WPP Inches Back To Growth

Sir Martin Sorrell’s advertising group, WPP, today reported an increase in like-for-like revenues of 1 percent in March – its first since 2008. WPP is now tentatively upping its forecast to 2 percent growth for the year.  The group, which in the first quarter last year reported a like-for-like revenue fall of 5.8 percent, has crawled out of the recession with flat year-on-year revenues in the first three months. The 1 percent increase in March, which follows return to growth patterns at rivals Publicis Groupe and Havas, is the first monthly revenue growth it has seen since December 2008.

“I don’t know that 1 percent qualifies for putting us in the growth club, we are now forecasting 2 percent [like-for-like] revenue growth for the year,” said Sorrell, who has lifted the hiring ban in growth markets, with a 1 percent increase in staff since the start of the year.  “We haven’t put our neck out there having been too optimistic last year [WPP predicted revenues to fall 2 percent and they fell 8 percent]. We are probably being a little too pessimistic this year. It is a case of once bitten, twice shy.”

Read More: PaidContent.org

What Apple’s iAd Platform Means To Marketers

It has been a few weeks now since Apple launched their iAd platform, and a large amount has been written about the announcement and what it means for the mobile advertising industry. But is this really the ‘revolution’ that Steve Jobs claims it is?  Will it capture the imagination of brands and agencies? What does it mean for advertising networks currently targeting iPhone users? And where does it leave all the other makes of phone which make up the majority of the market?  Since the launch Apple has stated that to begin with they will create the adverts for brands and that the adverts will cost in excess of $1 million – a significant increase on what advertising executives are currently spending on mobile! How many brands will be willing to pay a premium to target iPhone users?  While Apple has sold an impressive amount of iPhones globally, in terms of overall mobile users, the platform still accounts for a very small fraction of the market, making it an expensive way to target consumers.  One point that struck me from the beginning of Steve Jobs’ presentation of iAd was how much of the mobile advertising industry he seemed unaware of.  He claimed that Apple had created a new ‘revolutionary’ format of expandable in-app advertising which allows the user to stay in whichever app they might be using while interacting with the advert.

Read More: UTalkMarketing.com

Steve Jobs Announces War In An Open Letter To Adobe

The chief executive of Apple, Steve Jobs defended the company’s decision to exclude support for Adobe and Flash, some of their mobile devices, refuting the charge that the measure would aim to protect the applications sold in the electronics store from Apple. The Apple boss has published a long article in which he justifies point by point the reasons for the boycott of Flash.  Steve jobs stated “Adobe Flash products are 100% owners. They are only available at Adobe who has full authority over their future development, pricing . . ” Steve Jobs acknowledged that Apple still has as proprietary products like theiPhone OS , but it supports open Internet standards such as HTML5, CSS and JavaScript.  “Flash is the No. 1 cause of crashes in Mac.” Jobs accuses of having failed to resolve the problems that persist for several years. As for the arrival of Flash on mobile devices, now postponed to the second half of the year it almost appears to Arles in the writings of the boss of Apple. Adobe wants to provide tools for developing cross-platform to simplify porting applications on different OSes. An idea that Steve Jobs made a surge that this strategy can only lead to applications of a average quality level. Above all, the fact that a third party come fall between the OS and developers would make these techniques depend on the choices the actor. “Our motivation is simple – we want to provide a platform for the most innovative and most advanced our developers and we want them to keep above the platform and create the best applications that the world has ever seen.” Tomb then the sentence: “(…) Flash is no longer necessary to watch a video or use any Internet content. And the 200 000 applications from the App Store prove that Flash is not necessary for thousands of developers to build graphically rich applications, including games. While there are Apple, but there is no Apple …

“We asked periodically to show us that Adobe Flash works well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for some years. We never saw it happen,” Jobs said in a statement. iPAD, the newest release of Apple has placed a dispute between the companies in focus again. The device does not support the technology from Adobe. Flash is widely used on the internet and is installed in approximately 98% of computers connected to the network, according to Adobe, and is used in displaying more than 75% of all videos available on the Web and in 90% of online advertising .

Read More: WhiteHatFirm.com

Study: Ad Networks Generate Less Than A Quarter Of Impressions

The backlash of large Web publishers against ad networks in the last couple of years would suggest that ad networks were taking over Internet advertising. But according to a data released Wednesday by Kantar Media, ads sold directly by publishers generated 78% of total impressions delivered from December 2009 through January 2010, compared to 22% from ad networks.  Among ad networks, the Fox Audience Network generated 34.7% of impressions, followed by the AOL Advertising Network (23.4%), ValueClick (14%) and 24/7 Media (13.6%). The other 25 ad networks tracked by Kantar for the study collectively accounted for 14.3% of impressions. The figures underscore the concentration of buys among the top four ad networks. (The study did not include data from Google’s AdSense network.)  The media research firm revealed the findings in connection with a new ad network tracking service it has added to its broader Internet analytics offerings. In addition to the 29 ad networks, the results reflect data collected from more than 4,500 sites ranging from premium properties to long-tail sites.

