LOS ANGELES – Break Media, a leading creator and publisher of digital video content for men, today announced its Social Video Accelerator, an innovative new advertising technology which combines guaranteed video distribution with a suite of social analytics that maximize viral pass-along of advertiser content. The new unit is designed around the growing trend of Cost per View (CPV) advertising.

While demand for the CPV model increased among advertisers in 2011, thus far, publishers and networks have struggled to match it. YouTube has previously predicted that by 2015, more than 50 percent of online video campaigns will include inventory sold on a CPV. A recent study performed by Break Media and Advertiser Perceptions found that although 40 percent of advertising campaigns now use CPV in some fashion—a two-fold increase over the previous year—17 percent of advertisers stated they would select it as their preferred pricing model for video if more publishers and networks offered it.

The Social Video Accelerator will debut across the Break family of sites, which includes Break.com, the web’s largest comedy video site, and the Break Media network, which now reaches more than 120 million unique viewers each month. The technology is designed to distribute both advertiser assets such as trailers and videos as well as branded entertainment created in partnership with Break Media’s award winning in-house Creative Lab.

“The Cost per View video pricing model made huge strides within the industry this past year, with a number of advertisers citing it as their preferred model,” said Andrew Budkofsky, EVP of sales and partnerships for Break Media. “While this emergence has opened up an entirely new battleground for advertising dollars, advertisers must demand a solution that delivers a guarantee of quality, relevant context and targeting above and beyond simply counting numbers of views in order for their campaigns to be effective.”

“With the amount of competition for attention and eyeballs, we’ve looked for partners who can help us build a quality audience and guarantee our video content will reach it,” said Simone Deocares-Lengyel, media director at KD&E, the agency for Take-Two Interactive which runs multiple trailer release campaigns a year. “Being able to purchase against a guaranteed CPV and track both paid media as well as earned media presents a huge opportunity for us to distribute our content in the most meaningful way possible.”

The Social Video Accelerator is available now. For more information on all Break Media advertising units, visit us online or contact sales@breakmedia.com.

About Break Media:

Break Media is a leading creator, publisher, and distributor of digital entertainment content including video, editorial, and games. The company’s properties include the largest humor site online—Break.com—as well as Made Man, Game Front, Holy Taco, Screen Junkies, Cage Potato, All Left Turns, Chickipedia, and Tu Vez. The Break Media Creative Lab is an in-house production studio creating original videos that range from award-winning branded entertainment to celebrity-driven web shorts to viral one-offs. The Break Media Network represents hundreds of publishers as one of the largest video advertising networks online, reaching more than 120 million visitors each month. For more information, visit www.breakmedia.com.

Leading video company Break Media releases Digital Video Advertising Trends: 2012 study, detailing digital video landscape for the upcoming year

LOS ANGELES – Break Media, a leading creator and publisher of digital video content, announced the findings of its annual Digital Video Advertising Trends study, which found that digital video advertising spending is up and expected to continue to increase throughout 2012. In addition to organic growth of budgets, the increase is projected to come from a number of existing sources, including 32 percent from television budgets, and be reallocated into new platforms such as mobile — easily the fastest-growing format — connected devices and the emerging ad selector format.

The study compiles data from hundreds of advertising decision-makers about their digital video advertising plans heading into 2012. In addition to discussing budget growth and allocation, the study includes shifts in cost models and distribution formats. Use of video ad networks has reached a nearly universal level, which has also driven uptake in usage of the Cost per View (CPV) model. The video ads, themselves, come in a number of formats, but most advertisers still prefer pre-roll. However, the mass adoption of multimedia-ready smartphones and tablets has driven significant growth in mobile, which increased almost two-fold in the past year and is expected to jump another 16 percent in 2012.

Key findings from the study include:

- Video spending to increase: In the coming year, 68 percent of advertisers will increase the share of online display advertising devoted to video ads.

- Video budgets being driven up from multiple sources, including TV: Advertisers increasing video ad spend in the next year say the dollars will come from television budgets (32 percent), overall advertising budget growth (38 percent) and non-video display budgets (45 percent).

- Video Ad Network use skyrocketing: More than 90 percent of all advertisers plan to use video advertising networks in the coming year, increasing the share of spend devoted to them from an average 20 percent to 41 percent of total video dollars.

- Cost per View model offered by more publishers and networks: The pervasive use of video ad networks (VANs) has driven variety in the pricing models available, and the CPV model has increased two-fold in the past year (to 40 percent). A number of advertisers indicated they used Cost per Thousand (CPM) and Cost per Click (CPC) models because CPV wasn’t offered by publishers or VANs.

“Video advertising spending is growing faster than expected, and this is the first time a significant portion of the increased resources devoted to it are coming from television budgets,” said Andy Tu, vice president of marketing for Break Media. “New ad formats and pricing models are changing the landscape for how video inventory is bought and sold. The Cost per View model has clearly caught traction in a short amount of time, and new formats including mobile video and advertising on connected devices will be compelling ways for brands to connect with consumers in the coming year.”

For the full study from Break Media, visit: www.breakmedia.com/Digitalvideoadstudy.

About Break Media

Break Media is a leading creator, publisher, and distributor of digital entertainment content including video, editorial and games. The company’s properties include the largest humor site online — Break.com — as well as Made Man, Game Front, Holy Taco, Screen Junkies, Cage Potato, All Left Turns, Chickipedia, and Tu Vez. The Break Media Creative Lab is an in-house production studio creating original videos that range from award-winning branded entertainment to celebrity-driven web shorts to viral one-offs. The Break Media Network represents hundreds of publishers as one of the largest video advertising networks online, reaching more than 120 million visitors each month. For more information, visit www.breakmedia.com.

San Francisco, California – Sharethrough, the leader in social video advertising, announced that Avi Brown has joined the company as vice president of platform operations.   Most recently vice president of ad operations at Break Media, Brown will oversee the delivery and optimization of all ad campaigns at Sharethrough, and work closely with the product team on the development and evolution of Sharethrough’s social video platform.

Brown joins Sharethrough from Break Media, where he led the development of a proprietary platform agnostic ad server and helped create and grow their video ad network.  Prior to Break Media, Brown led ad operations at BUZZMEDIA.  A leader in the digital media industry, Avi is a member of the IAB Ad Operations Council, IAB Digital Video Committee, and the Google Video Ads Steering Committee.

Brown is the second senior executive added to the Sharethrough management team this year; in February, the company announced that it had hired former MySpace and Forbes sales veteran Robert Pietsch to lead Sharethrough’s national sales team.  Both join the company during a period of explosive growth, as more brands look for ways to turn their paid video media buys into “earned” media through social marketing strategies. Sharethrough recently announced that their customers have tripled average campaign size and overall company revenue has grown by over 230% since last year.

“Sharethough is rapidly scaling product development and advertising operations to meet the enormous demand for our social video advertising solution,” said Dan Greenberg, co-founder and CEO of Sharethrough. “As someone who has his finger on the pulse of digital video and a solid track record for innovation, Avi will bring both broad vision and a high level of operational rigor to our team. He will be instrumental in helping build out our social video platform and ensuring that Sharethrough meets the needs of video marketers today and in the future.”

