Rocket Fuel Ignites Video; Ad Network Komli Gets $15 Million; ANA Pushing OBA To Marketers On The Am-Scray

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Rocket Fuel Ignites Video With Display

Ad network Rocket Fuel announced that it’s bringing its data-driven audience buying to the video channel with a product called Video Booster. According to the release, “The solution, which offers 15- or 30-second duration in-stream pre-roll ads with companion display placements, is directly integrated with The BrightRoll Exchange (BRX) and the Adap.tv Marketplace to ensure access to the highest-quality audience.” Read the release.

Ad Network Gets $15 Million

Venture Capital firm Norwest Venture Partners reached into its healthy wallet and delivered $15 million to Komli, an ad network led by PubMatic chairman, Amar Goel. From the release, recent momentum info: “In 2010, Komli Media’s business grew over 600% while its employee base grew to 115, from 51 at the start of the year. Last year, Komli Media began its expansion across Asia Pacific by acquiring PostClick, Australia’s leading site representation firm.(…) Komli Media is Asia Pacific’s leading digital media network.” Read more.

The Eye Of Suspicion

In an op-ed on Ad Age, Laredo Group’s Kendall Allen casts a suspicious eye towards demand-side platforms and exchanges and writes, “Most buyers within agencies I’ve talked to say that they know where to get mass and that inventory is not the problem that has to be solved by DSPs. While they may have more inventory at their fingertips, which is super, they are still waiting for this holy grail of audience intelligence at scale.” Read more.

Consumer Privacy And Publishers

Krux Digital announced that it has partnered with Jim Brock’s Privacy Choice to provide what it says is “a new approach to preserving and propagating consumer tracking and targeting preferences across the web.” Publishers will benefit too. Former WSJ Digital Network president Gordon McLeod claims in the release that this agreement creates “for the first time a direct connection between publisher business practices and consumer preferences. Read more.

ANA Pushes OBA Regs

The marketer’s best friend – at least from an industry org perspective – the Association of National Advertisers is offering a toolkit to its members so they can begin to understand comply with online behavioral advertising self-regulation guidelines. In a letter to members, the ANA’s CEO Bob Liodice wrote, “The advertising community is committed to meeting this challenge but we can do so only if your company and other marketers join the program we have developed along with our industry partners.” Read more about the toolkit. And, download it (PDF).

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Threads Will Have Ads Next Year; Perplexity, Gen-AI Search Engine, Already Does

Search Retargeting Countdown

Simpli.fi CEO Frost Prioleau takes inspiration from a recent article on search engine marketing to deliver a top 7 reasons to use search retargeting. Coming in at #4: “Target expensive upper funnel, broad search terms. Upper funnel, broad search terms are very expensive in many verticals from travel to financial services to telecommunications.” Read all seven on the Simpl.fi blog.

Remnant Issues

Neil Greer, CEO of ImpactEngine.com writes on Editor & Publisher about the risks of publishers drinking the sweet, intoxicating nectar of remnant inventory revenue concluding, “For some, accepting remnant ads can make sense when alternatives do not exist. Publishers, however, should take a hard look at creating alternatives to the low-hanging fruit of remnant ads, as the short- and long-term risks, many times, outweigh the immediate rewards.” Read more about the fruit, nectar, etal.

Demdex Price

The Business Insider offered an acquisition price of $58 million according to its source in regards to Adobe’s purchase of Demdex on Wednesday. Read more. Other sources say higher -and others lower. Feel free to pick a number.

Is Facebook Worth It?

Adgregate Market CEO Henry Wong addresses the economic feasibility of maintaining a Facebook store as some say it’s just not providing the ROI. In an interview on Practical Ecommerce, Wong says, “While sales traction on Facebook is too early to gauge, it is well understood that word of mouth brand and product referrals are high and continue to increase. A recent report from Universal McCann [an advertising agency] indicated that Facebook is by far the most effective way to turn conversations into conversions.” Online needs offline attribution – yet again. Read more.

Your Super Bowl Audience

Along with Knowledge Networks, ad network interclick has release a colorful whitepaper which helps ad sellers everywhere who are looking to make a story around Super Bowl audience targeting. Did you know: “53% of fans planning to host Big Game parties will invite more than 10 people, and almost half (48%) will shop the week before the game to stock up on their favorite snacks and beverages.” Download the paper (PDF). And 19% of Super Bowl parties will enjoy “hot wings.” Who knew?

Adchemy Touts Growth

Adchemy says that its media buying platform business is moving ahead swimmingly. In addition to 40% more employees at the end of 2010 as opposed to the beginning of 2010, the Company claims in a release that its “significant revenue growth is driven by demand from large scale retail, finance and insurance customers using Adchemy’s consumer intent technology to deliver highly relevant ads at scale.” Read the release and news about recent key hires.

Apple Makes $6 Billion

Apple announced its fiscal Q1 earnings and said that it enjoyed record net quarterly profit of $6 billion. That’s Microsoft money. Read the release. In addition to the widely reported leave of absence (from WSJ) taken by company CEO Steve Jobs, on the earnings conference call, Apple also offered very little insight on the latest with iAd except for this from Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer: “We continue to be very pleased with iAd, which combines the narrative quality of TV ads with the interactivity of digital to provide a new kind of advertising experience. During the quarter, we expanded iAds beyond the U.S. to Europe and Japan and provided iAd Producer to marketers.” Read the call transcript.

Four More Years

On his MediaBizBloggers website, Jack Myers pens a think piece titled, “When Will Traditional Media Embrace Real Time Bidding and Demand Side Platforms?” Myers says the embrace happens when and “If Real Time Bidding proves to represent a viable competitive balance for Demand Side Platform buying, then a widespread shift to online transactional management of media buying and selling for a high share of both online and offline media inventory may become a reality within the next 48 months.” Read more.

CAPTCHA Video

Solve Media is not holding back on adding different flavors of its CAPTCHA creative. According to the release, this time the Company “has extended its platform to offer advertisers 15-second video TYPE-IN ads with brand messages.” Read more.

But Wait, There’s More!