The Revolution Will Be Streamed

Digital video is the cornerstone of great brand marketing strategy in a post-TV world.

- Randall Rothenberg

When six visionary companies and the IAB joined forces for the Digital Content NewFronts in 2013, we had only two fixed ideas. First, video content mattered. Second, everything else would change. We were exquisitely correct.

The growth of the market for ad-supported digital video content—long form and short, scripted and reality based, animated and acted, for gamers, fashionistas and everyone in between—has skyrocketed, validating the importance of something that once seemed internally contradictory: an upfront marketplace for a theoretically limitless medium.

In 2016, according to the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report released last week, digital video advertising surged to a record $9.1 billion, a 53 percent year-over-year rise from 2015, making it one of the fastest-growing ad mediums in the U.S. On mobile devices, the increase in video revenue is even starker—up 145 percent year over year to $4.2 billion—and the growth shows no signs of slowing.