“With today’s massive growth and user adoption of both video advertising and social media, there is a huge hole in the advertiser ecosystem that is being solved by Sharethrough’s social video platform,” said Brown.  “I joined Sharethrough because we are providing a very compelling and tangible solution for making social video more predictable, measurable and scalable.”

About Sharethrough
Sharethrough provides brands with a repeatable, scalable and transparent approach to distributing video content that guarantees viewership and maximizes shared engagement.  Sharethrough drives engaged audiences for brand videos through its social video ad products, unique publisher network and proprietary targeting and optimization tools.  Sharethrough is used by many of the world’s leading brands, including Sony, Microsoft, General Motors, Victoria’s Secret, Nestle and LEGO, as well as top agencies such as Pereira & O’Dell, Universal McCann, Evolution Bureau and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.  Founded in 2008, Sharethrough is a privately held company based in San Francisco, Calif.  For more information about Sharethrough, please visit www.sharethrough.com.

LOS ANGELES – Break Media released the results of an in-depth study of online video advertising and the issues faced by marketers and their agencies. Break Media partnered with leading market research firm Advertiser Perceptions to survey hundreds of advertising decision-makers about their 2011 digital video advertising (DVA) plans, overall advertising goals, opinions on how the industry is succeeding, and thoughts on how it can improve. Among other key findings, the study shows that more than 70 percent of advertisers plan to increase their DVA spend next year; video ad networks (VANs) are under-utilized; pre-roll remains the dominant video ad format; and DVA adoption is hindered by difficulty measuring ROI and a lack of standardized performance metrics.

Key Finding #1: Video ad spend is growing, albeit slowly

Of the 70 percent of advertisers that plan to increase DVA spend next year, agencies — rather than marketers — are largely driving the increase. This increase will be funded from television and online budgets and will be relatively small, with 71 percent increasing DVA budgets by only 1-24 percent. This means a minority of advertisers will be the real drivers of growth in video ads. Despite these growth projections, video ads will continue to be a small part of overall display advertising budgets, with 79 percent of advertisers planning to allocate less than 25 percent of their total online display ad budgets.

Key Finding #2: Video ad networks are under-utilized

65 percent of agencies and marketers used video ad networks in 2010 and intend to use them again in the coming year. Study findings also indicate that 74 percent of advertisers expect to spend less than a quarter of their DVA budgets with networks next year. This could possibly be due to that fact that awareness of VAN resources is low among advertisers overall–less than half the advertisers surveyed were familiar with all of the 10 largest VANs in the US.

Key Finding #3: Advertisers favor pre-roll over other video ad formats

Study results show that there is high awareness of almost all video ad formats among advertisers; however, pre-roll still dominates (60 percent) among formats used. Advertisers are so strongly wedded to pre-roll that they prefer it by a more than 2:1 margin over the next most favored format. Around 40% of these advertisers favor pre-roll because they believe the audience is “held hostage to watch” and thus the format “garners the most attention from the viewer.” An additional 25% say the format has the “best completion rates,” “best performance” or “best ROI.” With advertisers using an average of three video ad formats in the past year, we are not convinced a sufficient range of formats have been experienced to conclude pre-roll is most effective.

Key Finding #4: Hindrances to greater DVA adoption and online GRP

Targeting, metrics, and cost are cited in the findings as top criteria when determining where to allocate video ad budget. When asked what is not working among these criteria, advertisers agree that the top hindrance to greater use of digital video advertising is difficulty measuring ROI (41 percent). Secondary hindrances are lack of standardized metrics (33 percent), difficulty getting enough reach (27 percent), and insufficient ROI (27 percent). Despite wanting standardized performance metrics, advertisers are divided on the need for a GRP (gross rating point) for video ads. Even those who call for a GRP exactly equivalent to TV GRPs do not necessarily believe it will lead to higher spend on video ads.

“The projected growth for digital video advertising in 2011 is encouraging, and it reinforces what we’ve been seeing at Break over the past year,” said Andy Tu, vice president of marketing, Break Media. “The digital video ad space has tremendous potential, and while we clearly have some work to do as an industry to help fulfill that potential, we expect that DVA spend will only accelerate as measurement capabilities improve and as more advertisers discover how effective the major video ad networks can be.”

For the full study from Break Media and Advertiser Perceptions visit: www.breakmedia.com/video-study.

About Break Media:

Break Media is a leading creator, publisher, and distributor of digital entertainment content including video, editorial, and games. The company’s properties include the largest humor site online — Break.com — as well as MadeMan, GameFront, HolyTaco, ScreenJunkies, CagePotato, AllLeftTurns, Chickipedia, and TuVez. The Break Media Creative Lab is an in-house production studio creating original videos that range from award-winning branded entertainment to celebrity-driven web shorts to viral one-offs. The Break Media Network represents hundreds of publishers as one of the largest video advertising networks online, reaching more than 125 million visitors each month. For more information, visit www.breakmedia.com.

LOS ANGELES – Break Media announced the launch of Tu Vez, a Hispanic male-focused website with content ranging from entertainment and gaming to sports and culture. Tu Vez features video and editorial created with the interests, hobbies, and values of this demographic in mind. The addition of Tu Vez to Break’s network of sites addresses the growing Hispanic market online and desire for advertisers to engage with this demographic on the web. Toyota is the premier advertising partner for the launch of Tu Vez.

“The Hispanic population is one of the largest and fastest-growing demographics in the U.S.,” said Keith Richman, Break Media CEO. “Despite the size of the market, there are very few media companies that offer both the content Hispanics seek online coupled with customized advertising opportunities tailored to this audience. We’re excited to be expanding our content and ad reach to this increasingly influential online group.”

Tu Vez features English-language articles and videos covering topics like music, television, movies, sports, games and current events. The editorial team, led by Managing Editor, Fidel Martinez, has an expertise in speaking to the interests and values of the Latino community. The site stays true to Break’s proven expertise in comedy and entertainment while providing a customized user experience.

Recent numbers on the Hispanic population show powerful potential for marketers, brands, and advertisers. Tu Vez represents a unique advertising opportunity as the Hispanic audience is more open than other groups to brand and advertising messages, according to eMarketer. An ARAnet survey conducted by Opinion Research Corp shows that Hispanics are more likely to be responsive to online advertising and are more inclined to search for information or visit a brand’s website after viewing an ad. Break is currently working with Toyota to create customized campaigns on Tu Vez in order to connect to this demographic in new ways. Research shows:

In a recent report from Pew Hispanic Center, U.S. Hispanics accounted for more than 50 percent of the U.S. population growth since 2000.
According to Census predictions, the Hispanic population will have increased 42 percent since 2000.
The Hispanic population currently represents a purchasing power of approximately 1 trillion dollars a year in the U.S. according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth.
eMarketer and The Association of National Advertisers report that on average, Hispanics spend more than 17 hours online a week and are heavy users of all digital media, embracing innovations more rapidly than non-Hispanic whites.
In the past year, the Break Media Network has grown to become the number one video network, and today reaches nearly 110 million unique viewers on a monthly basis (comScore 2010). In addition to Tu Vez, Break Media owns and operates nine highly trafficked entertainment destination sites, most recently adding FileFront.com, a gaming news and community site acquired in February 2010. The launch of Tu Vez strengthens Break’s position as a leader in the video advertising space, and as a content provider and publisher.

