AOL's Plan To Steal TV Ad Dollars Is Totally Working
We suggested last year that AOL's long-term vision for its ad sales operations was to syphon off some of the $50 billion currently going into traditional TV budgets.
This looks like part of that plan. Ad Age says:
It's super-technical and back-office, but when media planners allocate money, they use [Mediaocean] software, and [AOL video chief Ran] Harnevo believes the move will allow advertisers to move TV dollars to video elsewhere seamlessly, if they choose to do so. That, combined with Nielsen online campaign ratings, will mean TV can be compared to digital video on the apples-to-apples basis of reach and frequency, rather than web metrics like views or time spent.
The plan is paying off financially for AOL. Total revenues were $1.4 billion last year, up 8%. Ad revenues are now 65% of all AOL's revenues, up from 53% in 2010.
There's only been one hitch along the way: The departure of former ad chief Ned Brody for Yahoo!. CEO Tim Armstrong is temporarily filling those duties.
Here's the breakdown (below). Note that the real growth is in AOL's third-party network ad business. Here's an example of one of its recent video syndication deals.
