Exclusive: Audi Drives Off with Massive Inauguration Online Video Jackpot -- Pre-Roll Ad has 70 Million Views

Audi, as the exclusive sponsor of the live webcast of the Obama Inauguration on CBSNews.com, MSNBC.com, ABCNews.com and the WashingtonPost.com, had expected 30 million views of its pre-roll advertisement titled "Progress."  Beet.TV has been told by a spokesperson for Audi USA that its pre-roll ads have been watched nearly 70 million times.   Here's the breakdown of views of the ad on the various sites provided by Audi: ABCNews.com, 15.9 million; CBSNews.com, 11.4 million; MSNBC.com, 16.3 million;The WashingtonPost, 14 million; Slate, 9 million; and the Atlantic.com, 1.7 million. Reached in Germany tonight, a spokesperson for Audi USA told me in an emailed statement:"Total impressions for our buy was double what we anticipated. ABCNews and MSNBC were the standouts with delivery that was almost 5X what we expected for ABCNews and double for MSNBC. Clearly, online viewing yesterday was on live streams and network produced coverage. MSNBC has comfirmed this is the most highly trafficked live event they have ever covered."Traffic Problems with Sites May Have Driven More ViewsIn a strange twist, it may be that some of the widely reported problems with streaming on several sites caused visitors to refresh their browser and see the Audi spot multiple times and increased the number of views. Audi Parks on Three Evening News Shows on Inauguration NightAs part of this unprecedented sponsorship, Audi was the exclusive sponsor of the evening news broadcasts of ABC, CBS and NBC on January 20. The sponsorship provided limited interruption.  Viewership of those programs has been estimated by Audi at 19 million.  We expect to see these numbers tomorrow. Here's the Audi spot that ran on the evening news.The cost of the media campaign was not disclosed, but it would seem that Audi drove off with quite a rich prize.The Audi campaign was created by the San Francisco-based agency Venables Bell & Partners.  We have posted the pre-roll ad here on Beet.TV. CNN Delivers Bounty of ...

Channel: Beet.TV Video Length: 0s Date Found: Mon, Jan 26 2009 2:47 PM Category: Business Date Produced: Wed, Jan 21 2009 9:37 PM View Count: 0