About Break Media:

Break Media is one of the largest entertainment properties and providers of content — video, editorial, and games — to men online. The company’s branded properties (Break.com, CagePotato, MadeMan, Chickipedia, HolyTaco, ScreenJunkies, AllLeftTurns, FileFront and Tu Vez), combined with the publisher sites in the Break Media Network, reach more than 130 million worldwide on a monthly basis. Break Media is the 27th-largest web property in the U.S. and it operates the #1 video advertising network in that market. Break Media offers its advertisers a variety of unique marketing opportunities, helping those brands interact with the Break audience on a targeted, integrated basis using innovative ad formats. For more information, please visit www.breakmedia.com.

LOS ANGELES – Break Media introduced 23 new verticals to the Break Media Network and added hundreds of new premium partner sites. The new sites, combined with Break’s existing partners, now reach nearly 110 million people worldwide (comScore Media Metrix May 2010). The new verticals enable Break’s advertisers to more effectively target campaigns through video, display and branded content initiatives.

“The addition of new verticals and partner sites allows Break to better serve the full landscape of brands we’re working with today by targeting within a broader range of audiences,” said Andrew Budkofsky, EVP of Sales and Partnerships, Break Media. “We’ve consistently made it our business to reach the young male audience better than anyone on the web by providing our advertising partners with innovative and exciting ways to target that key demographic—we’re excited to expand that offering to additional valuable segments of the online population.”

Starting today, the Break Media Network will include the following new partner sites, among hundreds of others:

Justin.tv: Justin.tv enables users to produce and watch live-streaming video. User-generated content is streamed through a wide variety of “channels” that foster interaction within the community.
RedOrbit.com: RedOrbit is the premier internet destination for space, science, health, and technology enthusiasts. Original content and presentations are provided to millions of unique visitors every month.
Spil Games: Spil Games is an online game destination with fully localized gaming content for families, teens, and kids.
WeGame.com: A media-sharing platform for video gamers, WeGame allows gamers to capture and publish their gameplay experiences straight from their video game to the web.

These four new sites will join the rest of the Break Media Network in 23 new vertical categories, including Business/Finance, College, Auto, Travel, Shopping, Parenting and Gaming. These categories expand on previously existing verticals including Film/Television, Humor, Lifestyle, Music, and Sports.

In the past year, the Break Media Network has grown to become a top-5 video ad network, and today reaches nearly 110 million unique viewers on a monthly basis (comScore 2010). In addition to the hundreds of premium publisher sites, Break Media owns and operates eight highly trafficked entertainment destination sites, most recently adding FileFront.com, a gaming news and community site acquired in February 2010.

The addition of the new network partner sites announced today, combined with Break’s existing advertising products and services, strengthens Break’s position as a leader in the video advertising space. In April this year, the company unveiled its in-house ad server, Apex, which enables advertisers to easily develop campaigns that combine multiple ad formats (including homepage takeovers, video, and display) with precision targeting capabilities (including geolocation, frequency caps, and consumer intent data). The company also launched new offerings in its Interactive Engagement Suite (IES) of products and announced partnerships with industry-leading consumer-intent data providers, BlueKai and eXelate, to provide increased levels of targeting.

About Break Media:

Break Media is one of the largest entertainment properties and providers of content — video, editorial, and games — to men online. The company’s branded properties (Break.com, CagePotato, MadeMan, Chickipedia, HolyTaco, ScreenJunkies, AllLeftTurns, and FileFront), combined with the publisher sites in the Break Media Network, reach more than 110 million men worldwide on a monthly basis. Break Media is currently the 33rd-largest web property in the U.S., and it operates one of the top five video advertising networks in that market. Break Media offers its advertisers a variety of unique marketing opportunities, helping those brands interact with the Break audience on a targeted, integrated basis using innovative ad formats. For more information, please visit http://breakmedia.break.com/.

LOS ANGELES – Break Media, the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men, announced the launch of Apex, a new proprietary in-house advertising server for the Break Media Network. Apex enables advertisers to develop and manage highly sophisticated and precisely targeted campaigns across the Break Media Network, which reaches more than 100 million men worldwide every month. Apex will also introduce efficiencies into Break Media’s advertising business by enabling Break to work directly with its clients, and foster greater innovation in the development of new advertising products by allowing Break to develop custom ads, including non-standard formats.

“Advertisers are focusing more and more on innovative, high-impact advertising campaigns that have very targeted reach,” said Keith Richman, CEO, Break Media. “The publishing companies that can deliver this combination to advertisers in a more efficient way are going to have a distinct advantage. That’s exactly why we’re pairing our own, state-of-the-art ad server with one of the biggest entertainment properties on the web.”

Developed completely in-house, the Apex ad server supports all IAB-approved ad formats and will allow advertisers to quickly and easily develop campaigns that combine multiple ad formats (including homepage takeovers, video, and display) with precision targeting capabilities (including geolocation, frequency caps, and consumer intent data). All campaigns will be tracked in a central dashboard that will enable advertisers to measure performance and recalibrate in real time across the Break Media Network, providing them with unprecedented transparency and control.

Break Media has taken a number of steps in recent months to expand and improve its advertising products. The launch of Apex comes on the heels of new partnerships with industry-leading data providers BlueKai and eXelate that provide Break advertisers with consumer-intent targeting data, as well as the launch of new offerings in the company’s Interactive Engagement Suite of products including Videostitial, Page Engage, Video Roll and Interactive Preroll.

“Break Media reaches millions of young men every day and has an unparalleled connection with this key demographic on the web,” said Andrew Budkofsky, EVP of Sales and Partnerships, Break Media. “That reach, combined with the new functionality and control enabled by Apex, will provide our partners with a superior advertising experience.”

The Break Media Network grew 77 percent from August 2009 to January 2010 to become one of the top-10 video ad networks, reaching 100 million unique viewers on a monthly basis (comScore, Feb 2010). The Break network consists of hundreds of premium partner sites and provides an all-encompassing advertiser solution with highly engaging ad units.

About Break Media:

Break Media is one of the largest entertainment properties and providers of content — video, editorial, and games — to men online. The company’s branded properties (Break.com, CagePotato, MadeMan, Chickipedia, HolyTaco, ScreenJunkies, AllLeftTurns, and FileFront), combined with the publisher sites in the Break Media Network, reach more than 100 million men worldwide on a monthly basis. Break Media is currently the 38th-largest web property in the U.S., and it operates the fifth-largest video advertising network in that market. Break Media offers its advertisers a variety of unique marketing opportunities, helping those brands interact with the Break audience on a targeted, integrated basis using innovative ad formats. For more information, please visit http://breakmedia.break.com/.

