Changing before your eyes

Advertisers are increasingly turning to niche online video to deploy video ads, reports The Wall Street Journal.

With inventory on TV sites scarce, and lingering fears of advertising on user-generated videos, professional channels like Geek Entertainment TV provide an attractive alternative. They manage to attract good-sized audiences with niche-oriented material that's professionally produced.

One thing that marketers have also liked about these channels is their willingness to work with the advertiser to create customized opportunities. The Jet Set show on Next New Networks, for instance, agreed to talk about the new Lionsgate film War for a related promotion.

The relatively small audience of most shows and non-standard metrics make this area troublesome for some marketers. That's leading some to use them as mere testing platforms for campaigns instead of integral executions of a campaign.