Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Bill Wise Lands
Former Yahoo! GM and display advertising enfant terrible, Bill Wise, is taking over the CEO role at Mediabank according to All Things D’s Peter Kafka. Kafka writes about Wise’s new company, “The difference between MediaBank and other ad tech startups is that up until now it has specialized in analog media, not digital: It sells technology that helps buyers of TV, print and other media plan and track their purchases.” Read more. An anonymous tipster suggests to AdExchanger.com that Wise may be on the doorstep of creating a cross-medium DSP. Diabolical!
Trading For Data
The New York Times’ Stefanie Clifford offers a piece on how users can trade access to their personal shopping data in exchange for special offers and other monetary benefits. Clifford writes, “New companies including WeShop, Aprizi, Blippy and Dopplr are trying to exploit the data that people seem so willing to give up. Some are even allowing shoppers to set what terms they want — free shipping, half-price discounts, only fair-trade products.” Read it.
AOL Getting Creative
Painter Chuck Close has signed up to be a spokesperson of sorts for AOL in the coming year according to Michael Learmonth in Ad Age. Close has never sold his image/brand to advertisers before as Learmonth says AOL will use Close’s services to emphasize creativity with the AOL brand, which will include a creativity conference in the fall. Read it.
Leadscon maestro Jay Weintraub delivers a post on the importance of “crap.” Specifically, Weintraub posits that “some of the best monetization, not in dollars but skill, can be found amongst the crap, the crap inventory that is.” Read more about how he defines “crap” and its opportunity.
Targeting Boomers
Mediaweek’s Lucia Moses says that AARP is rolling out a new website and dropping the word “retired” from its branding. It’s unclear what the “R” stands for, but that’s another matter. Moses writes, “AARP represents the entire 50-plus market, but the strategy is aimed squarely at its younger (Boomer) constituency. Boomers accounted for 24 percent of all U.S. Internet users last fall, per comScore.” Read it.
Video Insights
Late last week, in-stream video ad network ScanScout issued its monthly Video Insights report. Of interest to daypart-ers out there, “8-11PM were peak viewing hours across every video category.” Download the report (PDF).
Yield Optimization Vs. Sales Comp
Former Senior Partner Manager of Display at Yahoo!, Ryan Maynard, writes on the blog of his new company, PubHelix, about the need for publishers to embrace indirect sales. He concludes, “So to all of my publishers reading this- don’t assume there is a conflict if there really isn’t. Stop being motivated by sales compensation and ignoring overall yield optimization.” Read his third post of a series.
Online Education In Trouble?
Niki Scevak reports on a recent talk given by the author of mortgage crisis book “The Big Short” – Steve Eisman. Eisman thinks subsidies for education could dry up and that, in turn, could have a huge impact on advertising companies such as QuinStreet who have built their business on the online education vertical.
Read more from Scevak. And, see Eisman’s presentation on SlideShare.
Paywall Fun
News Corp has set its pricing for a new pay wall to be erected on its UK-centric sites The Times and Sunday Times this month. It’s $1.45 for a day or double that for a week according to The NY Times’ Eric Pfanner, who adds that the sites have been redesigned to maximize the user experience rather than to achieve search engine optimization or advertiser goals. Read more on paywall plans.
Endlessly Engaging Travelers
PhoCusWright’s Tnooz site – dedicated to travel industry technology news – notes that its important for travel sites and their marketers to “endlessly engage.” Writer Martin Collings adds, “Demdex is also working in the travel space, trying to improve airline website personalization.” Read more.
NYC Universities: No Entrepreneurial Game
Recent buzz has pointed the finger at local NYC universities Columbia University and New York University for a lack of support to the entrepreneurial community unlike efforts on the West Coast. On True/Slant, Stowe Boyd writes, “I know that New York colleges have professors who are pushing the boundaries on new media — Jay Rosen and Clay Shirky leap to mind — but I can think of no corresponding professors involved in entrepreneurialism, or software development.” Read more. Jerry Neumann adds from his blog, “Columbia then and now, it seems, is more interested in the money coming from a patent than in providing an enhanced community for its alumni and a better economic environment for its host city.”
VC Turns To Marketing
Tom Loverro launches a bouquet the way of VC and blogger Fred Wilson with a blog post about how Wilson has leveraged his blogging abilities to create his own powerful brand. Loverro finds this a refreshing change since “Traditionally, VCs have been absolutely crap at marketing because they failed to recognize this basic premise.” Read more.
Experian, INVIDI And Addressable Media
Experian Marketing Services announced a partnership last last week with INVIDI Technologies, an addressable media solutions company focused on digital tv/video. From the release, “Experian Marketing Services and INVIDI will provide consumer segmentation across traditional and digital media for advertisers, television networks and multichannel television distributors.” Notably, an Experian exec will join the INVIDI board as an observer. INVIDI investors include Google, Motorola and Menlo Ventures. Read more.
More Privacy Fires Burning
In The Australian, Geoff Elliott looks at recent missteps by Google and Facebook in the areas of personal data and online privacy and the fallout locally. Legislation may be imminent down-under as Aussie Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said in parliament that Google’s actions (the infamous street view/personal data screwup admitted recently by the company) are “the largest privacy breach in history across Western democracies.” Holy cow! Read more.
Targeting Marketing And Reputation
Tony Bradley says that what you don’t know about your online reputation can hurt you in an article in PC World. In fact, he says companies and lenders are turning to Rapleaf for its social graph information and not just as a marketing tool. Read more.
Retargeting Graphs
AdRoll offers a study of its own about retargeting – its core offering. The company says that key takeaways from its data include: “Retargeting costs 20% less than site-targeted campaigns on a CPM basis {…] Retargeting performs about 2x better on a CTR basis.” Read the report. And, see the press release.