Read More: MediaPost

WPP Spent 20% on Digital in ‘O9, Building New Ad Tech

“There is no digital without data.” That was the mantra at WPP’s investor event last week, where the holding company said its media agencies spent 20 percent of their budgets in North America last year on digital. The data-driven firm talked digital at an investor-focused event in London last week, during which senior WPP executives placed a firm emphasis on the company’s data and technology strategies, with emerging practices such as real-time bidding and sophisticated behavioral ad targeting forming a central theme of the day’s presentations. Following an introduction from group CEO Martin Sorrell, speakers from the firm’s agencies including Wunderman’s David Sable, GroupM’s North American CEO, Rob Norman, and Brian Lesser, GM of WPP’s Media Innovation Group, presented on WPP’s outlook with regards to digital ad technologies, and the way the company is integrating and incorporating those technologies across its businesses. According to Norman, digital accounted for 20 percent of the group’s overall media spend in North America in 2009, of which 18 percent went to paid search. While search accounts for a far greater portion of online ad spending as a whole, WPP’s clients typically are brand advertisers that don’t spend as much on search.

Read More: ClickZ

Apple to Charge a Premium to Put Ads in Mobile Apps

Setting a high bar for its debut in the advertising business, Apple Inc. aims to charge close to $1 million for ads on its mobile devices this year and perhaps even more to be among the first, ad executives say.  Apple is hitting the road to showcase its new mobile-device advertising capability, dubbed iAd, and has indicated it could charge as much as $10 million to be part of a handful of marketers at the launch, according to a person familiar with the matter.  Ad executives say they are used to paying between $100,000 and $200,000 for similar mobile deals.  Earlier this month, Apple unveiled iAd, a software system to offer ads in the applications available in its App Store. Ads are likely to start appearing in applications on its iPhone and iPod Touch devices in June, and its iPad later in the year, according to the person familiar with the matter.  Apple is making waves on Madison Avenue with its price tag, which comes with initial demands for greater control over advertisers’ marketing campaigns.  “It’s a hefty sum,” says Phuc Truong, managing director at Mobext, a mobile marketing business owned by Havas SA whose clients include Sears, Choice Hotels, Amtrak and Volvo. “What Apple is trying to do is certainly above and beyond what’s been done in the past.”

An Apple spokeswoman said the company will sell and serve the ads and declined further comment, except to reiterate that app developers will receive 60% of the revenue. Apple gets the other 40%. Apple on Wednesday said it has scheduled a developers’ conference for June 7-11, where it is expected to unveil its next iPhone. It would be up to developers whether they want to include ads in their apps, although the financial incentive is there. A handful of other companies sell ads that appear in Apple device applications, including AdMob Inc., which Google Inc. announced it would acquire last year for $750 million. AdMob says Apple’s entry into ad selling is going to boost competition and development in the space, says Jason Spero, vice president of AdMob North America. Zaw Thet, chief executive of mobile ad firm 4INFO Inc., said Apple’s move is likely to spur other mobile ad startups to shift the focus of their developments away from the iPhone to other mobile systems, such as Google’s Android. Despite the high price, ad executives at agencies from Boston to New York and San Francisco to Los Angeles have crowded into conference rooms in recent weeks to listen to the tech company’s pitch for iAd. Discussions over possible deals are ongoing but several ad executives said they are beginning to prepare creative ideas for campaigns.

One example Apple has been showing advertisers is an ad for Nike’s Air Jordan basketball shoe, says Baba Shetty, chief media officer at Boston-based ad agency Hill Holiday, owned by Interpublic Group. When a user is in an application, an animated banner ad appears on the border of the screen, along with an iAd logo. If the user taps on the ad, it expands across the screen, displaying a video, an interactive store locator and exclusive offers at local stores, among other features.  “It was very easy to think about the several minutes of interaction time consumers can spend with the ad. It’s incredibly attractive,” Mr. Shetty says. Apple is planning to charge advertisers a penny each time a consumer sees a banner ad, ad executives say. When a user taps on the banner and the ad pops up, Apple will charge $2. Under large ad buys, such as the $1 million package, costs would rack up to reach $1 million with the various views and taps.  The audience is sizable: Apple has sold 85 million iPhone and iPod Touches so far and estimates that users spend about 30 minutes a day using applications. Marketers will be able to target ads to groups of users based on consumers’ download preferences from its iTunes store, according to ad executives. For instance, a marketer could choose to show its ads to people who have downloaded financial applications or reggaeton music, horror movies or comedy TV shows.  Marketers also will be able to target ads to users in a general location like a city, although they cannot target ads to individual consumers or access personal details.

