See all the product placement in this video?

It’s been added by an algorhythm. No kidding.

TV viewing is – besides for coverage of live events -  in slow decline. Sites like YouTube on the other hand is generating thousands of streams daily but very expensive to run.

But videos on YouTube and elsewhere online are very difficult to monetise. Users don’t like their viewing interrupted.

Enter ZunaVision, a technology based on an academic research project. In fact at an artificial intelligence lab at Stanford University by three researchers and an Assistant Professor and funded by Stanford professor David Cheriton.

Techniques to monetise online video have included pre and post roles, overlays and interstitial, but this is different – its overlays yes, but overlays in disguise. Techcrunch explains:

“an algorithm first analyzes the video, subsequently alters different aspects of embedded images or videos (such as the lighting, color and texture), and then attempts to fit the advertising into the physical space of their videos without appearing like a blatant overlay.”

ZunaVision claims on their site

We enable content owners to assign ad-spaces inside the physical space of their videos, ready for advertiser branding.

• Fully self-service, and fast
• No pre- or post-production, no screens
• Dynamic, resellable ad-spaces

The result: natural, uninterrupted viewing; unskippable impressions; and increased monetization for producers and sites.

Here’s another video of ZunaVision doing video inside video. Pretty slick.

Techcrunch is sceptical, calling it pop-ups for video. I don’t think its as annoying as pop-ups. In fact, did not spot the overlays in the first two scenes, probably because I expected something far more intrusive! Oops!

Still, all these Stanford whizkids still need to do is brainwash media buyers that reach ain’t everything.