LOS ANGELES – Break Media, the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men, announced partnerships with BlueKai, the largest in-market data auction, and eXelate, the first and largest open marketplace for audience targeting data, to provide Break advertisers with industry-leading ad targeting and optimization capabilities. This move combines one of the largest video and display advertising networks in the U.S. with new targeting data and tools to maximize the effectiveness and measurability of ad campaigns.

“Today’s brand advertisers want three things from their campaigns: reach, effectiveness, and transparency,” said Andrew Budkofsky, EVP of Sales and Partnerships, Break Media. “These partnerships, combined with the size of our network and the breadth of our ad offerings, will ensure that Break’s advertisers will be able to reach as much of their intended audience as possible, and do so with maximum efficiency and effectiveness.”

Partnering with Blue Kai – the only auction marketplace that prices data separately from media – and eXelate – the leader in flexible targeting solutions that engage audience data throughout the purchasing value chain – will enable Break to deliver significant new value to its advertising partners. Break advertisers will now be able to leverage the latest online consumer intent data to precisely target their campaigns across every important product vertical, including consumer packaged goods, auto, travel, and entertainment, ensuring that the most effective ad is delivered to the most receptive user at any given moment within the lifecycle of a campaign.

“BlueKai is excited to provide Break Media’s advertisers access to the world’s largest supply of in-market data,” said Omar Tawakol, BlueKai’s CEO. “BlueKai’s data auction attracts the most in-market transaction volume in the world, enabling Break’s advertisers to find in-market audiences at scale. Additionally, by leveraging BlueKai’s breadth and depth of data, Break’s advertisers can experience superior ROI by finding and reaching consumers anywhere within the marketing funnel, from broad reach to in-market.”

“eXelate’s broad pool of deep targeting data, matched with Break’s reach within the male demographic, will enable advertisers targeting this audience to more efficiently execute their campaigns,” said Meir Zohar, Chief Executive Officer of eXelate. “Break will have the opportunity to flexibly integrate targeting information from the web’s most diverse pool of audience data. Whether it’s an auto, CPG, technology, or travel advertiser, we can help them find the audience they need to reach.”

The Break Media Network has grown 77 percent in the past six months – from August 2009 to January 2010 – to become a top-10 video ad network, reaching 86 million unique viewers on a monthly basis (comScore, Feb 2010). The network consists of hundreds of premium partner sites and provides an all-encompassing advertiser solution for reaching men with highly engaging ad units: display, pre-roll, and Break’s exclusive Interactive Engagement Suite (IES). Break Media recently rolled out several new ad units within the Interactive Engagement Suite, and it is the first video advertising network to incorporate targeting capabilities into innovative ad formats such as interactive pre-roll.

About Break Media:

Break Media is one of the largest entertainment properties and providers of content – video, editorial, and games – to men online. The company’s branded properties (Break.com, CagePotato, MadeMan, Chickipedia, HolyTaco, ScreenJunkies, AllLeftTurns and FileFront), combined with the publisher sites in the Break Media Network, reach more than 100 million men worldwide on a monthly basis. Break Media is currently the 38th-largest web property in the U.S., and it operates the eighth-largest video advertising network in that market. Break Media offers its advertisers a variety of unique marketing opportunities, helping those brands interact with the Break audience on a targeted, integrated basis using innovative ad formats. For more information, please visit http://breakmedia.break.com/.

About BlueKai:

BlueKai (http://www.bluekai.com) created the world’s largest and highest-quality online intent data exchange to better connect advertisers with their target consumers online. BlueKai aggregates valuable shopping and research activities across the Internet, offering non-personally identifiable actionable data to marketers, ad networks, and publishers on over 200 million retail, travel, auto, education, and financial product shoppers online. Additionally, through strategic partnerships with top-tier data providers – who earn revenue in a privacy friendly way – the BlueKai Exchange gives marketers access to over 10,000 combinations of intent, demographic, geographic, lifestyle, B2B data and additional segments. The privately held company is based in Bellevue, WA, and is a recipient of the AlwaysOn 2009 OnMedia 100 award as a Technology Innovator in Advertising, and the OnMedia 100 Top Private Companies.

About eXelate:

The eXelate eXchange is the world’s first and largest open marketplace for behavioral targeting data. Through participation on the eXchange and access to proprietary data management tools such as eXelate’s teXi, data buyers build an instant behavioral targeting function and optimize their campaign delivery, while data sellers gain direct control over their audience data distribution and build a new privacy–friendly income stream. The eXchange includes over 40 top ad network, agency and demand-side platform buyers and dozens of leading publishers, who deliver targeting data on 150M U.S. unique users each month in lucrative verticals including Business-to-Business, Auto, Travel, Finance, Shopping and registration-based Demographics. For more information please visit www.exelate.com.

LOS ANGELES – Break Media, the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men, is rolling out new advertising units that will expand the offerings of its Interactive Engagement Suite (IES) of products. These new, highly engaging, video-centric ad formats will add to Break’s comprehensive suite of standardized, scalable ad units, and will be available on all Break Media properties and across the Break Media Network.

“Marketers are recognizing that video is quickly becoming the biggest opportunity in digital marketing,” said Andrew Budkofsky, EVP of Sales and Partnerships, Break Media. “These new units allow us to serve advertisers who want to promote a strong brand message, while at the same time achieve maximum reach and efficiency.”

The new IES units include:

Videostitial: The videostitial format is a full-page, 15-second, HD-quality welcome video with audio capabilities.
Page Engage: Page engage ads are expandable ad units featuring multiple videos displayed in full page that the user can choose from once the ad has expanded.
Video Roll: Video roll is a 300×250 rich-media unit that plays video content upon engagement and can support companion banners in its expandable state.
Interactive Preroll: After a traditional :15 second video pre-roll plays, the interactive preroll unit presents an interactive menu that allows viewers to seek more video content from an advertiser, or proceed directly to the editorial content.
With these additions to the Interactive Engagement Suite, advertisers of all types and sizes will be able to leverage the latest in video advertising technology and the sheer scale of the Break Media network – Break operates the 39th largest domestic property and the seventh largest video ad network in the US (comScore, Jan. 2010) – to further explore the potential of video advertising.

The new IES ad units have already received a positive response in early testing in the marketplace, and advertisers are reporting positive user response rates and feedback from these initial tests.

“We don’t create these units in a vacuum—our advertising partners have been part of developing these units from the very beginning,” said Nick Wilson, CTO of Break Media. “Early results are extremely promising, and we’re excited to continue developing and exploring these new ad units with continued success.”

The potential of video advertising on the web is drawing strong interest from advertisers, prompting analyst firms like eMarketer to project that video ad sales will grow from $775 million in 2009 to $3.1 billion in 2010.