Apple is seeking high quality ads from big-name marketers for the launch, ad executives say. The ads will go through an approval process, and Apple will build the ads itself during the first couple of months to make sure they work well and attain a certain aesthetic and functionality, ad executives say. Eventually, Apple plans to create a developer kit so that agencies will be able to design and create the ads themselves.

The process is causing tension among some ad directors, who are hesitant to give up control.  “As a creative director, I can completely understand that they created this new baby and they want to make sure it gets born looking gorgeous. But as a creative director, I don’t feel completely comfortable letting Apple do the creative,” says Lars Bastholm, chief digital creative officer at WPP‘s Ogilvy. Marketers have been much slower to buy mobile ads than expected, largely because consumers had yet to visit mobile Web sites in meaningful numbers and the process of creating mobile ad campaigns was a technical and logistical feat.  Apple isn’t making that any easier, with requirements that advertisers use special technologies for its system, says Jordan Rohan, an Internet analyst with Thomas Weisel Partners.  But, ad executives say that if Apple nails its pitch, it could open up the gates for mobile advertising.  “I think the tipping point has come,” says Mark Read, chief executive of WPP Digital. “The absolute revenues now are tiny, but you can see how these things are starting to fit together.”

WSJ Article (Free)

Rocket Fuel To Launch Platform Connecting Online Clicks To Offline Sales

Marketers that are eager to reach the perfect consumer track campaign budgets carefully, but ultimately want to have the ability to connect online and offline activity. Rocket Fuel is working on technology that will allow marketers to attribute online clicks to offline sales, Richard Frankel, Rocket Fuel president, tells MediaPost.  Advertisers offer a variety of ways to approach the problem of attributing clicks, research or ad views to the sale of an item. Some have tied codes on printable or mobile coupons to the in-store sale.  Frankel points to another approach: find a source that has sales data and build a bridge from that data to clicks on display ads the company supports.  “It mostly deals with cookies and IP data,” Frankel says. “There are a few companies that have this type of data, but they haven’t figured out how to work with companies like ours to make it actionable.”  That’s one problem that Rocket Fuel needs to tackle to make it work. Another is making it easy for advertisers to use the tools. And that’s not a simple task, Frankel says, because many companies that own the data don’t know how to support data projects on the Web.  The road map should put the tools in the hands of advertisers and marketers some time by June. Theoretically, the tools also could help advertisers understand that different types of media campaigns have real sales impact.

Read More: MediaPost

Watch Video From the AppNexus Summit

The AppNexus Summit focused on the evolution of ad networks and aggregators in the new world of real-time advertising. We moved beyond the hype and brought together a diverse group of speakers to share ideas and perspectives on what’s really working in online advertising. It was a fantastic day, and here are some highlights:

•   A keynote fireside chat with Aaron Easterly, General Manager of Network Strategy & Monetization at Microsoft, Johnathan Hsu, CEO of 24/7 Real Media, and Brian O’Kelley, CEO of AppNexus.
• A panel discussion on the business challenges facing ad networks with executives from AOL Advertising.com, interCLICK, Traffic Marketplace, XTEND, AudienceScience, TidalTV. Watch the video: What Works for Ad Networks: Business Challenges 
• We examined the technology issues and innovations in our industry with leaders from Chitika, Dapper, Rocket Fuel, Peer39 and eXelate. Watch the video: What Works for Ad Networks: Technology Challenges 
• John Ebbert from AdExchanger.com led a conversation on ad exhanges and inventory aggregators with perspectives from Pubmatic, AdMeld, The Rubicon Project, OpenX and Time Inc. Digital. Watch the video: The Role of Ad Exchanges, Publishers & Inventory Aggregators.

Read More: AppNexus.com

Management Secrets of the Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead Archive, scheduled to open soon at the University of California at Santa Cruz, will be a mecca for academics of all stripes: from ethno­musicologists to philosophers, sociologists to historians. But the biggest beneficiaries may prove to be business scholars and management theorists, who are discovering that the Dead were visionary geniuses in the way they created “customer value,” promoted social networking, and did strategic business planning.

Read More: TheAtlantic.com