Display Ads Stable On Major Web Portals

 

Display Ads Stable On Major Web Portals

by Mark Walsh, Friday, August 24, 2012 1:55 PM

The Summer Olympics bolstered display advertising across the home pages of the major Web portals in June and July. Advertising related to the Games -- spanning July 27 to August 12 -- accounted for 10% of total observed ad units on the home screens of Yahoo, AOL, MSN and YouTube in the first half of the third quarter, according to the latest display ad-tracking report from Macquarie Equities Research.

Still, the study found that display trends were essentially flat from a year ago, based on ad formats used. Overall, 38% of home page ads were oversized/custom units, up from 36% for the same period a year ago, but down from 44% in the first half of the second quarter.

Macquarie uses these premium, brand-focused units as a barometer of broader display advertising health.

Looking at ad categories, financial services and media were the biggest verticals in the first half of the current quarter -- accounting for 20%, and 17%, of home page ads, respectively. Automotive was another strong contributor, representing 14% of ads. The Olympic-related ads were spread across a number of categories.

Display advertising was mostly stable for each of the Web portals analyzed, with YouTube remaining the strongest of the group. More than half (56%) the ads sold on the Google-owned video hub were of oversized/custom variety, up from 50% a year ago, thanks to its signature masthead unit.

Media and entertainment campaigns again dominated, accounting for more than half the ads on YouTube. But CPG got on board, making up 12% ads, compared to none a year ago or in the first half of the second quarter.

For Yahoo, sales of custom branding units sold increased slightly to 35% from 32% a year ago. The study also noted sell-through of Yahoo's log-in page ad slot rebounded in the first half of Q3 to 74%, on par with all-time highs. However, Macquarie analyst and report author Ben Schachter said it is difficult to say how much lift is a result of discounting.

Another positive sign for Yahoo was that the proportion of purely brand-focused advertising was 53% -- up from 33% a year ago, and from 29% in the first half of Q2.

The picture was more mixed for AOL. Custom ad units were up slightly from a year ago to 19%, but still well down from 32% in the April to mid-May period. AOL had more purely brand-focused units (32%), but also an increase in direct-response advertising, up nine percentage points to 35%.

Amazon also had mixed results, with its share of brand-focused advertising up to 35% from 24% in the second quarter. But the proportion of standard rich media advertising dropped from 74% to 58% in the first half of the third quarter. Only 3% of ads on the Amazon home page were custom/oversized units.

MSN saw marked improvement, with custom units accounting for 32% of ads sold compared to 13% a year earlier, and brand advertising rising to 38% from 21%. The site also had a corresponding drop in lower-quality, direct-response advertising to 12% from 29% a year ago and 24% in the first half of Q2.

Microsoft this week announced it is rolling out a series of multichannel ad units, including a digital circular-style format exclusively for MSN.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/181542/display-ads-stable-on-major-web-portals.html?print#ixzz27VCtjKP4

AT&T AdWorks Aggregates Mobile, TV Data To Target Online Ads

 

by Laurie Sullivan, Aug 27, 2012, 7:20 AM

• TAGS

ad targeting, advertising, data management, media measurement, mobile, tv

AT&T AdWorks is expected to launch an ad platform in September allowing brands to target ads online based on TV and mobile data, according to Danielle Lee, AdWorks VP of product marketing and innovation. Two undisclosed brands have signed up to participate in the initial rollout.

The AdWorks division worked with AT&T Labs to develop an algorithm that allows brands to target audiences based on aggregate demographic data from TV programs watched or downloaded on apps, games and videos on mobile.

The move will lead the company to support cross-screen ad targeting as technology becomes smarter at understanding consumer behavior and devices.

"This is not panel data, but rather actual first-party user data in aggregate," Lee said.

Common attributes in the data create audience segments. The "aggregate and anonymous" data comes from 10 million U-Verse set-top boxes, as well as 69 million mobile subscribers. The targeting data from TV will initially rely on demographic and geographic attributes rated to the top 100 TV shows.

AT&T AdWorks also supports online ad targeting using data from mobile subscriber to serve ads across the Internet to Verizon FIOS customers. The audience network reaches 80% of Internet users, including third-party sites. AT&T does not place ads using another Internet provider's ad platform, such as Verizon's.

