Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Graphing The Ad Recovery
Bnet’s Jim Edwards that the signs have arrived that show a recovery in the advertising market and plots a few Excel graphs showing signs of improvement at ad holding companies such as Omnicom, IPG, Publicis, MDC Partners, Lamar Advertising and Valassis. Edwards concludes, “The unanswered question is, Are companies starting to increase their marketing again? Or are we merely stopped at a landing on a still-descending staircase?” See it.
Privacy Debated In DC
On ClickZ, Kate Kaye covers the beginning of hearings on Capital Hill regarding the tracking of consumer behaviors online and offline as congressional staffers are getting briefed by both sides of the debate. Congressman Bobby Rush will be holding a hearing on Thursday on data collection. Read more.
Drug Marketing Online
In “The danger of marketing prescription drugs online,” David Lazarus of The Los Angeles Times looks at how Google, Yahoo and the pharma world are grappling with advertising online. Yahoo! VP of Display tells Lazarus, “We need more transparency. You can’t just take the same rules from print and TV and put them online.” Read more.
Hanlon Shows A Card
Tim Hanlon has found the first of his new jobs outside of VivaKi – at least that AdExchanger.com has seen. The VivaKi EVP, who announced his departure last month from Publicis, has been named to the Board Of Advisors of DTV media planning company, Leap Media Group, as the company looks to no doubt leverage his AMEX-Black-like Rolodex. Read the release.
Iframes And Transparency
Rob Leathern goes into the weeds and comes out ALIVE in his CPM Advisors blog post, “The Iframe Tax: The Iframe Tag versus the Javascript Ad Tag.” Leathern discusses the lack of transparency (can’t see the publisher URL, for example) that the use of Iframes by certain publishers provides in ad serving and how this someday will be overcome as the marketplace requires transparency. Eat weeds now.
The Lean Startup Video
The Lean Startup “method” has come to Finland and Eric Ries’ presentation on his formula for how best to create and manage an entrepreneurial endeavor is now available in video. Arctic Startup blog’s Ville Vesterinen says that this is “the one presentation that I would not miss as a startup out of all the presentations ever made. Real gold dust!” Get gold here.
The Procurement Predicament
On Advertising Age, Interpublic’s Tara Comonte, who is COO/CFO of Mediabrands, talks about the agency world’s most dreaded relationship, the procurement officer. Comonte tells Ad Age’s Michael Bush that “It’s up to us to say ‘no’ sometimes, particularly when it’s for the benefit of our clients.” Read the article.
Ad Network Investment
VentureBeat’s Kim-Mai Cutler reports that one of “the largest ad networks built around the Facebook platform,” RockYou, has raised a whopping $50 million to reach a grand, investment total 0f $119 million. Makes you wonder what the VC are hoping for in regards to an exit. Softbank was the only VC participant in this round according to Cutler who says Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Partech International and DCM have invested previously. Read about it.
The Mob Likes Video
AdMob hasn’t stopped working – at least the PR machine hasn’t – since it was announced that Google acquired the mobile ad network. Yesterday, the company announced video ads that will have “real-time” interactivity for the Iphone. The company said in the release: “The Interactive Video Ad Unit will be sold primarily as an interstitial that will automatically play as an application loads.” Read the release.
Inside Intel Capital
Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat reports on Intel Capital’s recent investment momentum. Takahashi says the computer chip manufacturer’s venture arm has invested in 7 start-ups to the tune of $25 million including cloud computing infrastructure company, Joyent. Read more on VentureBeat. And, more discussion on Joyent on GigaOm.
