MTV, Mobile Video Distributor to Offer Ad-Supported Content

Mywaves signs up 20 advertisers, aims for young adult audience with videos from VH1, and other MTV properties.

In a little more than a year after coming out of beta, mobile video site Mywaves picks up momentum with new advertisers. It also continues to add content and today announced a partnership with MTV.

Under the partnership, MTV will provide content from the network’s properties including VH1, and Gametrailers. Content will be ad-supported on Mywaves’ mobile site. The network’s content has been available through mobile phone carriers on a subscription or pay-per-view model previously.

“This is the first time that someone with content that so tightly resonates with the young adult demographic is making a very aggressive move to embrace the ad-supported model on the mobile platform,” said Rajeev Raman, CEO of Mywaves.

MTV is responsible for selling ads on the mobile platform and the two companies will share revenue. Ad serving is another matter. “Ad serving is done through a joint integration between their ad platform and our ad platform, both servers are working together,” said Raman.

Ads will primarily be :15 pre-roll units. Though an in-house study, Mywaves found :15 ads performed better than :5 and :30 spots.

Across the rest of Mywaves’ network, the video publisher has attracted about 20 new advertisers in recent months, including Microsoft, Mini, Paramount Pictures, and Toyota.

Mini, in a campaign for its new model, the Clubman, has four :15 pre-roll spots. The two-month campaign is wrapping up.

Another auto maker, Toyota came to Mywaves to promote its new Matrix. It bought a mixed campaign including WAP banners and :15 pre-roll ads, which will run through April.

In India, Microsoft bought a geo-targeted CPM-based campaign to raise awareness for MS Office New Day product line. Animated banner ads were part of the creative placed for the campaign. WPP/Quasar worked with Mywaves on the Microsoft advertising.

Movie studious use a different type of targeting: time of day, and day of week. Mywaves is working with Paramount Pictures to place ads for upcoming movies as it gets closer to weekend screen times. “Advertising will run heavier closer to the weekend,” said Raman. He didn’t list any specific movies Paramount committed to advertising, but said the studio is interested in advertising some upcoming releases.

A range of ad units run across the Mywaves video network including banners, text messages, content discovery screens, pre-roll, click-to-video, and other formats. Because of the special needs of developing creative for mobile, Mywaves formed its own department to make sure creative met requirements.

Film needs to be cropped tighter and be brighter, text needs to be bigger, and audio often doesn’t port over to a mobile device. “There are very few people to make it work on mobile,” said Raman.

Very often the team will take a :30 creative filmed for TV or another format and edit it down to :15 while preserving the message. The team will compose a text overlay or interstitial that carries the creative, and often add an overlay or animation.

Note: The story originally listed MTV properties Jackass and Atom Entertainment as part of the Mywaves catalog. At launch, only video from Spike, VH1, and Gametrailers on Mywaves’ mobile site.

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