The audience segments rely on TV and mobile data to target ads online, but Lee said AT&T plans to build out the service to focus on cross-channel targeting. Advertisers will then have an option to push the same ad across cross-platform. Once that occurs, AT&T will compete with companies like Microsoft Advertising, which recently rolled out a cross-channel ad-targeting tool.

The tool, aimed at national advertisers purchasing millions in ads, supports A/B testing the creative ads online first before bringing it to TV -- a trend that recently caught the attention of political marketers.

Lee also said AT&T could integrate the TV with the mobile data to build a bigger picture of consumers and audience segments. "We're just getting out of the gate with this," she said. "There are several ways we can take this product as it evolves."

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/181540/att-adworks-aggregates-mobile-tv-data-to-target.html#ixzz27VBCvz00

Nielsen: There Is Room For Rivals' Data (Rentrak)

Nielsen: There Is Room For Rivals' Data

by David Goetzl, Yesterday, 8:40 AM

media measurement, research,tv

Rentrak CEO Bill Livek has been saying for years the TV measurement market offers an opportunity for both its system and the entrenched Nielsen ratings to succeed. Now, apparently Nielsen agrees.
Rentrak has signed many local stations to use its products, based on set-top-box (STB) data, which it says can complement the “sample currency” Nielsen propagates.
“There is room for a client to both use our data as the currency for ratings and other data sources, including set-top-box data direct from (cable, satellite and telco TV operators) or from some other players for the purpose of analytics around program optimization,” said Steve Hasker, the president of Nielsen’s global media products, according to a transcript.

“We’ll see how that plays out," he said.
Hasker, who did not cite Rentrak by name, made his comments at a recent investor event in response to a question about whether a local station that signs with a Nielsen competitor would have reason to go with both data sources.
Nielsen is overhauling its local-market system to use a hybrid model that will include STB data, as well as data generated from a new code reader, in addition to its traditional panels.
Hasker reiterated arguments why Nielsen feels “uncomfortable” going with only an STB-based system. Among them is if a person leaves a set-top box on, while not watching, that could affect the counting. Also, an STB-based system could fail to capture broadcast-only homes. And it could fail to offer clients sturdy information on the demographics of viewership.
(Rentrak would say its algorithms and other approaches help it meet those challenges, with its “census-based” data. It also argues that its data draws from many more homes than the Nielsen panels; Nielsen is expanding its pool during the revamp.)
Hasker added that STB data has “some value when combined with our panels … when used to increase fidelity and reduce the variability filling some of the gaps. We think set-top-box has the value, so that’s the path we are pursuing.”

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/183568/nielsen-there-is-room-for-rivals-data.html#ixzz27Uwfy7ml

Nielsen Unveiling Suite Of Next-Generation TV Meters: Designed To Enhance Compliance, Cross-Platform Measurement Too

Nielsen Unveiling Suite Of Next-Generation TV Meters: Designed To Enhance Compliance, Cross-Platform Measurement Too

by Joe Mandese, May 11, 2012, 9:21 AM

• TAGS

online video, tv, video

In what is likely the most significant change in the methods Nielsen uses to measure TV -- and potentially all forms of video content -- the ratings company this week quietly began informing clients of a major initiative to develop a suite of new audience meters and digital tracking codes that could begin replacing its current meters as soon as 2014.

Dubbed “GTAM,” which stands for Global Television Audience Metering, the initiative includes the development of four new audience metering technologies designed to deal with all of the conceivable challenges involved in measuring the viewing behavior of contemporary consumer households.

The initiative is significant for several reasons beyond the technologies being developed, including the fact that it is a major reaffirmation of Nielsen’s strategy for basing audience measurement around in-home viewing, which has been the foundation of its audience measurement systems, although some components of the GTAM initiative will make it easier for Nielsen to incorporate mobile, wireless and Internet-based video audience exposure as well. The other major reason the plan is significant is that as its name might imply, it will be a global effort -- and the technologies being developed would likely be deployed as part of a standardized methodology across the 16 international markets Nielsen currently measures media audiences in.

The four new metering solutions include the so-called “GTAM meter,” which will be the primary device Nielsen plans to use for audience measurement. The GTAM meter is said to be smaller, more ergonometric, easier for consumers to interact with, and far less “invasive” than Nielsen’s current industry standard “A/P meters.” Like the A/P meters, which stand for active/passive metering components, the new GTAM meter is expected to utilize a combination of active and passive measurement technologies, but unlike Nielsen’s current meters it will not require it to be physically connected to any household media devices, such as a TV set, set-top tuner, DVR, etc., to function.

