BrightRoll Unveils Video Analytics Suite

Video ad network BrightRoll Thursday rolled out a new suite of analytics tools from third-party research firms including comScore, Nielsen and InsightExpress. Among them, the firms will track campaign performance in five areas: validation, awareness, impact, effectiveness and optimization.  The idea is to go beyond standard metrics delivered by BrightRoll, like views and unique viewers, to offer more in-depth reporting to advertisers that are still skeptical about the medium’s efficacy. BrightRoll CEO Tod Sacerdoti explained the company put together the group of analytics partners after surveys it conducted with agencies last year. “The thing that jumped out to me was that no one has any idea if online video advertising is working,” he said.

Read More: MediaPost

Increased Focus on Real-Time Bids

The Rubicon Project is doing a mix of hiring and firing as it brings in more automated services to meet clients’ demand for real-time bidding services, the company told paidContent. The company is letting go three staffers in the U.S. as well as two others in Hong Kong, as Rubicon decides to pursue partnerships in the region, as opposed to building its business there from scratch. Financially, the two-year-old company is doing well, says Frank Addante, the company’s founder and CEO. This is the first year that Rubicon will hit $100 million in revenue and it expects it will reach profitability within the next two quarters, Addante added.  The company is preparing a new product launch in Q3, though Addante wouldn’t go into details. But while it is losing five staffers out of 154, it is also actively looking to recruit 10- to 12 new hires: 6- to 7 for product & engineering (U.S.) and 4- to 5 sales (U.S. and UK).  Aside from the dismissals, Rubicon is also experiencing another personnel change. JT Batson, EVP for Revenue and Global Development at Rubicon, will be leaving the company to run what Addante described only as a “multi-million dollar traditional media company.” Batson also had gotten married and had been working from New York, away from Rubicon’s Los Angeles headquarters. He will remain as an advisor to Rubicon following his departure.

Read More: PaidContent.org

Google Launches Click-to-Call for Mobile Apps and Content

Last month at Google I/O, we previewed a new mobile advertising format, click-to-call for apps and mobile website content. We wanted to follow-up and let you know that this feature is now fully live and available to everyone who advertises with AdWords.  Expanding our popular click-to-call functionality on mobile search ads to now include mobile content and apps helps increase the reach of your ads across the mobile web and provides mobile publishers and app developers with even more ways to make money and grow their businesses.  With click-to-call, potential customers can connect with your business via a phone call when they use their favorite mobile apps or when they browse the web from their mobile devices.  Ads will appear as animated banner or text ads with a call button on mobile devices with full Internet browsers.  To use this new format, you need to enable phone extensions and run your ads on both the Google Content Network and mobile devices with full Internet browsers.

Read More: Adwords.Blogspot.com

eXelate Bows Tool for Web Publishers

eXelate, which manages a large online targeting data exchange, is rolling out a new tool that will allow Web publishers to better manage the sale and use of their own user data.  The new product is called teXi:PM, which stands for “private marketplace.” According to eXelate executives, publishers can use teXi:PM to control how ad networks, agencies, demand-side platforms or other clients access their data. Publishers can also control how that information is sold. In addition, sites can employ teXi:PM to set price controls and initiate data transactions.  Publishers that elect to create their own data marketplaces using teXi:PM will not be precluded from also selling their data via eXelate’s exchange, which the company claims represents sites and networks that in aggregate reach 150 million unique users each month.  eXelate has signed on WhitePages as one of the first Web publishers to use teXi:PM to create a private data exchange.  “[This] partnership will allow us to extend the value of our users’ business search behaviors to marketers using a single technology platform, while still protecting consumer privacy,” said Ingrid Michelsen, WhitePages senior director, ad sales, strategy and development.

Read More: AdWeek

Former TiVo President to Lead Joint “Hulu for Magazines” Effort

The movement to create a “Hulu for magazines” hasn’t gotten much traction lately, but it has gotten a new CEO: Morgan Guenther, who is best known as the president of TiVo from 2001-2003.  Guenther will take the reigns of Next Issue Media, a joint venture of Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corporation and Time Inc. to create a digital hub where consumers can access magazine articles the way they access TV clips on Hulu.  “Next Issue Media is well positioned to create and deliver incremental business opportunities to the magazine and newspaper publishing world,” said Guenther in a written statement. “The potential for value creation across the entire industry ecosystem… is massive. Our task now is to execute on that potential.”  The project, originally announced in December of 2009, has taken on an air of urgency since the successful launch of the iPad. One of Next Issue’s primary goals is to make magazines as accessible to e-readers like the iPad and Kindle as books and some newspapers are now. With more than 2 million iPads sold since launch of the device in April, the stakes are considerably higher for anyone looking to create a successful magazine app.