About Break Media

Break Media is one of the largest entertainment properties and providers of content — video, editorial, and games — to men online. The company’s branded properties (Break.com, CagePotato, MadeMan, Chickipedia, HolyTaco, ScreenJunkies, AllLeftTurns and FileFront), combined with the publisher sites in the Break Media Network, reach more than 100 million men worldwide on a monthly basis. Break Media is currently the 39th-largest web property in the U.S., and it operates the seventh-largest video advertising network in that market. Break Media offers its advertisers a variety of unique marketing opportunities, helping those brands interact with the Break audience on a targeted, integrated basis using innovative ad formats. For more information, please visit http://breakmedia.break.com/.

LOS ANGELES – Break Media, the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men, announced the formation of a game studio to drive its expansion into social gaming. The studio, located in Shanghai, China, will launch its first game on February 1: MMA FightPicker, a mixed-martial-arts-themed social game that will be featured on Break’s MMA property, CagePotato.com.

“Break’s success as a media company is predicated on a deep understanding of our audience and an ability to deliver the content they want,” said Keith Richman, CEO of Break Media. “Gaming is a natural extension of that strategy, enabling us to build on our existing strengths as a publisher to bring even more value to our users and open new revenue opportunities for Break and its advertising partners.”

The new game studio, which has been operating since Q4’09, is currently working on a half a dozen original titles for Break Media, all slated for release in 2010. The studio is expected to grow rapidly throughout the year, staffing up to more than three-dozen employees by mid year. Alex Lien, formerly COO of Chinese game development company Winking Entertainment, has been hired as General Manager, Greater China for Break Media and will manage the game studio and all other Break operations in the region.

“We’re excited about the games in development for this year, and we’re building an incredible team here in Shanghai,” said Alex Lien, General Manager, Greater China for Break Media. “This city has become a hub for game development, and we’re tapping directly into that knowledge base.”

MMA FightPicker, the first title from the Break game studio, combines elements of social gaming and fantasy sports games to provide players a unique way to interact with each other and the sport of mixed martial arts. In the game, players join pools and make predictions on upcoming MMA matches; the player who scores the most points wins the pool and status as a top MMA expert, as well as other potential prizes. Players will be able to purchase in-game currency called “potato chips” to join more pools and take advantage of offers from Break partners to earn free chips.

MMA FightPicker is launching into beta today and will launch into general availability on February 1. The game will be featured on CagePotato.com, and players will also be able to access it on Facebook.

About Break.com and Break Media:

Break Media is one of the largest entertainment properties and providers of content — video, editorial, and games — to men online. The company’s branded properties (Break.com, CagePotato, MadeMan, Chickipedia, HolyTaco, ScreenJunkies, and AllLeftTurns), combined with the publisher sites in the Break Media Network, reach more than 100 million men worldwide on a monthly basis. Break Media is currently the 33rd-largest web property in the U.S., and it operates the fifth-largest video advertising network in that market. Break Media offers its advertisers a variety of unique marketing opportunities, helping those brands interact with the Break audience on a targeted, integrated basis using innovative ad formats. For more information, please visit http://breakmedia.break.com/.

LOS ANGELES – Break Media, the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men, introduced the Interactive Engagement Suite (IES), a group of high-impact engagement-based ad formats. The new units will add to Break’s comprehensive suite of standardized, scalable ad units, and will be available on all Break Media properties and across the entire Break Media Network.

The IES units will allow marketers to take advantage of the network’s highly attentive young male audience. The young men who flock to Break Media sites are some of the most engaged on the Web—according to comScore, Break Media viewers spend an average of 3.3 minutes watching a given video, 1.2 minutes more per video than for viewers of the video ad network with the next highest total (comScore Video Metrix May 2009).

“Given young males’ migration from traditional media, brands and agencies continue to look for premium opportunities to engage them online,” said Keith Richman, CEO of Break Media. “Break Media confirmed its place as one of the web’s most powerful video ad network platforms when it debuted this month in comScore as one of the top six video networks. The new Interactive Engagement Suite gives marketers powerful new tools to reach Break Media’s 70 million monthly unique visitors.”

The new ad units include:

* Expanding Engagement Ads—Standard ad units expand to 600×500 interactive video units when hovered over or clicked. The expanded units are 100% customizable, and marketers can purchase them on a “per engagement” basis.
* Interactive Pre-rolls—Ideal unit for an advertiser with multiple videos to show consumers. After a short commercial intro, the unit presents an interactive menu that allows viewers to seek more content from an advertiser or move on to an original publisher video.
* Expandable Display Ads—Standard ad units expand when a user hovers—these high impact display ads are 100% customizable and offer marketers tremendous creative flexibility.
* Click To Play Pre-roll Companion Ads—These units enhance traditional pre-rolls by featuring a 300×250 display ad to the left of a video player when a user clicks or hovers over a pre-roll.
* Automated Homepage Takeovers—For advertisers seeking maximum brand visibility on a large scale, Break.com’s homepage takeover unit is now available on more than 40 additional sites which receive more than 500,000 daily pageviews.

Break Media will be working with several advertisers to study how these new units can boost the effectiveness of campaigns, and plans to share the study’s findings with the broader advertising community at Break Media’s Online Video ROI Council. Formed last year, the Break Media Online Video ROI Council brings together industry-leading brands, agencies and technology vendors, to discuss the challenges of measuring ROI for the online video medium. This is part of Break Media’s larger initiative to be a leader in measuring the effectiveness of online video advertising.

About Break Media:

Break Media is the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men. Break Media’s owned and operated branded properties such as Break.com, Cage Potato, MadeMan, Chickipedia, Holy Taco, Screen Junkies and All Left Turns along with the more than 100 member sites of its publisher network, the Break Media Network, reach over 70 million men worldwide on a monthly basis. Founded in 1998, Break Media offers advertisers unique opportunities to market directly to a young, male demographic through innovative ad formats that introduce relevant brands to the audience on a targeted, integrated basis. For more information, please visit http://breakmedia.break.com/.

LOS ANGELES – Break Media, the Internet’s premier media community for men that reaches 60 million guys worldwide aged 21-34 each month, launched a men’s lifestyle destination, MadeMan.com, and said it expects to have an audience of 1 million readers at the site within just 30 days. Over 100,000 existing Break.com readers have already opted into a daily MadeMan newsletter, MadeMail.

Break publishes seven wholly owned and branded properties (All Left Turns, Break.com, Cage Potato, Chickipedia, Holy Taco, Screen Junkies, and Wallstreet Fighter) but this is the company’s first effort at building an audience in the men’s lifestyle category. (http://www.mademan.com/)

“We’re not sticking our toes into the water of a new category with the launch of MadeMan.com—we’re jumping in with both feet,” said Break Media CEO Keith Richman. “We are combining top notch editorial capabilities with the ability to leverage an existing 60 million man audience to drive viewership and audience faster than it has ever been done before in the male lifestyle category.”

