How is it possible that while our industry talks about cross-screen buying and integrated campaigns, convergence has still managed to sneak up on us? Think about this: PewDiePie's 350 million views in June are literally 35 times more than the 10 million audience for "Breaking Bad"'s season finale. It's obviously not apples to apples - but convergence is here. We've reached the equalization of talent and content across all media. So how did we miss it? The answer has to do with navel-gazing.

I've produced or streamed thousands of corporate events since 1998. Since then, I've seen the different use cases of live video change. It went from an "add on" to a business or marketing event, to a core strategy and advanced way to connect with consumers around the world. But when marketers, brands and publishers that I speak are considering live video, their first question isn't about the benefits of live. Instead, they ask when they should use live video -- and when VOD is more important to reach a broader audience.

Despite YouTube's dominance, online video is a hotly contested space. As social networks and streaming content providers fight for eyeballs, perhaps none are fighting harder for a bigger share of audience than Facebook. However, there are some fundamental challenges in place.

Branded videos about female empowerment are trending in a big way right now. But messaging that empowers women isn't a natural fit for every brand. So how can other brands capitalize on the benefits of this type of messaging?

As data continues to demonstrate that the path to purchase increasingly runs through smartphones and tablets, how do we optimize visuals, message and conversion mechanics within mobile video to make the environment ultra-shoppable? The challenge is using compelling creative formats to enable the purchase-inclined consumer to take action with a seamless user interface.

There is good news and bad news when it comes to multi-screen ad campaigns. The good news: Most marketers are on board, with 75% of advertisers now running multi-screen campaigns, according to a study of ad agency executives conducted by rich media ad provider Jivox in the second quarter. What's more, of those that don't run multi-screen campaigns, most are planning to do so.

The dominance of video in today's content-driven digital marketing world is hard to ignore. The growth of connected devices has led individuals to view more video on their televisions, smartphones, tablets, and PCs than ever before - often shopping for or researching products simultaneously. This "second screen" has led today's brand marketers to consider that screen agnosticism - the idea that video, no matter where it is seen - is becoming the simplest and most convenient way to reach their audience.