Markets

AdKeeper, Embraced by Ford, Will Store Online Ads -- but YouTube Already Does That

By jim motavalli

Updated on: October 19, 2010 / 3:50 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

Ford is onboard for the splashy launch of AdKeeper, a new service that allows web surfers to "keep" for later viewing ads they might otherwise have passed over. The service might actually work better for automakers than for other companies, but the whole concept seems underwhelming to me -- designed to appeal more to advertisers' hopes of consumer behavior than what people are likely to actually do. And, besides, there's a little website called YouTube that's already pretty adept at storing and indexing auto ads.

According to Scott Kurnit, whose last project was the very successful About.com, AdKeeper "delivers the ability for consumers to finally save online ads for use on their own terms and time." While advertiser enthusiasm isn't hard to understand, how many people have been waiting for an app that lets them sort and save advertising? And who has that much time on their hands these days?

DVRs have been a big hit in large part because they allow TV viewers to skip intrusive advertising. That makes AdKeepers' slogan "TiVo for advertisements" slogan somewhat ironic. It implies that people are going to go back on their own time and watch the ads they already purposefully skipped. Plus, YouTube is already a pretty handy and easily searchable repository of video-based advertising. When I wanted to see that clever polar bear ad for the Nissan Leaf, a fast search on YouTube brought it up promptly. AdKeeper makes the process "personal," but I'm not sure that's a concept that will be widely embraced. (Personal ads are another story, of course.)

But automakers might be in a better position to make money with AdKeeper than others, in part because cars are an emotional purchase and people are endlessly fascinated with them -- and car advertising, too. That Leaf polar bear ad has been viewed 874,640 times. The thing is that most of those people followed Twitter links or friends' recommendations on Facebook to the YouTube page. Watching it was a spontaneous, whim thing, and storing it for later doesn't satisfy whims.

Websites are looking for new ways to capture ad dollars from automakers, since the click-through from conventional auto ads isn't producing enough revenue. One way is with the virtual "Green Auto" show Autoweek.com put online.

A new survey from Perfect Market shows that web users engage most heavily with ads that are closely related to the editorial content they're wrapped around. That means that if I write an article about the new Ford Fiesta, the reader who chooses that article is already interested in Ford -- and thus also susceptible to the siren call of a Ford ad. And they might also choose to click the "k" for "Keeper" button to watch the ad later.

Advertisers enjoy a symbiotic relationship with car content -- it's what kept the buff books like Car and Driver and Road & Track fat and happy for decades. The Internet added a dimension with software that put the Ford ad automatically on the same page as the Ford content. The Perfect Market survey shows that such specific targeting is a home run as a revenue generator.

AdKeeper boasts of a "revolutionary" approach that involves "no software, no downloads, no browser extensions, no plug-ins and no pre-registration." But those are all features that make YouTube so appealing for all kinds of content, including ads.

AdKeeper could prod advertisers to make their ads more Super Bowl-like, creative and fun, to increase their special "k" click-through appeal. Those same factors have increased ads' success on YouTube. The polar bear ad is clever, controversial and deeply green, and it went viral. Likewise, an Audi A3 TDI (42 mpg, 30 percent greenhouse gas reduction) Super Bowl ad that posits a "green police" arresting people for not recycling, choosing plastic over paper and forgetting to compost placed sixth-most-popular overall in USA Today's ad meter ratings. That's it below, and it really is funny:
And it has 2.3 million views on YouTube. Megan Fox in a bathtub for Motorola managed only a third that volume and a "Man's Last Stand" ad for Dodge (very slow to get going) got stuck at 158,000.

I think advertisers will like AdKeeper more than most consumers will. Ads tend to be perishable, and the new service has the potential to make them immortal, always just a click away. On board with Ford is an impressive list that includes JetBlue, Kmart, Kraft, General Mills, Allstate, Sara Lee, Showtime, Pepsi, McDonald's, Unilever and Warner Brothers. The New York Times Company, which bought About.com for $410 million in 2005, is an investor in a roster that also includes True Ventures, DCM, Spark Capital, First Round Capital, Betaworks, Lerer Ventures, David Cowan and Stan Shuman.

Kurnit says he was weighing the AdKeeper concept 15 years ago when he went with About.com instead. Now, he says, its time has come.

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Photo: Flickr/Audi Green Police