Advertising impressions in cable video on demand programming were up 40% in the third quarter from a year ago, according to Canoe.
There were 2.3 billion impressions running either as pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll this year, compared to 1.6 billion a year ago.
On average this year, there were two ads in the pre-roll, 4.5 in each mid-roll break, and one in the post-roll pod.
The number of campaigns using VOD jumped 51% to 998 from 661 a year ago. Of the campaigns 88% were for clients in a variety of categories including autos, quick-serve restaurants, financial, insurance, technology, pharmaceuticals, shipping hospitality, health & beauty, fitness theatrical and retail.
The remaining 12% were for network tune-in-campaigns.
VOD advertising has become more popular as a larger number of shows become available from the networks. The networks are also doing more “stacking” of their VOD show, which means all of the episodes from this season are available, allowing viewers who hear about a new show to watch it from the beginning.
More operators have installed technology that enables dynamic ad insertion. That gives advertisers the chance to decide at the last minute which commercial should run in which show on a particular down. In the older system, ads within a particular show would run for an entire month.
Clients can also choose “frequency capping,” which ensures that a particular ad will be seen no more than twice during a show
Canoe enables VOD advertising in 35 million homes served by Bright House, Cox Comcast and Time Warner. The homes are in 48 of the top 50 DMAs.
