Web Video Sites Need New Way To Pitch Advertisers

The NewFronts aren’t working.

Not, of course, the flash-bang sizzle reels that companies like Yahoo, Vice and Maker Studios displayed in the theaters and warehouses around Manhattan last week—and will throughout this week. Those short, slick previews of prospective online shows used to woo marketers always go off without a hitch.

But the purpose of these shows, which have become a big part of how tech companies are trying to lure digital ad dollars from television, doesn’t make sense, ad buyers and media execs say in private. In a medium where scarcity is at the center of the pitch to advertisers, there’s simply no scarcity of places to reach a targeted audience.