Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Publisher As Agency
The Wall Street Journal’s Emily Steel covers publishing company, Meredith, and its recent transformation as, in part, a marketing agency. According to Steele, recent acquisitions by the venerable publishing company in the digital agency space has attracted business from Kraft Foods, Chrysler and Wells Fargo to name a few. And, Meredith isn’t done acquiring yet. Read more about publisher as agency.
IAB Meeting Redux
Mediaweek’s Mike Shield’s provides an overview of the recent IAB Annual Meeting. Technology appears to be a threat when, in fact, it should be their friend as increasing transparency will bring efficiency. On the other hand, introducing scarcity by selling direct makes sense, too. It’s part of the equation and shouldn’t be seen as a defensive measure against tech. Publishers need to understand technology, networks and exchanges and its benefits rather than run and hide from it. Read Shields’ summary.
Aggregate Knowledge Approved For Credit
In a release, Silicon Valley bank, Bridge Bank, announced that “it has provided term financing and a working capital line of credit to Aggregate Knowledge to support the company’s continued growth.” Aggregate Knowledge said the funds will be used to “expand its Discovery Platform and deliver more value to its clients with new and exciting audience management and dynamic creative capabilities.” Often the purpose of a credit facility is to provide an infusion of cash while precluding the need to give away equity in the company as a venture capital deal will. Read more.
Agency holding company MDC Partners, owners of Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, kbsp and Varick Media announced its fourth quarter and full-year 2009 results on Wednesday as “Revenue increased to $149.7 million vs. $144.7 million in Q4 2008, an increase of 3.4%” and “MDC EBITDA increased to $18.3 million vs. $17.1 million in Q4 2008, an increase of 7.0%.” CEO Miles Nadal said in the release, “Our focus on acquiring thought leading talent and expanding our capabilities in digital and data analytics are core to our ability to drive increasing return on marketing investment for our clients and market share gains for MDC. We expect another strong year in 2010.” Read it.
The Agency Gold Medal
Al DiGuido, CEO of Zeta Interactive, delivers “the goods” when he predicts what agencies will look like in 5 years. A favorite observation: “Analytics Will Decorate the Trophy Mantles” rather than “awards and accolades.” Read more.
Agency As Incubator
On Imedia Connection, Global Director of Interactive Strategies Renny Gleason of Wieden + Kennedy talks about the “PIE [Portland Incubator Experiment], our technology and cultural disruption accelerator.” Whoa.. new acronym. Gleason goes on to explain that the intention is to bring local tech entrepreneurs together with agency types in the local area in hopes of W + K incubating a few companies. Read more.
Valuing The Data
MediaPost’s Joe Mandese covers a panel at this week’s OMMA Metrics & Measurement conference where Adam Gerber of Quantcast and kbs+p’s Darren Herman considered how digital advertising will be valued in the future. Data value is a frustration as Herman said, “We can all buy data. But what is the price and value? There is a big market gap right now about the value of that data.” He added that he has an agenda and predicted the appearance of a “valuation company” in the next 1 to 3 years. Read about the agenda.
AdMob’s New Whitepaper
It’s a new whitepaper! Mobile ad network, AdMob, has released its “AdMob Mobile Metrics Report” and includes data and insights that it says it gleaned from 15,000 websites in its network in January 2010. Lots of operator and handset charts for gadget enthusiasts. An interesting demo finding from the report: “* 73% of Android users are male, compared to 58% of webOS users, 57% of iPhone users and 54% iPod touch users.” Read and then download it.
Microsoft and ComScore on CPG
From Microsoft Advertising blog, Dana Swygard announces that Microsoft and ComScore will team on “CPG Online Effect, [which] allows advertisers to create custom targets that are based on purchase and online behaviors. These targets run across the Microsoft network and we’re able to track offline sales as a result.” Read more.
Associated Content Looking For Buyer
Fresh from its new partnership with Rubicon Project, investment Allen & Co. is getting busy with Associated Content according to All Things D’s Peter Kafka. Kafka prognosticates on potential acquirers of the content-generating company including its competition, Demand Media. Read more.
2009 Ad Spend
Nielsen has released its final figures for 2009 ad spending across all channels. The “Internet” channel showed flat growth whereas cable was up 14%. Sadly, your favorite Sunday Supplement (a.k.a. kindling) finished dead last as its ad spend cratered 44%. Get the release (PDF).
Malware Attacks
ksl.com in Salt Lake City, Utah, announced on Thursday that its site had been invaded by malware and offered a complete report – including screenshots of the perpetrating ads. Blame was placed on “one of our 3rd party ad networks.” Read more.
Transparency And Attribution
Scott Burke, VP of engineering at Yahoo, gives Ad Age readers a walkthrough on the pleasures of the new data-driven display advertising environment. Burke advocates for more transparency from publishers so that marketers can perform better attribution modeling and move beyond the click as a success metric. Read more.
We Shall Call It DoubleClick Ad Planner
The Google Ad Planner received a makeover and became DoubleClick Ad Planner which synch with recent naming nomenclature used on DoubleClick Publisher products. The DoubleClick blog says in addition to re-naming the product, a wider array of metrics are now available. Read more.