MadeMan.com will be updated daily with content from a full-time writing staff that has written and edited offline and online publications including Maxim, Stuff, Spike.com and other leading media properties. Break Media VP and Creative Labs head Jonathan Small will oversee editorial efforts at MadeMan.com. He will work closely with MadeMan.com Managing Editor B.J. Fleming, former staff writer at Spike.com.

MadeMan.com has lined up deals with numerous large scale companies to be charter advertisers for the site’s launch. Branded content from these advertisers will appear on MadeMan.com’s homepage, reaching the core demographic of males who visit Break Media.

MadeMan.com will offer product reviews along with the latest on cool hangout spots, gadgets, gear, fashion, sports and more. Every story on the site will seek to deliver useful, informative content in a humorous voice.

“MadeMan.com is the cool spot where men can go to laugh a little, learn a lot, and become all the better for it,” Small said. “We’re going to bring a constant source of new and fresh content and ideas to our readers every day.”

About Break.com and Break Media:

Break Media is the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men. Break Media consists of wholly owned branded properties such as Break.com, Cage Potato, Chickipedia, Holy Taco, Wall Street Fighter, Screen Junkies and All Left Turns as well as a publisher network, the Break Media Network, that counts over 100 member sites. Between these two channels, Break Media reaches over 60 million men worldwide on a monthly basis. Founded in 1998, Break Media offers advertisers unique opportunities to market directly to a young, male demographic through innovative ad formats that introduce relevant brands to the audience on a targeted, integrated basis. For more information, please visit http://breakmedia.break.com/.

LOS ANGELES – Break Media, the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men, announced the launch of an innovative Web 2.0 NASCAR enthusiast site, All Left Turns. The new site will offer a fresh spin on the daily news, race analysis, driver interviews and profiles, rumors and cutting-edge commentary, all with an informed opinion and Break’s trademark sense of humor.

All Left Turns was developed by and for NASCAR fans who crave an online community to celebrate the racers, racetracks and the fans themselves. Users will be able to live vicariously through other users as people upload photos from race-day, create fan pages and interact through forums. Break has hired seasoned sports writer Stephen Thomas as Managing Editor to provide in-depth editorial coverage as well. Thomas has covered NASCAR for Sports Illustrated, CNNSI.com, FOXSports.com, and has written numerous articles for both ESPN The Magazine and Sporting News.

“Our proprietary research of men 18-34 clearly indicated that there was a huge endemic audience for NASCAR,” said Keith Richman, CEO of Break Media. “We developed All Left Turns to not only meet that need, but to provide the young NASCAR fan a true interactive community.”

The new Web site provides Break Media additional opportunities to distribute relevant premium content to millions of unique viewers per month while simultaneously opening a new channel for advertisers to reach niche NASCAR fanatics, who worldwide spend about $3 billion on licensed products alone. All Left Turns continues to build Break Media’s network of sports sites that already feature almost 100 entertainment, gaming, lifestyle, humor, music, and technology websites.

For the latest on All Left Turns, please visit http://www.allleftturns.com/ or for information on Break Media properties, please visit http://breakmedia.break.com/.

About Break Media:

Break Media is the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men. Break Media consists of wholly owned branded properties such as Break.com, Cage Potato, Chickipedia, Holy Taco, Wall Street Fighter, Screen Junkies and All Left Turns as well as a publisher network, the Break Media Network, that counts over 100 member sites. Between these two channels, Break Media reaches over 60 million men worldwide on a monthly basis. Founded in 1998, Break Media offers advertisers unique opportunities to market directly to a young, male demographic through innovative ad formats that introduce relevant brands to the audience on a targeted, integrated basis. For more information, please visit http://breakmedia.break.com/.

LOS ANGELES – Break Media, the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men, announced a relationship with Quantcast that will enable the company to provide detailed audience-based demographic insights to its advertising clients and prospects. Specifically, Break Media will be implementing Quantcast Publisher across their video distribution network, a move which will allow marketers and agencies to analyze online video packages in similar fashion to how they evaluate TV ratings data.

“As younger audiences continue the rapid migration from television to online video consumption, advertisers are seeking data that allows them to confidently shift media budgets online at the same pace,” said Keith Richman, CEO of Break Media. “Our partnership with Quantcast will allow us to provide the information marketers need to ensure that their dollars are effectively spent reaching their target audience.”

Break will include Quantcast tags in its proprietary video player, allowing census-level viewership data to be reported. Quantcast’s innovative audience service solves many of the challenges posed by today’s dynamic digital distribution environment by allowing audience profiles to be generated at the individual video, channel, or distribution point level. This granularity of reporting will allow Break Media to deliver enhanced targeting, improved package development, and post-campaign validation for their advertising partners.

“Online video is no different from other forms of advertising – marketers and their agencies want to understand who they have the potential to reach,” said Adam Gerber, CMO of Quantcast. “But ultimately, they want to address advertising to those who have the highest probability of engaging with their brand. Break Media recognizes the opportunity of delivering audience-based solutions to their advertising partners, and we’re thrilled to be working with them to deliver solutions.”

About Break Media:

Break Media is the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men. Break Media consists of wholly owned branded properties such as Break.com, Cage Potato, Chickipedia, Holy Taco, Wall Street Fighter and Screen Junkies as well as a publisher network, the Break Media Network, that counts over 100 member sites. Between these two channels, Break Media reaches over 60 million men worldwide on a monthly basis. Founded in 1998, Break Media offers advertisers unique opportunities to market directly to a young, male demographic through innovative ad formats that introduce relevant brands to the audience on a targeted, integrated basis. For more information, please visit http://breakmedia.break.com/.

“In the past few months, Break Media has generated more than 35,000,000 views for content produced on behalf of our advertiser clients and for the enjoyment of our audience,” said Keith Richman, CEO of Break Media. “We formed the Creative Lab to build upon this momentum. Now, we have the unique ability to create a high volume of premium content and distribute it to a significant online audience of men 18-34.”

In conjunction with the formation of the lab, Break Media has named Jonathan Small Vice-President of Creative Lab and Editorial, and Tara Leone Vice-President, Production and Distribution.

Break Media is also announcing highlights of its record growth in 2008:

Revenue/Advertiser Growth:

* Revenue grew more than 100% from 2007 to 2008, with significant triple digital growth from in-video and branded content advertising.
* Added a significant number of new advertising clients and now partners with top brands across every key vertical.
* Continued innovation of ad campaigns with production of over a dozen original branded entertainment series and introduction of new engaging ad units built for network distribution.

Audience Growth:

* Overall unique visitors to Break Media properties increased 274% from December 2007 to December 2008. (ComScore Media Metrix, December 2008)
* Currently the 14th largest domestic video provider as measured by unique viewers and videos viewed. (ComScore Video Metrix, December 2008)

Site Expansion:

* Started or acquired seven new male-targeted properties in 2008, including audience favorites Chickipedia, Cage Potato, Holy Taco and Screen Junkies.
* New properties already reach close to 7,000,000 cumulative monthly unique visitors.

