Howzit MSN launches SA video channel

"Online video consumption is set to hit South Africa, thanks to falling bandwidth prices and growing penetration of broadband into the market. This is an emerging opportunity that publishers and advertisers cannot ignore," says Marcus Stephens, GM at Howzit MSN.

"Video is one of the fastest-growing formats in online advertising worldwide and with good reason. It is particularly effective at getting and keeping the audience's attention and allows brands to showcase their offerings in a rich and interactive manner."

Fastest-growing advertising segment

"Market researcher MagnaGlobal projects that global online video spend will grow at a compounded annual rate of 19.6% between 2011 and 2016, making it the fastest-growing advertising segment in the world. The SA market can be expected to follow this growth trend," says Stephens.

Microsoft's advertising and online lead, Nazeer Suliman, said that this introduction was one more way of pushing for greater enhancement to the portal in SA, in order to grow quality audiences and help advertisers' connections.

"Watching video on a computer, smartphone or TV is a key example of convergence and comes closest to being a three screen activity. From a marketing standpoint, that means that video is a compelling format in which to tell a cohesive story and drive richer engagement across all screens," says Suliman.

Range of advertising formats

The video channel will offer a range of advertising formats, including pre-roll commercials that appear prior to online video clips and banner ads within the channel. The content is sourced from a range of top providers and covers entertainment, news, lifestyle, sports, comedy and other topics.

"In time, it will allow user-generated content to be posted in the video channel to complement its string mix of professionally created content. The combination of great user and professional content will position it as one of the country's top destinations for video on the SA web," concludes Stephens.