The second technology in development is a lighter, somewhat less sophisticated meter, aptly named the “GTAM Lite Meter,” which is capable of measuring TV audiences in households that have fewer electronic devices in them and are less complicated to measure.

A third device, code-named the “Code Reader,” is an even smaller device that relies entirely on its ability to monitor the digital codes associated with TV and video programming. All the new metering technologies are being designed to work with a new, bulletproof digital watermarking technology Nielsen has developed that is capable of surviving any conceivable compression technologies that would otherwise strip away current versions of digital codes and watermarks. Dubbed “Watermark,” the new code is said to be integral to Nielsen’s plans to accelerate cross-platform video measurement and integration, because it is also a solution to measuring video exposure across wired and wireless Internet platforms.

The fourth metering technology in the initiative potentially may be the most controversial in the mix, because it is designed to explicitly replace its current people meters, now the state-of-the-art in Nielsen’s TV metering portfolio. Unlike Nielsen’s current generation of people meters, which utilize blinking lights to remind viewers to push buttons to indicate they are actively watching TV programming, the new meters will feature an LED screen that will give respondents written instructions and prompts for complying with the measurement process.

That meter is dubbed the “Scrolling Text People Meter,” and it could be controversial, because it is designed to improve the cooperation and compliance of people watching TV in a sample household, which could potentially influence the way they watch TV.

Nielsen is expected to vet the new approaches and technologies among its various client groups, and industry bodies before deploying anything, and the likely time frame is that the first versions of the new meters would not be installed in sample households until early 2014, following a year of evaluation during 2013.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/174443/nielsen-unveiling-suite-of-next-generation-tv-mete.html#ixzz27Uw8TtAM

Arbitron PPM Gets MRC Accreditation In 5 Big Markets

Arbitron PPM Gets MRC Accreditation In 5 Big Markets

by Erik Sass, Jul 19, 2012, 3:48 PM

media measurement, metrics,radio

Radio ratings firm Arbitron scored a big win this week with the announcement that it has received accreditation from the Media Rating Council for its Portable People Meter ratings service in five media markets nationwide, including some of the nation’s biggest.

The MRC granted Arbitron’s ratings from PPM, a passive electronic measurement device, accreditation in Los Angeles, Baltimore, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Riverside-San Bernardino and San Antonio.
This marks the first time the MRC has granted accreditation to PPM ratings in L.A., Baltimore and San Antonio. The other markets in California and Florida are receiving accreditation again after it was revoked by the MRC in January 2012. No word yet whether the MRC plans to grant accreditation to PPM ratings in Cleveland, Portland, and Salt Lake City-Ogden-Provo, where accreditation was also withdrawn earlier this year.
The latest accreditations represent another step toward Arbitron’s declared long-term goal of gaining accreditation for PPM ratings in every major media market across the U.S. where it is operational. Arbitron hopes this will help lay to rest some of the earlier controversy surrounding PPM ratings, which some minority broadcasters alleged underrepresented their audiences, including African-American and Hispanic listeners.
In January of this year accreditation was withdrawn in the markets listed above, partly because an audit committee reviewing 2011 PPM results “showed certain issues related to internal controls of the service and declines in service performance metrics,” according to the typically circumspect MRC notice.

Arbitron later disclosed that the MRC revoked the accreditation in those markets because response rates among panel participants had fallen off.
In total, Arbitron still has 34 markets where PPM is operational without MRC accreditation.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/179150/arbitron-ppm-gets-mrc-accreditation-in-5-big-marke.html#ixzz27UvlzeOF

Announcing the 2012 OnMedia 100 Top Private Companies

Announcing the 2012 OnMedia 100 Top Private Companies

Posted on February 22, 2012

(0 Comments)

Coupled with the socialization of everything, Madison Avenue is boldly charging into the future, reinventing the establishment with new, invigorating products and services.

AlwaysOn is especially excited to announce this year's OnMedia 100-the top emerging companies creating new business opportunities in the world of media, advertising, marketing, branding, and public relations.