Premium Content:

* Expanded diverse premium content offerings, adding partners such as Hulu, Sony Pictures, Video Jug, Howcast, Revision 3, Agility Studios, Next New Networks, FEARnet and Collegiate Images.
* Renewed partnership with the NBA, and continues to offer daily NBA highlights and re-caps.
* Launched innovative Movie Trailers Channel, showcasing a comprehensive listing of current and upcoming new releases in high-resolution.
* Continued commitment to intellectual property rights with renewal of Audible Magic agreement and expansion of relationship to include video fingerprinting.

Industry Achievements and Research Initiatives

* Formed the Online Video ROI Council to analyze and discuss the effectiveness of online video advertising – Council includes industry-leading brands, agencies and technology vendors.
* Conducted primary research regarding online video effectiveness with such clients as technical partner Panache.
* Performed proprietary research into attitudinal and behavioral patterns of men 18-34. The research can be downloaded at: http://breakmedia.break.com/file_download/3/breakmedia_kit.pdf

About Break Media:

Break Media is the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men. Break Media consists of wholly owned branded properties such as Break.com, Cage Potato, Chickipedia, Holy Taco, Wall Street Fighter and Screen Junkies as well as a publisher network that counts over 100 member sites. Between these two channels, Break Media reaches over 60 million men worldwide on a monthly basis. Founded in 1998, Break Media offers advertisers unique opportunities to market directly to a young, male demographic through innovative ad formats that introduce relevant brands to the audience on a targeted, integrated basis. For more information, please visit http://breakmedia.break.com/.

SAN BRUNO, CA–(Marketwire – November 17, 2008) – Adify, the premier vertical ad network management company, today announced enhanced video ad serving functionality with the release of version 3.3 of the Adify platform. Adify Video enables online publishers to implement and monetize video for their contextual portfolio of sites. Adify network operators can now syndicate and generate revenue from video content and easily build an open video ad network for partner sites — expanding the reach of their video while controlling distribution to only quality sites. Network builders and publishers can integrate any video player with the Adify Video platform and reliably deliver pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll and overlay ads within syndicated videos.

According to eMarketer, $505 million will be spent on online video advertising this year. It is an effective revenue driver for publishers because it has higher CPMs, higher click-through rates and longer engagement than traditional online advertising. Furthermore, marketers who buy on Adify-powered networks benefit from quality premium content that video ads are sold against. The Adify Video platform includes measurement capabilities for publishers and advertisers to evaluate the effectiveness of video. Network operators launching with Adify Video include:

– Break Media (http://breakmedia.break.com), the premier online destination for the young male audience, is integrating Adify Video as a component of its own video player, which enables marketers and content owners to showcase and syndicate professional and relevant video content. Break is offering pre-roll and overlay ad units that are trafficked by Adify, which prioritizes ad delivery based on many variables, including CPM, impression goals, and importance. Within two months, Break Media has served more than seven million video ads from a variety of marketers.

– DriverTV (www.drivertv.com), a leading producer and distributor of professionally produced, high-definition, automobile-related video content for consumers, created a new online content and advertising network using Adify Video. The driverTV network gives auto manufacturer advertisers the ability to pair targeted overlay and display advertising with specific video content. Charter advertisers include BMW, GM and Subaru.

“Video offers premier independent publishers increased revenues and audience interest. There is plenty of potential in creativity and effectiveness for both buyer and seller. Prior to Adify Video, standardization was a major roadblock that made it very difficult to integrate the various video players with the various ad serving technologies and video ad feeds,” said Russ Fradin, president of Adify. “Adify Video alleviates this challenge for publishers through our open platform. Additionally, any type of rich media marketing specialist can enhance the targeting and delivery capabilities for the networks on our platform, thereby maximizing their share of the online video ad spend.”

Adify Video is part of the key network management services and ad technology created by Adify for publishers to execute successful distributed advertising campaigns. Adify’s syndicated ad server, tracking, reporting, billing, payment and technical support functions are relied upon by over 140 networks and more than 6,000 independent publishers. This open infrastructure delivers content sponsorships, video, image and rich media advertising to the unique specifications of each network builder. Working with Adify Video, network operators can now ramp up video offerings within days.

“Video content and video advertising have long been key components of our wholly-owned websites. By integrating our video player and content management system with Adify’s ad serving platform, we are now able to deliver video content and ads to the 90+ third-party sites that comprise the Break Media Network. This means that our advertisers can now engage with their core male audience via the Break Media Network using the full power of streaming media and the publishers who are part of our network now have yet another way to monetize their Web properties,” said Huan Le, Vice President of Business Development at Break Media.

About Adify
Adify Corporation is the premier vertical ad network management company and an independent, wholly owned subsidiary of Cox TMI Inc., part of Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises, one of the nation’s leading media companies and providers of automotive services.

LOS ANGELES – Break Media, the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men, today announced key findings of its proprietary research focused on helping advertisers understand men’s behavior online in order to maximize the potential of the online medium. According to the research, over two-thirds of men surveyed cannot live without the Internet when compared to television, supporting the notion that the Internet now rivals television as the primary destination for content consumption within this demographic.

The research, conducted by Hall and Partners, polled a nationally representative sample of more than five hundred males aged 18-34 who access the Internet at least once per month. It was designed to determine what male consumers (aged 18-34) are doing online, what their likes and dislikes are, how they respond to advertising on the Internet versus traditional media and what they think about online advertising in general. The findings also provide additional insight into the general psychographic profile of men aged 18-34 and best practices when it comes to targeting the male demographic. Full study details can be found here (http://breakmedia.break.com/auwhitepaper).

Research Highlights

The majority of men surveyed state that they often recall online advertising after their online experience has concluded. In fact, nearly half of respondents have purchased a product or service as a result of an online advertisement, demonstrating the impact of online adverting on buying decisions.

Contrary to commonly held industry perceptions, this demographic also proved to be very receptive to certain types of online advertising. According to the research, men aged 18-34 not only tolerate ads with a game or contest, but more than one-third of those polled actually like the experience. As the online ad industry evolves, it will be critical for advertisers to deliver advertising that is both fun and relevant for consumers.

Men’s Behavior Online

* 69% say they can’t live without the Internet, versus just 31% for television
* 63% have a smart phone and one in four use their mobile device to connect to the Web
* 40% use the Internet for more than 22 hours a week
* 36% say they can’t live without the Internet for socializing
* 33% say they can’t live without online entertainment

How Men Respond to Online Advertising

* 59% notice online ads
* 47% have purchased as a result of an online ad
* 35% like ads that allow them to play a game
* 34% like online ads that allow them to participate in a contest

With regards to general activity online, the research shows that males aged 18-34 spend upwards of 22 hours on the Internet per week, like to use the Internet for entertainment, and prefer to spend their time on the Internet over television.

