Weather Targeting; Kellogg's Consolidates

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Weather Targeting

A Wall Street Journal article identifies a number of “weather sentiment” products the Weather Company is working on. The WSJ’s Katherine Rossman writes, “Weather has always influenced the retail economy, and the Weather Co. has long sold forecasts to airlines and energy traders. But now that it is combining that information with data gleaned from mobile devices, it is marketing its platform to a wider range of consumer companies. The digital business now generates 50% of the company’s advertising revenue, the company says.” Mobile device app data – valuable first-party data alert! Read it (subscription).

Kellogg’s Consolidates

With more than half of Kellogg’s online media spending being channeled through programmatic, the breakfast cereal marketer is looking to simplify the digital video part of those activities. The company has chosen online video marketplace operator BrightRoll for the job. “We’ve worked with various partners, but felt very good about BrightRoll’s technology, particularly in audience targeting,” said Bob Arnold, associate director of Global Digital Strategy at Kellogg. “We were also very impressed with their analytics organization.” Read the release.

Payment Data

Yesterday AllThingsD reported that Facebook is testing a payment product. TechCrunch’s Josh Constine picks up the baton and notes the “ads” angle: “Rather than collecting fees, Facebook’s payments test will give it data about whether your ad clicks lead to revenue for advertisers. Say you got that ecommerce app through a Facebook ad whose click cost the app $0.25. If you then make a $20 purchase using the Facebook info fill-in option, Facebook can then report back to the advertiser that their ad buy earned them a return on investment.” Read more. Hmm…a newly-updated Atlas ad server seems to be bubbling here as Facebook looks to close the loop (even more) on behalf of direct advertisers.

Video Bots, Viewability

Adweek reporter Mike Shields’ unidentified agency sources tell him that AOL’s latest acquisition, video marketplace Adap.tv, has serious problems with malfeasance such as click bots and nonviewable impressions. Adap.tv CEO Amir Ashkenazi denies the assertions, as Shields reports: “Per Ashkenazi, Adap.tv bans five to 10 sites per week, and has kicked out over 40 this month. It has four employees dedicated solely to weeding out questionable inventory[.]” Read more.

How Local Works

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TikTok Search, But It’s Going For Amazon; Can CTV Supply Outpace Demand?

Speaking of AOL, CEO Tim Armstrong found out the hard way that hyperlocal is difficult to scale. Ad Age spoke to a couple of small, local publishers and the general consensus is that local works on a micro scale, but not as a large corporation. “With a lot of local advertisers, you only have one chance to prove your value and you have to over deliver on your promises,” said Liena Zagare, owner of four small sites. “I do think it’s easier to do that on a smaller network than on a grand scale.” Read more.

Clean Native

Outbrain is doing its part to keep “native” from becoming a dirty word by rejecting low-quality editorial. According to MediaPost, the company rejects 50% of all marketer content. “As more and more shady behavior sprouts up in the content marketing space, it becomes increasingly important for us to stay true to our values, even if it comes at the expense of short-term revenues,” according to Outbrain CEO Yaron Galai. Read more.

Twitter Testing

Twitter continues to test new features for its platform, and this time it’s for nearby events, according to TechCrunch. Yesterday it appeared the company was testing a feature for promoted TV, but in both cases Twitter declined to comment and simply pointed to a post about innovation and testing. TechCrunch reached out to someone at the company that was featured in the promoted event, but it seems there was no prior knowledge they were part of the test. Read more.

eBay Data Play

The UK’s Marketing Week highlights eBay’s roll-out an opt-in service that lets customers check in at brick-and-mortar stores on their smartphones, giving store assistants information about previous purchases to tailor the shopping experience. “With this new technology, retailers will be able to gather more detail that can help them understand the customer and compete in a crowded commerce landscape,” said David Geisinger, head of retail business strategy at eBay Enterprise. Read more. An interesting trade of online-offline data. EBay, the DMP.

Ad Pivot

Although CafePress experienced a lot of success with its customizable “gear” product line, the company has pivoted to include social media in the mix. Forbes is reporting that with the new tools, customers are able to create and advertise their products using the power of social. “With the release of our new world-class platform tools, we’re trying to make it easier for anyone to create amazing products, utilize the latest in social media to advertise their creation and earn money by connecting directly with our millions of customers,” CafePress Prez Sumant Sridharan added. Read more.

Loyalty Investment

Mobile rewards company Kiip announced the addition of American Express Ventures to its roster of investors. In a blog post, Kiip co-founder and CEO Brian Wong wrote, “As Kiip expands into more verticals, becoming even more integrated into peoples’ lives beyond gaming, we have evolved beyond media and advertising into a company that builds value into every moment.” Read more. Trend: another purchase data story!

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