The great thing about sitting on an industry award judging panel is that now and again entrants provide data points or insights that we as analysts can use as assumptions or estimates. In this instance I was honoured to be sitting on the MEFFY judging panel for Technology Innovation, an award that was presented at the Meffys Gala Awards Ceremony on 21st June 2010. One entrant, a mobile ad company which shall not be named, provided stats about its interactive mobile video adverts, which made for interesting reading. Interactive video delivers the advert in a software player that can be customised and made interactive by the advertiser by adding menu options and links to websites or advertising micro portals. Client: Vehicle manufacturer Cost of campaign: €37,606 Number of impressions: 3,497,920 Click on the video: 55,735 (CTR 1.6%) Number of video advert views: 47,525 (eCPM €791) The first thing to note is that the effective CPM for interactive video, which is over €791 in this case, has some way to fall before we begin to see its widespread use and adoption by media brands. Our average CPM estimate for a mobile video ad (which is generated following discussions with mobile advertising companies) is around $7, significantly below the €791 premium for interactive video adverts. The second interesting point is that 15% of consumers that clicked to play the video advert did not watch it. We can speculate why these might be, (see below) but most of the likely problems could likely be solved if the advertising network worked alongside the operator for better device, network and user targeting: 1) The devices/lack of targeting: i.e. they didn't target the ad at people with video-capable devices, or they didn't create the video in all formats so it wouldn't play on some devices. Can operators can provide more detailed information about target handsets and restrict this failure rate? 2) The network: Failed download due to limited bandwidth or connectivity. Operators should be able to provide information to the service provider to adapt their video rate to the current capability of the network. 3) Users not on data plans: An operator could prevent the user running away screaming by zero-rating. While there is much innovation for advertising outside the carrier ecosystem, in my view operators can indeed play an important role in smoothing over any cracks and help enable a potentially lucrative mobile advertising industry for all parties. Nitesh Patel