The AlwaysOn editorial team, along with partners at DFJ Gotham Ventures, Azure Capital, Flybridge Venture Capital, Greycroft Partners, Canaan Partners, FirstMark Capital, NEA, KPMG, Highland Capital Partners, and industry experts across the globe, scoured the entrepreneurial community to identify the top 100 private companies that are disrupting the digital media and advertising world with new products and services, while at the same time creating high-growth businesses that offer huge upside potential for investors.

This year's OnMedia 100 represents mature, forward-thinking media companies in a year charged with disruptive change. Web-fueled TV is finally becoming a reality and, coupled with robust social platforms, provides a rich, new consumer base open to creative, targeted advertising and marketing products. Smartphone and tablet adoption continues to accelerate, challenging the entertainment and content world to transform itself into a global, consumer-focused industry.

As entrenched, legacy institutions are faced with the socialization of everything, this year's digital media, advertising, and marketing startups are boldly charging into future, ready to reinvent the establishment with new, invigorating products and services. On the back end, analytics companies are gaining access to a richer, deeper pool of data and providing marketers and advertisers with consumer profiles that deliver on the promise of reaching specific audiences with meaningful, actionable messages.

This year's OnMedia 100 companies are leaders amongst their peers and developing game-changing approaches and technologies that are likely to push outside the bounds of existing markets. Companies were selected based on a set of five criteria: innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value, and media buzz.

Congratulations to all the 2012 OnMedia 100 winners. As the top venture capital-backed media companies continue to bring new, innovative products and services to the world, they're pioneering new ways to provide quality content and reach engaged audiences with meaningful messages. The OnMedia 100 companies are keeping pace with new technology developments, once again proving that the Global Silicon Valley is driving the transformation of digital media and entertainment.

---

The winners of this competition will be officially honored at:

OnMedia NYC
Where Silicon Valley Meets Madison Avenue
February 21st-22nd, 2012
Time Warner Center, New York, NY

The sixth annual OnMedia NYC is a two-day executive event, featuring New York's power players and top digital media CEOs, who will engage in high-level debates on how the Internet is disrupting the world of media, marketing, advertising, and branding. OnMedia also showcases the emerging entrepreneurial CEOs who are revolutionizing the way media is being created, distributed, consumed, and analyzed.

Click here to see current program, reserve your ticket, or learn more about this year's OnMedia NYC.

To find out how your company can join the OnMedia NYC distinguished group of sponsors and for detailed information on the CEO Showcase opportunity, please contact Shannon Calvin (shannon@aonetwork.com, 954.663.2086) or Grant Gunderson (grant@aonetwork.com, 916.217.0427) for details on how your company can participate.

For more information on group rates or to make reservations by phone, please contact the AlwaysOn Concierge, John Schwartz, at 310.721.9451 or by e-mail at john@aonetwork.com.

Now is the time to get on board. Whether you are looking for new investments, strategic partners or clients in the digital media space, OnMedia NYC is the insider event you won't want to miss. We hope to see you there!

The conference is only two weeks away. Register today to secure your 33% discount.

Introducing the OnMedia 100

Overall Winner

Pinterest
www.pinterest.com
Category: Consumer Services–Community Platforms
Headquarters: Palo Alto, CA
CEO: Ben Silbermann
Year Founded: 2008
Employees: ca. 15
Investors Include: FirstMark Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz

B2B: Advertising Analytics

Baynote
www.baynote.com
Cupertino, CA

C3 Metrics
www.c3metrics.com
New York, NY

Collective[i]
www.collectivei.com
New York, NY

Compass Labs
www.compasslabs.com
San Jose, CA

Echo System, The
www.theechosystem.com
New York, NY

eXelate
www.exelate.com
New York, NY

InfiniGraph
www.infinigraph.com
Menlo Park, CA

Monetate
www.monetate.com
Philadelphia, PA

Quantcast
www.quantcast.com
San Francisco, CA

Searchmetrics
www.searchmetrics.com
New York, NY

STELLAService
www.stellaservice.com
New York, NY

Trendrr
www.trendrr.com
New York, NY

Visible Measures
www.visiblemeasures.com
Boston, MA

Webtrends
www.webtrends.com
Portland,OR

B2B: Advertising Networks

[x+1]
www.xplusone.com
New York, NY

Adconion Media Group
www.adconion.com
Santa Monica, CA

Adknowledge
www.adknowledge.com
Kansas City, MO

Adnetik
www.adnetik.com
Boston, MA

Apptera
www.apptera.com
Sunnyvale, CA

BlueKai
www.bluekai.com
Cupertino, CA

BrightRoll
www.brightroll.com
San Francisco, CA

Collective
www.collective.com
New York, NY

CPX Interactive
www.cpxinteractive.com
New York, NY

DOmedia
www.domedia.com
Columbus, OH

JiWire
www.jiwire.com
San Francisco, CA

LiveIntent
www.liveintent.com
New York, NY

mediaFORGE
www.mediaforge.com
Salt Lake City, UT

Medialets
www.medialets.com
New York, NY

MediaMath
www.mediamath.com
New York, NY

Millennial Media
www.millennialmedia.com
Baltimore, MD

Mogreet
www.mogreet.com
Venice, CA

Peer39
www.peer39.com
New York, NY

PulsePoint
www.pulsepoint.com
New York, NY

RadiumOne
www.radiumone.com
San Francisco, CA

Rocket Fuel
www.rocketfuel.com
Redwood City, CA

Smaato
www.smaato.com
Redwood Shores, CA

Specific Media
www.specificmedia.com
Irvine, CA

Tremor Media
www.tremorvideo.com
New York, NY

YuMe
www.yume.com
Redwood City, CA

B2B: Technology Enablers

Act-On Software
www.actonsoftware.com
Beaverton, OR

Altruik
www.altruik.com
New York, NY

AppNexus
www.appnexus.com
New York, NY

BrightEdge
www.brightedge.com
San Mateo, CA

Buddy Media
www.buddymedia.com
New York, NY

ClickSquared
www.clicksquared.com
Boston, MA

Conductor
www.conductor.com
New York, NY

Crowd Factory
www.crowdfactory.com
San Francisco, CA

Evidon
www.evidon.com
New York, NY

ExactTarget
www.exacttarget.com
Indianapolis, IN

Fiksu
Boston, MA
www.fiksu.com

Get Satisfaction
www.getsatisfaction.com
San Francisco, CA

Kaltura
corp.kaltura.com
New York, NY

Manilla
www.manilla.com
New York, NY

Marketo
www.marketo.com
San Mateo, CA

Martini Media Network
www.martinimedianetwork.com
San Francisco, CA

Meebo
www.meebo.com
Mountain View, CA

Revinate
www.revinate.com
San Francisco, CA

Sailthru
www.sailthru.com
New York, NY

ShareThis
www.sharethis.com
Mountain View, CA

Simulmedia
www.simulmedia.com
New York, NY

Spiceworks
www.spiceworks.com
Austin, TX

Square
www.squareup.com
San Francisco, CA

WhichBox Media
www.whichboxmedia.com
Dallas, TX

Zuberance
www.zuberance.com
San Carlos, CA

Consumer: Community Platforms

7Echo
www.7echo.com
New York, NY

AdKeeper
www.adkeeper.com
New York, NY

BiteHunter
www.bitehunter.com
New York, NY

DailyWorth
New York, NY
www.dailyworth.com

foursquare
www.foursquare.com
New York, NY

GetGlue
www.getglue.com
New York, NY

MyCityWay
www.mycityway.com
New York, NY

MyLife
www.mylife.com
Los Angeles, CA

Quora
www.quora.com
Palo Alto, CA

Shazam
www.shazam.com
London, U.K.

