance, you can get ad breaks each 20 minutes of regular programming.

And it’s not only the ad placement that is fixed — the advertisements themselves are also pre-determined. At the end of the day, the entirety of your audience watch the same ad whether they’re interested in it or not.

Imagine spending money on advertising mortgage sales and having a bunch of college kids watching those ads.

Not many clients coming from that lot, let me assure you.

Both problems — the irrelevance of ad placement and ad content — can be solved with dynamic ad insertion.

It allows the producers to have advertisements or slots automatically swapped. As a result, you can serve ads that contextually align with the main content.

On top of that, you can also change the ad placement so that it would break up the content to your benefit, not damaging the story flow.

The way dynamic ad insertion works

With advertising on the Internet, it’s not that complicated — the website has designated places for ad banners, so all you have to do is serve different ads to different users.

The situation is different with video content, though. And it doesn’t matter where that video is — on TV or on the Internet — making sure that you serve the right ads at the right time is tricky.

You can’t change the ads placement quickly, and with the TV you can’t change the ad itself as well. It’s all pre-determined.

So — dynamic ad insertion is here to solve those problems. Let’s see how it works.

Well, there it goes.

It inserts ads.

But automatically.

It all can be enabled by a software solution, which relies on advanced Artificial Intelligence algorithms to analyze the video content and determine the best placement of the ad. That enables you to have ads sprinkled throughout the content in a way which does not break the story flow, and also have ads that are contextually aligned with the content.

Just to give you an example, say you are watching The Hangover. Having analyzed the movie, the ad insertion tool inserts ads offering you a vacation in Vegas. It also inserts those ads in the most appropriate places, so that there are no weird cutaways from the movie’s plot.

You don’t have to commit human editors to inserting ads, or have the producers juggling any of them — the software does all of that for you.

Ad insertion perks

So far, we have established that the process of placing advertisements can be automated. That streamlines the production process for OTT platforms, broadcasters, and TV channels that offer the ads within the content.

Now, shall we inspect all other things you can do with dynamic ad insertion?

Easily switch ads

The best and most useful tool at your disposal here is context recognition. If a person consumes sports content, they probably enjoy sports-related stuff, right?

Why not offer sports-related ads to them?

And the greatest thing is that you won’t have to do any of that manually. In the case of AI automation, the software does everything for you.

Skip unwanted ads

You can also use ad insertion software to find the ad videos that are edited into the content, and swap them for you. Use more relevant advertisements there or cut them entirely and insert yours elsewhere more appealing contextually.

Scale the solution to cover your production

AI algorithms ensure that the content analysis and ad insertion happens within minutes — which is pretty fast, if you ask me.

That means you can have it working over thousands of video minutes, covering any volume of content. It doesn’t matter how many titles you have in your content library or how many sporting events you have to cover on a daily — the ad insertion software can handle it.

Detect and replace unimportant content

Aforementioned context analysis also enables the software to differentiate important content within a video. That provides it with an opportunity to insert advertisements during those unimportant parts, therefore not irritating the viewers.

For instance, you can have advertisements playing instead of opening or closing credits of a TV show — that’s surely a better way to spend that time.

Bottom Line

And that is how you beat the problem of ads not reaching the right people and being annoying — you serve the right audience with the right ads at the right time.

And to make sure you do that as efficiently as possible, you can apply automation to the whole process — with the help of an AI solution that analyzes the content and chooses the most contextually relevant ads.

Author Bio:

Pavel Saskovec, Technical Writer at AIHunters — a cognitive computing company providing tech solutions for the media and entertainment industry automation.

Has extensive experience covering tech-related topics, the majority of which center around technology helping optimize the workflow of the media industry.