Read More: ClickZ

How Yahoo Bought Associated Content

Last month, Yahoo bought Associated Content, a Web publishing startup with thousands of semi-pro freelance writers, for around $100 million.  $100 million isn’t much for a company like Yahoo (YHOO), and a big content deal helped Yahoo define itself, so the acquisition seems like a smart move. Here’s the story of how it happened. (Click here for the picture-book version.)  Before there was Yahoo, there was AOL.  Back in August 2009, everybody assumed AOL (AOL) was going to buy Associated Content. And, for a while, everybody was right. AOL began looking at Associated Content almost as soon as Tim Armstrong became AOL CEO in March 2009. The acquisition fit into Tim’s plan to turn AOL into a lean, mean Time Inc. for the 21st Century.

Read More: BusinessInsider

Vivaki CEO Talks With AdExchanger

AdExchanger.com: What announcement do you have in regards to inventory partners?

CH: We’re the first holding company to be procuring inventory through AdECN. We were able to make that integration happen via Invite Media.  I was with Microsoft’s Darren Huston last week and he is quite pleased with the quality of advertisers he’s seen come through due to the integration and [the quality] of our brand marketers. We’re excited by that. It’s by no means exclusive and wouldn’t expect it to be. But, it now makes us interoperable with Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. And we’re working hard on AOL which will hopefully happen in the near term.

AdExchanger.com:  What kind of inventory do you see through AdECN?

CH: AdECN is focused first on Hotmail. And I think as they understand how performance looks, we’ll expand from there. But, we’ve started with Hotmail.  The other good piece of news about this is the fact that it is through Invite Media, and post‑Google acquisition – [Google] has been very supportive.  Google realizes it’s for the DFA stack, away from media, and they appreciate that it works just like search bid management or serving ads. it’s a good thing for the industry that they’re taking the interoperable view.  You were asking [earlier] how we felt about the Invite Media acquisition. I think it’s great that what you’re seeing is some consistency where Omnicom (Click here for OMG CEO Matt Spiegel’s thoughts) and InterPublic Group (Click here for Cadreon CEO Brendan Moorcroft’s thoughts) – I believe through AdExchanger.com – they both have come out supportive and positive.

Read More: AdExchanger

Five Ways Foursquare Advertising is Getting Less Interesting

Foursquare, the geolocation social tool, has been a media darling as of late. Not only is it growing, but people innately understand the monetization model, which is not something you can say about every social site and tool. As people “check in,” or report where they are to their network, Foursquare serves them offers from nearby businesses. It’s a win-win-win situation: Businesses can market to people who are able to immediately take action; Foursquare earns revenue; and users get valuable offers they can use.  But Starbucks’ current program on Foursquare may kill the goose that lays the golden eggs (or at least demonstrate how that goose may die a slow, lingering death of neglect). I believe (and I’m curious if you agree) that Starbucks’ ubiquity combined with the offer’s difficult redemption is decreasing attention for Foursquare’s other offers. If other large chains follow suit with similar promotions, those “Special Nearby” tabs within Foursquare’s mobile apps won’t get as much notice, and that means problems for advertisers on the Foursquare platform.  If you’re a Foursquare user, you’ve undoubtedly seen Foursquare offers, but for those who are not yet acquainted with the joys of mayorships, here is how it works: When you check in at a location, Foursquare will alert you when an offer is available in close proximity. With a click, you can view that offer. The first couple of times I saw this, the offers were interesting and immediately relevant. For example, I checked in at SFMOMA and was alerted I could get free entry to an art museum across the street.

Read More: MediaPost

The Global CMO Interview: Lorraine Twohill, Google

Google is not known for its marketing; the product markets itself. But as Google attempts to translate its one mega-success — search advertising — into other lines of business, marketing is becoming a more important part of what the search giant is all about.  Lorraine Twohill heads marketing for Google on a global basis as VP-global marketing, which means a lot more than most people think. It encompasses everything from TV and billboard ads in Japan — one market that Google doesn’t dominate — to videos for products such as Chrome or Docs and Google’s first TV ad, a Super Bowl spot called “Parisian Love.”  Google’s marketing takes different shapes all over the globe and must be relevant to countries with high broadband penetration rates, such as the U.S. or Korea, as well as places where people predominantly access the web using mobile phones or in internet cafés. It has no agency of record, but rather works with several agencies, including Wieden & Kennedy Japan and Bartle Bogle Hegarty in the U.S. and Europe.  Ms. Twohill joined Google from European travel site Opodo seven years ago, and assumed the global marketing role two years ago. She currently manages marketing teams in more than 30 countries.

Read More: AdAge