SkyGrid
www.skygrid.com
Sunnyvale, CA

Tumblr
www.tumblr.com
New York, NY

Twitter
www.twitter.com
San Francisco, CA

Twitvid
www.twitvid.com
San Francisco, CA

Yelp
www.yelp.com
San Francisco, CA

Consumer: Online Content Publishers

Aereo
www.aereo.com
New York, NY

BlogHer
www.blogher.com
Belmont, CA

Boxee
www.boxee.tv
New York, NY

BuzzFeed
www.buzzfeed.com
New York, NY

Everyday Health
www.everydayhealth.com
New York, NY

Glam Media
www.glam.com
Brisbane, CA

Consumer: Social Commerce

500friends
www.500friends.com
San Francisco, CA

Bespoke Post
www.bespokepost.com
New York, NY

Beyond the Rack
www.beyondtherack.com
New York, NY

Birchbox
www.birchbox.com
New York, NY

Cartera Commerce
www.cartera.com
Lexington, MA

Etsy
www.etsy.com
Brooklyn, NY

Gilt Groupe
www.gilt.com
New York, NY

Kiip
www.kiip.me
San Francisco, CA

LivingSocial
www.livingsocial.com
Washington DC

Lot18
www.lot18.com
New York, NY

One Kings Lane
www.onekingslane.com
San Francisco, CA

Shopify
www.shopify.com
Ottowa, Ont. Canada

Totsy
www.totsy.com
New York, NY

Yipit
www.yipit.com
New York, NY

The 2012 OnMedia Ones to Watch:

Bluefin Labs
www.bluefinlabs.com
Cambridge, MA

BranchOut
www.branchout.com
San Francisco, CA

Brilig
www.brilig.com
New York, NY

CampaignGrid
www.campaigngrid.com
Fort Washington, PA

Complex Media
www.complexmedia.com
New York, NY

Conviva
www.conviva.com
San Mateo, CA

Crowd Science
www.crowdscience.com
San Jose, CA

Dynamic Signal
www.dynamicsignal.com
San Bruno, CA

EmpowHER
www.empowher.com
Scottsdale, AZ

Group Commerce
www.groupcommerce.com
New York, NY

Have to Have
www.havetohave.com
New York, NY

Moat
www.moat.com
New York, NY

NetShelter Technology Media
www.netshelter.com
San Francisco, CA

numberFire
www.numberfire.com
New York, NY

Personal
www.personal.com
Washington DC

Segment Interactive
www.segmentinteractive.com
Los Angeles, CA

SinglePlatform
www.singleplatform.com
New York, NY

TouchStorm
www.touchstorm.com
New York, NY

Unruly Media
www.unrulymedia.com
London, U.K.

Webloyalty
www.webloyalty.com
New York, NY

Social Video Ad Firm Unruly Media Closes $25M in Funding

Originally published Jan 4th, 2012 @ http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=79690

 

Will use investment to drive international growth, take the lead in social video advertising.

By Troy Dreier
Posted on January 4, 2012

Page 1

How important is a successful viral video campaign nowadays? Important enough that London-based Unruly Media, a specialist in social video advertising, just closed a $25 million series A funding round. Amadeus Capital Partners, Van den Ende & Deitmers, and Business Growth Fund all took part in the round.

Unruly works with brands' media agencies or ad agencies to create effective online video advertising campaigns. It's played a part in Evian's Roller Babies, Old Spice's Man Your Man Could Smell Like, and T-Mobile's Life's for Sharing campaigns.

Unruly was founded in 2006 and has been profitable since 2009. It plans to use the funding to grow internationally and become the global leader in social video advertising.

The proprietary RAMP (real-time amplification and measurement program) powers Unruly's social video campaigns. Since founding, it has delivered and tracked 1.34 billion video views for over 1,400 campaigns. Clients include Electronic Arts, Adidas, and Unilever.

"Today represents an important milestone for the company and social video as a whole," says Unruly's founder and group CEO Scott Button. "Five years ago, we set out to help brands capture the massive opportunity in social video and we're delighted that such a distinguished group of investors share our conviction."

The Problem With Online Advertising Is That There Are So Many Problems Dumage.com serves as a microcosm of the industry's many ills By Mike Shields

 

Want to know why many big brand advertisers are still seriously wary of the Internet? Just check out Dumage.com.

On Friday, a post called “Hot Girls in Demotivational Posters” served as a showcase for nearly everything that ills online advertising. For one, there were between 11 and 13 different ads appearing on the page at once, mostly for blue-chip brands ranging from Marriott to JetBlue to Progressive to Lacoste.

The ridiculous clutter’s one thing. The content is another.Dumage features lots of racy photos with captions such as “GiganticTits, God’s Apology to Fat Girls” and “Lesbians. All Girls Have It in

About the Author

Mike Shields is a digital editor for Adweek.

@digitalshields

@Syfy I would like to know when you guys are finally going to run a Hippo movie. "Hippo in NY" "Hippos Attack!" Something along those lines

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Them. For Some It Comes Naturally. OthersNeed Alcohol.” It’s possible that these brands are fine with this sortof thing (one person’s offensive content is another’s favorite).Possible, but unlikely.

