Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Norman Becomes GroupM CEO
The quotable Rob Norman, digital chief of the biggest media buying agency on the planet, GroupM, has become even chief-ier with his elevation to the CEO role at WPP’s GroupM according to Michael Bush of AdAge. Norman takes over for retiring Marc Goldstein as AdAge’s Michael Learmonth suggests in a tweet that the promotion is a “sign that first-gen ‘digital’ execs [are] starting to take charge.” Read the AdAge article.
Open Source Exchange
Angel investor Jerry Neumann unsheaths his sharp quill (audience gasp!) once again on his Reaction Wheel blog. Neumann argues that with Google potentially owning the only exchange that everyone uses, while simultaneously servicing only certain constituents of the exchange ecosystem, ain’t right. Someone smells a Goldman Sachs strategy. Must be time for open source! Read more.
Khan Sees Display Ad Surge
J.P. Morgan’s Imran Khan says display ads are about to take off as “display spending will surge by 10.5 percent this year after a 5 percent dip last year, with display CPMs rising by 5 percent” according to coverage of JP Morgan’s 2010 Internet Industry Outlook by Mediaweek’s Mike Shields. In Khan’s conference call with reporters, Shields writes that Khan was still a bit unhappy with the way display advertising is playing out these days with publishers: “‘Consumers are not really paying attention anymore.’ And the games that site play to increase ad impressions by spreading an article out across numerous pages are ‘extremely annoying.'” But spending is going up! Read more. Check out 10 slides on display from the presentation here on Business Insider.
All Things D’s Peter Kafka thinks that the course which Tim Armstrong is plotting for AOL advertising is simple enough: “Sell less stuff, at higher prices.” After years of what he notes as the deleterious effect of Platform A which de-emphasized direct sales (with a nice Imran Khan graphic showing diminishing CPMs in the article), Kafka sees AOL’s “route” as mimicking those recently announced by Yahoo! and CBS. Read more.
Media Delta
After an interesting post by Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson led to an exhaustive list of comments and opinions on whether Wilson was making what he deserved from his affiliate links given the likely influence he has on purchase, Jonathan Mendez put it into graphical format. Mendez says, “The buy-side of the media landscape is capturing all the value of the media while the sell-side, the side where the value is being created with content & audience is getting played.” See the graphic and read more.
Better Targeting, Less Profit
Yes, that’s right… better targeting can mean less profit according to the MIT’s Sloan School of Management. But, it’s what we knew all along – in a way. MIT Sloan Assistant Professor Alessandro Bonatti provides part of his thesis as follows: “As technology keeps improving, more and more web sites can sell very narrow products to very specialized audiences. And with lots of people targeting the same audience, the profits to be made through specialized advertising become more and more spread out.” Problem for the media property with undifferentiated content certainly, but for the advertiser, it’s only getting better. Read the release.
Privacy Legislation A-Go-Go
ClickZ’s Jack Marshall reminds that online privacy legislation is potentially only another session of Congress away as he summarizes recent events in the tangled world of the online privacy debate. No news is not necessarily good news even if last year’s expected legislation never developed. Read more.
Just Like An SEM
The Efficient Frontier blog has a post from business analyst Shay O’Reilly who looks at the importance of understanding how much a lead costs which is generated through SEM versus what the ultimate value of a conversion is. All of the math-driven findings are applicable to display and once again shows what a great fit search marketers will be for the evolving display ad business. Read it.
Cliché Fever
At the end of the day, it’s water under the bridge, but does it ever feel like someone’s playing the same old tune which you’ve heard 24/7/365? Inspired by a recent Financial Times, Paul Kedrosky looks at a Google News archive search for use of “elephant-in-the-room.” Conclusion: too many clichés in the room these days. See it.
Your Computational Advertising Class
Which one of you missed the Computational Advertising class this past semester at Stanford? If it was you, then you missed professor Andrei Broder’s lecture on display advertising (Broder is VP and Chief Scientist at Yahoo and leads their Advertising Technology Group). You can still get the PDF of his presentation here. (source: Greg Linden)
Clickable Gurus Unleashed
Clickable gathered all their “gurus” together and put them in an equipment shed (wait, no, they didn’t) and asked them to provide some search advertising predictions for 2010. From “guru” Ehren Reilly, the importance of Google’s new real-time search feature which incorporates Twitter feeds is key and suggests, “…take advantage by tweeting positive things you want customers to read when they search for you on Google.” Read all the tips and predictions.
Pinch, Flurry and ComScore
Mobile analytics firm Flurry, which was recently acquired by Pinch Media, announced another deal – this time with ComScore – where Flurry will become a mobile audience measurement provider to the audience measurement giant. Read more from Mark Walsh on Media Post.
