MRC Video Viewability; Twitter Acquires TapCommerce

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Defining Viewability

On Monday, the Media Rating Council adopted its new video viewability metric, which marks the first attempt to address industrywide invisibility issues. Get the PDF. However, many marketers take issue with the MRC’s two-second delineation. “Two seconds is not, by any means, a great representation of a 15-second [ad],” said Spark SMG VP and digital director Amy Dickerson. “But it’s better than what we had.” The MRC offered that the metric will evolve as ad-tracking tech improves. Adweek has more.

Report: Twitter Acquiring

Twitter is slated to acquire mobile ad tech firm TapCommerce, Re/code reported Monday. The transaction is estimated to close for $100 million, although Twitter has yet to confirm this figure. Read a bit more. In December, TapCommerce CEO Brian Long discussed his company’s ad biz momentum with AdExchanger: “I think people have been saying for a long time that this is the year mobile commerce will really take off. We’ve gone from seeing 10% of [brand] revenues increase to 40% of revenues (coming from mobile).” Read that one.

Widgeting Native

Google may be gearing up for massive-scale native advertising, Digiday reports. The search giant is purportedly trailing a widget with a handful of publishers that includes links to content and ads. “Think about the retargeting options,” said Steve Rubel, chief content strategist at Edelman. “A content-recommendation-slash-native-advertising offer would be low-hanging fruit for Google.” However, a widget like this poses certain security risks (think Taboola’s hacked widget on Reuters last week). Read more via Digiday.

Mobile Ads And Privacy

Three quarters of mobile users feel targeted advertising is an invasion of privacy, according to a new study by Razorfish. The global study surveyed 1,500 participants in the UK, the US, China and Brazil. “If brands are not able to understand how data is going to be important to them, how to merge systems, not just what they are getting from digital touch points, but offline as well and make smart decisions, then there is a disconnect,” said Sarah Sikowitz, principal analyst for Forrester. “Agencies don’t have it all figured out yet,” she added. “Marketers are doing it very well but there is still a shift that has to happen in a lot of organizations.” Read more at The Drum.

Automated B2B

LinkedIn is piloting a program that aims to help marketers target Internet ads by leveraging the site’s network of users. GroupM’s programmatic arm Xaxis and ad tech firm Dstillery are among the companies trailing the new product, the WSJ reports, to varying degrees of success. According to the WSJ’s sources, some marketers are pleased with the product while others complain about a lack of LinkedIn audience responsiveness. LinkedIn is also testing the waters of a programmatic private exchange, mirroring GroupM’s move mid-June. Read more.

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The Product Is Mobile

Sell-side platform PubMatic may have taken a harder turn toward mobile and cross-device media buying and selling if the recent promotion of Bob Walczak to GM and VP of product is any indication. Previously, Walczak had run product for the company’s mobile initiatives. Read the announcement.

You’re Hired!