Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Online Video Ad Upfront
The Upfront, as it has been known, is a time of year where marketers and broadcast media companies lock down big deals for the year. Mediaweek’s Mike Shields says that online video ad networks are out to “steal” a share of those upfront dollars. Shields writes, “Companies like BBE, Tremor Media, YuMe and others are planning a sales push during the next few months as they foresee traditional brands allocating dollars to video in conjunction with their TV outlay for the upcoming season.” Read more about digital storming the ramparts.
The Clutter Of Display Ads
ComScore SVP of Sales, Jeff Hackett, reprises his Advertising Research Foundation presentation from last week in a ComScore blog post. Discussing the four main challenges to display advertising, Hackett offers Ad Clutter as the #1 challenge saying, “Good advertising is about telling a story and by cluttering a web page with several competing messages, there is simply no way to effectively engage with the average consumer. Can you imagine if TV ads featured 4 or 5 different advertisers on the screen at the same time?” Read more.
Data Costs More Than Media
Jack Marshall of ClickZ pulls together facts and figures of recent weeks showing data may be costing more than media. In discussing data from verticals like autos, finance and travel, VivaKi SVP Kurt Unkel told ClickZ recently that “there ‘are often instances’ the Publicis-owned group pays more for profile data to help target users with relevant ads, than the actual media through which those messages are delivered.” Read more.
AOL has roped another executive steer as analyst Jeff Lindsay of i-bank Sanford Bernstein has become the VP of strategy and ops for AOL in its content division. Ad Age’s Michael Learmonth notes that this is yet another high profile hire to go along with Saul Hansell, a former reporter for the NY Times, ex-Yahoo! Brad “Peanut Butter” Garlinghouse, as well as several Google execs. Read more.
Turn Gets Shout Out
From the iMedia Breakthrough Summit, Turn got a big shout out from Adam Kleinberg, CEO of creative agency, Traction. Kleinberg summarized all of his one-minute meetings with companies and said this about Turn: “My opinion, Turn is one of the most significant companies in the digital advertising industry. They have a tool called a DSP (Direct Something Platform) that allows you to circumvent ad networks and plug directly into the exchanges to buy your inventory.” Read more about his one-minute meetings.
The Grin F*cker
Prolific blogger and VC, Mark Suster, delivers another seminal post with “The Grin F*cker.” What is it? “In business when someone smiles and shakes your hand assuring you that they have heard and will act upon your recommendation or concerns when in truth you have already been ignored and dismissed.” Ah, there we go. Read more about the grin, etc.
Adobe and Google Love
The L.A. Times blog shoots down the notion that recent, business-like, amorous overtures by Google toward Adobe is nothing more than business-as-usual rather than some sort of plot against Apple. The L.A. Times’ Mark Milian notes that the two companies work together on the Flash-friendly Open Screen Project. But, Google is also working on its implementation of HTML5 for YouTube and elsewhere. Read more.
Death Of AdWords Reseller Program?
From his Screenwerk blog, Greg Sterling reports on the rumor that the “lifeblood of local SEM landscape” over the years may be coming to an end as Google’s AdWords Reseller program could be put to rest. “There has always been a certain tension between Google and some of its partners over margins and the percentage of advertiser spend going to buying media. Some of the partners seek “print-like margins,” while Google sees much smaller margins as being appropriate (agency like margins),” according to Sterling. Read more. It would seem Google just doesn’t need it anymore. But how about a reseller program just for display? Now that might make sense.
Home Page Takeover Case Study
Yahoo! shares results on its advertising blog of a brand advertising campaign for Quaker Oats. According to Yahoo!, the “Go Humans Go” brand effort delivered big time for the client as the two, half-day, rich media, display campaigns yielded “Quaker more than 70 million impressions each time the ad ran, well beyond their expectations. Moreover, search volume on Quaker Oats on both days went up 28 percent and 21 percent, respectively.” Read more. Somewhere, there is a designer that is deservedly happy with themselves.
New Tech Column
Fuor Digital’s Josh Dreller has started a new tech column on iMedia where he looks at different clusters of ad technology. “This week is ‘outsourced ad operations,’ but the coming weeks will include social media targeting, demand side platforms, keyword research tools, web analytics tools, etc.” Better get on Josh’s list! See the first column.
Video For The iPad
Brightcove announced that its preparing for the launch of the iPad by enabling its services with HTML5 compatability. HTML5 is the competitor to Flash, as you may recall. Not a Steve Jobs favorite for the iPhone to-date. According to VentureBeat, “Major sites like the New York Times and Time are already taking advantage of the company’s HTML5 video support, and have used it to develop iPad-ready versions of their websites.” Read more from VB. And, read the announcement about HTML5 on the Brightcove blog.
