By Naj Kidwai

Before walking on stage a stand-up comic scopes out the crowd. A comedian isn't going to start a skit to an all-female crowd with "So a guy walks into a …"

Comedians don't just walk on stage without preparation. They have several key points in mind, sit in as an audience member, mingle, check out the location and come into the room with adequate knowledge of hot topics in the news.

Online advertisers can learn a lot from comedians.

If you've ever been to a comedy show, you know that the audience plays a huge role in the delivery of a joke -- whether it influences the topic of the joke, the level of emotion with which it's told or how the audience influences the details of the joke itself. There's a feedback loop necessary for the successful execution of a joke. Take away the audience or the ambiance and it's guaranteed that the joke won't be as funny.

Outside of the comedy-club environment, the comedian loses his direct connection to the audience, minimizing the art of a good punch line. Every audience requires a different punch line to incite a laugh. Advertisers are similar in this respect when they're trying to reach their audience. Every consumer requires a slightly different message to entice a purchase.

The art of storytelling requires a push and pull between the storyteller and the audience. In the case of advertising, it's a push and pull between the delivery of a brand's message and its target consumers. In advertising, every message that will lead to a purchase resonates differently with each consumer. Personalization is a way for advertisers to use storytelling to their advantage, to build a connection with the consumer and increase ROI. Recent personalized video campaigns have resulted in more than double the click-through rates and 50 percent more sales conversions than traditional video campaigns.

In many respects, advertising online has branched out too far from the basic idea of storytelling in the hopes of reaching a mass audience with a one-size-fits-all approach. Consumers want more control over the advertisements that they engage with online -- ads that convey relevant, real-time stories about the products that interest them.

Personalization is a new trend in advertising both online and in television. Companies like Visible World and ZillionTV are using viewer advertising preferences based on geography, programming, inventory levels, time of day, weather, and category selections to offer brands a highly targeted and engaged audience. In the case of online video, personalized online video ad technology today like my company Real Time Content make it possible for brands to assess consumers' interests based on profile data and user interaction to not only tailor the type of ad, but take it a step forward by creating an advertisement in real time.

Storyboarding technology enables brands to create thousands of different ad variations by segmenting and tagging the video content in the initial campaign stages. The relevant video segments are assembled using the technology platform, which develops the video in real time based on the expressed interests of each individual viewer. Rather than having a handful of different storylines canned, storyboarding technology opens the door for thousands of different video combinations. The resulting ads are customized video experiences that give consumers more control over the content they are watching. The result? Consumers are more likely to be converted to a customer, which leads to an increased ROI.

The typical production process for the development of a personalized video campaign includes three basic steps:

Campaign development: During the campaign planning stage, video clips are segmented, tagged and categorized based on the goals of the ad campaign.

Ad creation: The video segments are assembled using a storyboard technology platform that creates thousands of different ad variations, which are personalized based on viewer interaction and user profile data. The platform enables contextually targeted ads based on a number of different profile variables, including geographic location, date and time, language, or viewer input about what they want to watch.

Real-time delivery: The technology instantly delivers a video ad that directly reflects the user's interests and behavior. Consumer reactions are measured for the advertiser and used to optimize future content.

Personalized video is akin to a brand's version of the comedian. Brands need to customize the delivery of their message similar to the way a comedian tailors a joke. A large part of the issue in linear video advertising is the lack of personal feedback that one gets from direct interaction with an individual based on the basic premise -- "What are you interested in?" Personalized video is about maximizing engagement with the individual.

Personalized video campaigns have resulted in greater effectiveness and better return on investment. The consumer is more engaged with content that caters directly to their interests, while spending more time with the advertiser's message and increasing the brand's awareness.

Nationwide, a leading U.K. financial services company with more than $480 billion in assets, recently executed a personalized video campaign to help increase the effectiveness of online advertising campaigns on its website as well as on third-party portal sites. The goal was to generate increased purchase intent through personalization of existing video assets. Consumers who interacted with the ad could experience more than 16,000 different video versions based on a broad number of content variants included in the campaign.

The personalized video campaign resulted in a 300 percent higher click-through rate for product offerings and a 100 percent increase in sales conversions compared with the standard video campaigns the company had executed. It also resulted in more than 8 million impressions and served more than 100,000 personalized video ads.

Advertising is no different than telling a good story. It's about a message and the delivery of that message in a way that touches your audience. Personalization in this capacity is a new way of looking at online advertising by bringing in the age-old basics of storytelling. By playing on the individual's interests, emotions, and online characteristics to fit the ad to the viewer, brands are able to target consumers more effectively.

Naj Kidwai is CEO of Real Time Content.

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