Other brands spotted on Dumage’s Hot Girls post were Verizon and Busch Gardens—running vertical banners directly adjacent to one another. Same for Bing and Budget (it's doubtful these brands paid to be right on top of one another). In the case of the Verizon banner, it carried an Ad Choices icon—one of the online ad industry’s many public relations attempts aimed at proving it takes privacy seriously. Though in this case, the Ad Choices icon inadvertently provided some eye-opening insight into this unfortunate placement. The ads were delivered by ValueClick, and their delivery was tracked by none other than DoubleVerify, one of the leaders in the ad verification space. Companies like DoubleVerify exist solely to prevent this sort of thing.

When contacted about Dumage, DoubleVerify CEO Oren Netzer said that some advertisers only use DoubleVerify’s technology for reporting, not actually blocking questionable ad placements. Regardless, advertisers need to be diligent about protecting their brands from sites they aren’t OK with, despite using technology designed to prohibit undesirable adjacencies.

“The reality for real-time bidding is that there are many sites with low-quality content, high views and no direct sales force,” Netzer said. “It is a challenge for advertisers which use real-time bidding technology to ensure brand safety without integrations with verification data. This underscores the importance of verifying campaigns continuously. Advertisers need to proactively approach targeting to brand-safe content because if they already know what content they don't want to be on, they should be able to target content that they know will be good for their brand."
It’s not just ValueClick and DoubleVerify that are listed as working with Dumage. Several other banner ads included revealing AdChoices icons. Hertz’s banner was apparently delivered by Sojern. Clearspring Technologies was also listed as serving ads to the site. A JetBlue ad was targeted to users via the demand side platform Turn Inc., while an Amazon ad arrived via 888Media.

However, as one source noted, it's possible that the information provided within AdChoices icons are not up to date, or even generic. But there are other ways of getting at which companies are involved in serving particular ads on a page. In fact, via Google’s Chrome browser, which also provides insight into what third parties have placed tags or ad pixels on a particular site, it's hard to find a company from the online ad ecosystem that doesn’t somehow work with Dumage. Among the companies Chrome identified include Ligit, PubMatic, DoubleClick, Technorati, BlueLithium, Advertising.com, Amazon and Admeld.

Schlockly placement of display ads are one thing. Video is often touted as the Internet's true savior when it comes to brand advertising. And you probably won’t be surprised that at one point Dumage served a below-the-fold autoplay ad for Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes.

Yet a pair of video ads on Dumage aroused far more alarming questions. Several ads were found on Dumage.com delivered by Viewable Media, which is a division of the Web video analytics firm Visible Measures, while several others were served by a European company called ebuzzing.com. Among the brands spotted were Nike, Jaguar, TJ Maxx and Microsoft (Visible Measures), as well as Lacoste for eBuzzing.

Ads ending up in the wrong place via a video ad network? It happens. Here’s the problem: Both Visible Measures and ebuzzing bill themselves as “social video” companies. Their presence on a site like Dumage could call into question the entire social video category,which has been red-hot to date.

That’s because social video companies claim to be fundamentally different than video ad networks in that they “seed” video ads across the Web, delivering them only to users that want to see them. Firms like Sharethrough and Unruly Media talk about distributing ads via editorial relationships with bloggers and inciting users to share and spread advertisers' videos via social media.

So what are these companies doing on Dumage? Well, in the case of ebuzzing’s Lacoste campaign, Dumage may actually be OK. According to Jeremy Arditi, eBuzzing’s vp of business development, his company actually doesn’t claim that all of its traffic comes from “social video” distribution; it delivers some video ads to long-tail sites just like any other network to ensure ad deliveries.

Plus, to prevent against any problems, eBuzzing employs a verification firm Adloox, which scans the pages where eBuzzing’s clients appear. Thus, it’s possible that Dumage was deemed safe. “Brand safety is something we take very seriously,” said Arditi.

The case of Visible Measures is more curious. That company, which built its business as a video analytics provider, has only been in the social video space for about a year. According to CEO Brian Shin, he’s not sure how the company’s ads ended up on Dumage, since the ads did not contain Visible Measure’s unique ad serving code.

Shin blamed an unnamed partner for making an error. “This looks like it was so kind of rogue placement,” he said. “Somebody did something not kosher.”

