Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
More Legislation Machinations
MediaWeek’s Mike Shields looks at pending financial reform legislation that could provide enhanced powers to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) around the use of data. Also Rep Rick Boucher is set to introduce legislation in the next few weeks but it sounds less onerous than before when behavioral opt-in was bandied about. Shields writes, “Where I want to go with this is generally opt out,’ Boucher said, meaning Web users would be able to opt out of receiving targeted ads.” Read it.
Ad Age On Offline/Online Data
Ad Age has written an editorial which chides marketers who may choose to use offline data saying, “The FTC is already watching. And it’s not a very big stretch to imagine an unpopular Congress taking up the issue and playing it as a bipartisan matter of protecting unwitting consumers from nefarious marketers.” Read the editorial. In another Ad Age piece, writer Michael Learmonth provides an overview on the online/offline data landscape and looks at companies such as eXelate (who recently announced a deal with Nielsen) and Datran’s Aperture which use offline data online in various ways. Read more.
Display Revolution A-Coming
MediaPost’s Joe Mandese captures Google VP Neal Mohan’s comments at last week’s OMMA Global event on banner blindness and what he says will be the huge revolution ahead for the display advertising marketplace. Read the four “themes” that underpin this revolution.
Former CEO, North America at Aegis Media, Sarah Fay presented her “Targeting Evolution” overview to the advertiser-centric crowd at last week’s X+1 NexTargeting event in New York City. The broad overview offers insights on the impact of technology and innovation in advertising such as the move from buying placement to buying audience. See and download the presentation.
Agency Goes Public – No, Really
This is something you don’t hear everyday. An agency is going public – albeit in the red-hot Chinese market. Mohit Manghnani of Seeking Alpha looks at the pending IPO of Redgate Media which expect to raise $22.3 million for the company which “advertising and advertising agency services through an integrated cross-media platform.” Read more.
Gorilla Nation Etal. Speaks
ClickZ’s Fred Aun writes that the owners of site rep firm Gorilla Nation are throwing a coming out party. Evolve Media has never had a name before evidently in spite of the fact they owned Gorilla Nation, AtomicOnline, Double Helix, and Springboard. Evolve and Gorilla Nation CEO Aaron Broder told ClickZ that “Evolve is primarily focused on brand marketing as opposed to concentrating on advertising efficiency through performance initiatives.” But wait, brand marketing can mean performance-oriented, data-driven campaigns, right? Read more.
A Services Marketplace
Trada, “an online marketplace allowing small and medium businesses and agencies to leverage the skills of hundreds of paid search experts,” announced that it has raised $2.2 million from Foundry Group and a group of angel investors which includes Alan Warms, Carlos Cashman and others. A marketplace for display experts would seem like an opportunity, too. Read Trada’s release.
ADTECH Gets VAST
Aol.’s ad serving platform ADTECH has announced compliance with the Internet Advertising Bureau’s VAST 2.0 standard for online video ads. ADTECH’s CEO Dirk Freytag said in the release that “Video ads already make up over five percent of the ads we deliver globally… In this growth market, standards are the best foundation to generate trust, transparency and more technical choices.” Read the release.
Data Baby
Expecting a newborn? Staring at one? That child is a trove of data according to a new IBM commercial! “The [IBM] team built custom code that translates spreadsheets of raw numerical data — derived, in the case of ‘Data Baby’, from a newborn’s respiratory, heart rate, blood pressure, EKG, oxygen saturation, and temperature readings.” See Data Baby.
Mobile Analytics Motally Gets CEO
Motally hired as its CEO entrepreneur John Forese, whose former company, Telephia, was bought by Nielsen in 2007. VentureBeat’s Paul Boutin discusses the hire and makes a distinction between Motally, and its nearest competitor, Flurry: “Motally’s hook is that they handle both mobile websites and mobile app stats, while Flurry (and Pinch Media, with which Flurry recently merged) are focused on apps.” Read more.
New Ad Companies Always Win
BrightRoll Co-Founder and CEO Tod Sacerdoti pens “Why Online Ad Categories Are Won By New Entrants” on GigaOm. As the title suggests, Sacerdoti thinks new companies have the edge in ads and says, “This has held true across several different categories, including Google in search, DoubleClick in ad serving, Advertising.com in display, NexTag in CPA, RightMedia in exchanges and AdMob in mobile.” Read his proof.
Chief Tech Guy Leaves Yahoo!
All Things D’s Kara Swisher reported Friday that another Yahoo! has left the Sunnyvale campus as Yahoo Chief Technologist Sam Pullara is becoming an Entrepreneur-In-Residence (EIR) at Benchmark Capital. Joanne Bradford had left earlier in the week. Read it.
Audience Moves To Social
On the Nielsen blog, the company reports that audience is moving to social media websites: “On average, global web users across 10 countries spent roughly five and a half hours on social networks in February 2010, up more than two hours from the same time last year.” Read more.
How Much Journalism Is PR?
55% – so says a new study by Australian publication, Crikey, which was done in conjunction with University of Technology (UTS) Sydney. Looking at the Australian market and “after analysing a five-day working week in the media, across 10 hard-copy papers, ACIJ and Crikey found that nearly 55% of stories analysed were driven by some form of public relations. The Daily Telegraph came out on top of the league ladder with 70% of stories analysed triggered by public relations.” See the study.
No Bonus For Publicis Execs
Putting their own money where their collective mouth is, Publicis execs decided to forego bonuses in 2009 according to AdWeek’s Noreen O’Leary. She writes, “Maurice Levy (shown), the holding company’s CEO, left a $3.7 million bonus on the table, pocketing $1.2 million in salary last year. David Kenny and Jack Klues, managing partners of the VivaKi digital and media unit, each gave up $1.2 million in bonus…” Read more.