In addition, the research shows 63 percent of men have a smart phone and one in four have used their mobile phone or wireless device to connect to the Internet. Mobile consumers are beginning to demand increased functionality and value-add from their mobile devices and consumer usage is likely to increase as providers offer more competitive services to access the Web. Therefore brands may be able to reach a more targeted and engaged audience via mobile with increasingly open mobile platforms and faster networks opening the door to this untapped market.

The survey also looked at top activities online, which include visiting social networking sites (63%), playing video games (60%), playing computer games (51%), forwarding links to online video (31%), reading blogs (31%), shopping (30%), commenting on online content (28%), and uploading photos to the Web (23%). Interestingly, the findings reinforce the significance of video games as a content genre for marketers seeking to reach and influence men online.

“Our research was a result of our desire to learn about our target demographic and what advertising appeals to them most,” said Keith Richman, CEO of Break Media. “We also wanted to be able to share this insight with our clients and partners so they can better target our audience and create ad campaigns that are more impactful and better able to achieve their advertising objectives.”

Additional Fun Facts

Making time for real women still trumps the Internet:

* 65% of young men are in a relationship
* 79% would rather meet a woman out on the town than online,
* 71% prefer a date with a hot girl to a poker game with the boys
* 74% would rather have sex than surf the Web

Men 18-34 see themselves as:

* Conformist: Only 26% think they are trendsetters
* Responsible: Only 18% agree that having fun is more important than being responsible
* Green: 53% say they care about the environment
* Social: 49% claim to have no trouble meeting new people; 51% like to spend as much time hanging out with friends as possible; only 20% said they valued appearance over personality when it comes to attraction
* Adventuresome: 68% enjoy traveling to new places; 61% enjoy spending time out of doors
* Laid-back: Only 38% say they live a fast-paced life
* Not wellness-centric: 38% claim to lead a healthy lifestyle; however 45% say their appearance is very important to them

The study sponsored by Break Media provides a guide for advertisers looking to validate online ad spend and determine the best creative ad formats to help drive engagement and build brands. Break Media is invested in helping to analyze and determine online video advertising effectiveness and to better understand the challenges in measuring ROI. Earlier this summer the company also issued findings, which tested the effectiveness of four popular in-stream video advertising standard formats established by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

About Break Media

Break Media is the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men. It’s wholly owned branded properties (Break.com, Cage Potato, Chickipedia, Holy Taco, Wall Street Fighter and Screen Junkies) and the over 80 site Break Media Network reach 60 million men worldwide each month. Founded in 1998, Break Media offers advertisers’ unrivaled opportunities to market directly to a young, male demographic using innovative ad formats that introduce relevant brands to the audience either broadly or on a targeted, integrated basis. For more information, please visit http://breakmedia.break.com/

LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Break Media, the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men, and Panache, the video advertising delivery-platform leader, today announced key findings from joint research which tested the effectiveness of four popular in-stream video advertising standard formats established by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in May, 2008.

Leading brands, including Honda and T-Mobile, participated in the study by running campaigns run-of-site on Break.com over an 11 week period, which concluded on August 2, 2008. Each campaign used the four IAB standardized ad units: linear non-interactive (pre-roll), linear interactive (interactive pre-roll), non-linear non-overlay invitation ad (non-overlay ad) and non-linear overlay (overlay ad). The ads ran against short-form professional, semi-professional and user-generated content on Break.com with Panache providing the ad delivery and back-end reporting technology to test user interaction and engagement levels with each ad format.

“The standardization of video ad formats by the IAB was a critical first step in streamlining media buying, planning and creative processes across the digital video medium,” said Keith Richman, CEO of Break Media. “Our research was a result of our desire to provide data about the effectiveness of those new standards to our clients and partners, and to lay a foundation for future research initiatives to build and expand upon.”

Key Findings

Break Media and Panache were able to mine the data for trends and insights into consumer behavior and online engagement using the various ad formats.

Findings showed:
– Overall results demonstrate the high engagement levels of tested ad units and that marketing objectives should drive creative development
– Pre-roll offers a strong call to action (click-thru rates averaged 10%); Non-Overlays’ strength appears to be in building brand awareness (78% viewed the ad for more than 15 seconds, a majority of the time)
– Pre-roll showed surprisingly high engagement with incredibly high click-thru rates when interacting with a targeted audience
– Completion rates for both 15 second pre-roll and interactive pre-roll averaged 87%
– Pre-roll click-thru rate for the 15 second spot was close to 10%
– Interactive pre-roll click-thru rate for the 15 second spot ranged between 11% higher and 35% higher than non interactive pre-roll depending on the nature of the call to action
– The overlay ad yielded high exposure and overall engagement
– 77% viewed campaigns with the overlay ad for at least 15 seconds and click-thru rates were five times industry averages for standard in-page media
– Media-rich creative with bold colors and animation resulted in increased click-thru rates
– Click-thru rates almost tripled for the non-overlay ads when using brighter, vibrant colors (.045 vs. 0.13%)
– When using interactive pre-roll ads, having the entire ad clickable appeared to impact call to action
– Click-thru rates were four times as high when the entire ad was clickable vs. just the call to action.

“For the in-stream advertising market to evolve, the efficacy of ad formats—whether IAB-standard or new emerging formats—needs to be understood in order for our industry to scale,” said Steve Robinson, CEO of Panache. “This research begins to fill the knowledge gap between the formation of standards and the prophetic future of an efficient and scalable online advertising industry.”

“This study offers a window into the measurable effectiveness of new video ad formats, and it moves forward the broader discussion of online brand-building and advertising,” said Daniel Taylor, senior analyst at Yankee Group. “As the industry develops new ways to engage online audiences, it’s important to benchmark the progress we make. By making this study public, Break and Panache have advanced the entire industry.”

The study conducted by Break and Panache provides a guide for advertisers looking to validate online ad spend and determine the best format and creative to lift key engagement metrics and build brands. It is also intended to spur additional insight on best practices for brands advertising online.

About Break Media

Break Media is the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men. Its wholly owned branded properties (Break.com, Cage Potato, Chickipedia, Holy Taco, Wall Street Fighter and Screen Junkies) and the over 70 site Break Media Network reach 50 million men worldwide each month. Founded in 1998, Break Media offers advertisers unrivaled opportunities to market directly to a young, male demographic using innovative ad formats that introduce relevant brands to the audience either broadly or on a targeted, integrated basis. For more information, please visit http://breakmedia.break.com/.

About Panache

Founded in 2006, Panache is a privately held company headquartered in Los Angeles. The Panache technology enables Internet video sites and networks to dynamically deliver any ad format directly into video content from a third-party ad server or ad network. Ad formats can be generated and delivered to viewers based on profiling and behavioral targeting, resulting in a highly customized experience for the user and a highly scalable model for the video publisher. With Panache, ad formats are completely detached from the video player, allowing publishers to create and deploy new advertising formats in minutes without engineering resources. Panache’s patent-pending solution makes it easy to deliver advanced interactive advertising to all video-distribution channels, including broadband, television, IPTV and other emerging technologies. For more information, visit http://www.panachetech.com.