However, per Shin, that sort of thing is bound to happen with social video campaigns since inherently they are designed to encourage users to share a brand’s ads. “We’ve never had this happen before. But this is something that the industry will struggle with," he said.

A rep from Dumage named Bojan denied any knowledge of Visible Measures. He was less than helpful in tracking down which companies Dumage actually works with. "You will have to tell us exact position of ad on site if you want us to give you more information," wrote Bojan in an email.

However, Adweek has learned of other questionable practices employed by Visible Measures. For example, a campaign executed for Nike within the Facebook game Superhero City offered players more energy in exchange for watching a Nike ad.

That sort of incentivized video view is becoming increasingly more common. But in this instance, to watch the Nike ad, users were first redirected from the game to a sports blog, Everyjoe.com. There, they could receive an energy boost for viewing the video ad.

Was Visible Measures trying to make it look like it was delivering its advertiser video views within a more legitimate editorial environment, rather than within and incentivized gaming environment? Shin says the company never claims to deliver video views within editorial, as other companies in the sector do.

Again, Shin blamed a third party. “This is clearly not our highest quality ad approach," he said. "I don’t know why this happened this way. I don’t particularly enjoy this technique. I will investigate this.”

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/problem-online-advertising-there-are-so-many-problems-139071

Marketers Struggle to Link Digital Data to ‘Big Data’ Picture

 

MARCH 19, 2012

Lack of digital insight and internal data-sharing challenge companies

Marketers are abuzz over “Big Data” for its promise to deliver a more complete understanding of each customer, who can then be targeted with advertising tailored exactly to the individual.

But according to February 2012 research from Columbia Business School’s Center on Global Brand Leadership and the New York American Marketing Association (NYAMA), organizational hurdles and barriers to data implementation were some of the biggest challenges to Big Data integration.

More than half (51%) of US marketers said their biggest “Big Data” challenge was the lack of sharing of data among company departments. In addition, despite the large quantity of data that marketers may acquire, 42% of respondents said it was still too difficult to tie that data back to individual customers, and 45% said personalizing marketing communications—closely related to linking data to customers—was a major challenge.

A good portion (39%) of marketers also reported difficulty collecting customer data fast enough—a mandatory requirement for brands hoping to achieve immediate message personalization. Similarly, September 2011 findings from web data monitoring firm Connotate stressed the importance of real-time data collection: 83% of US data-aggregation managers said timeliness and freshness of the marketing message were important web data characteristics.

Connotate found about a third (31%) of companies aimed to be able to collect customer data on a daily basis, and 12% expected to do so on an hourly basis. About a quarter (24%) said they would be satisfied with weekly data collection.

Columbia Business School and NYAMA also found the most popular data types collected by US marketers were demographic info (74%), customer transaction data (64%) and customer usage data (60%). Though digital channels are typically more robust sources of data, just 35% of marketers monitored social media content, 33% social network influencers and 19% customer mobile data. Difficulties implementing digital tracking or challenges tying digital data back to traditional ad channels could be causes of lower data collection activity.

Without the ability to integrate Big Data collection and usage processes, companies are certain to fall short in delivering a truly personalized customer experience integrated across ad formats and channels. Such a mandate is of significant importance as consumers increasingly interact with brands across multiple channels and screens. Those who succeed first in using Big Data will have an edge over brands and marketers who are unable to tie information to action.

Marketers in Brazil Double Down on Social Media

 

MARCH 19, 2012

Social media marketers in Brazil expect to increase spending on social advertising in 2012

A February 2012 white paper from Microsoft Advertising, “Driving Word of Mouth with Social Advertising,” reported that 55% of heavy social media advertisers worldwide were planning on increasing their social media ad budgets in 2012.

A majority of marketers in Brazil and the US saw room for growing social media ad budgets in their countries, at 81% and 64%, respectively, compared to a minority of marketers in countries such as France, the UK and Canada.

Marketers in Brazil have good reason to expect increases in social ad budgets: eMarketer forecasts social network users in Brazil will reach 75.7 million in 2012, for an internet user penetration rate of 87.6%.

According to the white paper, the No. 1 worldwide goal of social media marketers was increasing word-of-mouth, whether through rebroadcasting ratings and reviews or generating product and brand conversations on blogs or discussion boards. With social networks reaching so many internet users in Brazil, online word-of-mouth’s importance is almost a given.