New NBCU Ad Network Plans to Reach Beyond NBCU Properties
NBC Universal is getting into the ad network business, first selling inventory across a handful of its own properties, then possibly expanding into others. The network, called Universal Audience Platform, launched today with 21 NBCU properties, including Bravotv.com, NBC.com, Oxygen.com and Syfy.com. While advertisers have previously had the ability to buy packages that spanned NBCU properties, this is the first time they can buy display inventory based on audience segment rather than brand. Asked why NBCU had chosen now to launch an ad network, Peter Naylor, VP of digital sales, said the company “has the impressions and uniques” to form “a credible entrance to the market.” But that doesn’t mean it will limit itself to NBCU properties. “This is phase one,” he said. “Phase two is going to be when we welcome in some other sites we don’t wholly own and operate.” Just when – or if – that will come to pass isn’t yet clear, said Naylor. But he did confirm that discussions were under way to find other suitable properties to add to the network. For now, the formation of UAP means that NBCU will be “dialing down” its dependence on third-party ad networks, said Naylor. The company has made deals with BlueKai, Nielsen and Quantcast to supply the demographic data that it will use to sell audience segments to advertisers.
Read More: ClickZ
Insights from OMMA Behavioral Conference on Display Marketing
Several members of the EF team attended the OMMA Behavioral Conference in San Francisco last week. The focus of the conference was to explore how behavioral targeting has changed from simply targeting audiences by the Web pages they have recently viewed to utilizing targeting data from multiple sources such as social networks, site and search re-targeting, and various third party data providers. Because there are so many targeting channels, attributing conversion to the appropriate source has become very difficult for advertisers. The difficulty of attribution modeling quickly became a hot topic at the conference. Abhishek Pani, our Director of Research & Quantitative Marketing, discussed a new attribution framework in his presentation titled “Evaluating the Marginal Value of Display”. Optimal budget allocation across channels is the fundamental problem that advertisers want to solve but given the lack of proper attribution models, they are forced to rely on simple heuristics to allocate revenues. Current attribution offerings in the industry ignore important variables such as the effect of time and cross channel demand elasticity (change in demand in channel A that results from a small change in spend in channel B). Incorrect attribution will result in sub-optimal budget allocation and lower the return on advertising investment. Because our platform manages across all channels of advertising (search, display, and soon social), we are able to measure, experiment, and build very accurate allocation models based on marginal contributions of each channel. Abhishek discussed our modeling strategy in greater detail during his presentation.
Read More: blog.eFrontier.com
BuzzLogic to Announce New Social Media Ad Units
By combining ads with content BuzzLogic believes it can give consumers using social media a better ad experience and better integrate advertising with the content against which it is presented. “We’ve been running all kinds of IAB sanctioned rich media for a while, but the BuzzRoll product is much more customized and gives marketers more options,” said Peter O’Sullivan, BuzzLogic’s VP of sales, in an interview with paidContent. “BuzzRoll, as a social media ad unit, will drive greater engagement among blog readers, since it encourages them to share everything from a company’s blog content or a white paper, and Twitter feeds, to video and Facebook apps. This is just a simpler way for marketers to do it. For example, if a product wanted to associate itself with a green image it could place an ad on a blog about green issues and, by careful keyword selection, program it to pull in content about the topic from around the Internet. That information is then scrolled along the bottom of the rich media ads. According to ClickZ, the units can also host video and Facebook applications via Facebook’s APIs.
Read More: BizReport
Facebook Is to the Power Company as …
It was a typically vexing week for Facebook. On the one hand, the social-networking service signed up its 500 millionth active user. On the other hand, it was found to be one of the least popular private-sector companies in the United States by the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Apparently, Americans were more satisfied filing their taxes online than they were posting updates on their Facebook page. It is a continuing contradiction: Facebook is widely criticized for shifting its terms of service and for disclosing private information — and yet millions of people start accounts each month. Analysts always grasp for analogies to explain Facebook’s tortured relationship with its users. Facebook has been called the sterile suburbs to the gritty urban Internet; it is a “walled garden” in the organic messiness of the Web; it is Russia under Vladimir Putin; it is (and this one stings in tech circles) today’s AOL. But perhaps the most telling metaphor compares Facebook to the other companies lurking at the bottom of the American Customer Satisfaction Index: cable companies, wireless telephone service providers. Utilities. Here are services everyone uses, no matter how much people dislike the companies that provide them. Danah Boyd, a social media researcher at Microsoft and a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, argues that Facebook fits that mold. On her blog in May, she posted: “I hate all of the utilities of my life. Venomous hatred. And because they’re monopolies, they feel no need to make me appreciate them. Cuz they know that I’m not going to give up water, power, sewage, or the Internet out of spite. Nor will most people give up Facebook, regardless of how much they grow to hate them.”
Read More: NYTimes.com
An Ad Model Poised For A Comeback
It’s challenging for media buyers to differentiate among ad networks. From the network side, it’s difficult to develop a product positioning that is truly ownable within the space. In an era where anyone can start an ad network, virtually overnight, any networks getting traction with ad buyers quickly find themselves swimming in a sea of “me too” imitators. On the publisher’s side of the equation, it’s even more difficult to tell which networks to use. It’s one of the primary challenges of the chief revenue officer to balance direct sales forces, ad networks, exchanges, and new ad platforms in such a way as to deliver a maximum return from month to month on a site’s pool of available ad inventory. There’s a check that comes in from each network partner each month. From a CPM standpoint, the price paid is abysmally low when compared to deals struck by the publisher’s direct sales force. But it’s a check nonetheless, and most publishers choose to get a check for the incremental sales, rather than rely completely on direct sales channels and risk lower overall returns. Simply put, two ad revenue streams are better than one, even if one undercuts the pricing of the other one, and publishers are unsure what’s being done with data collected from network and exchange campaigns. Even though many would see it as short-sighted, short-term revenue, pressure usually makes the publisher take the check rather than cut the channel to support the direct sales channel.
Read More: iMediaConnection
Closing the Tech Divide
If there was a single familiar refrain from digital shops over the past decade, it was that their older, traditional-agency brethren “didn’t get it” when it came to digital. But lately, that widely acknowledged gap has begun to narrow to the point where “older” agencies can claim more success in some areas of digital marketing. Take the recent Old Spice “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” digital campaign, an effort that is already a textbook example of how an advertiser can make itself a vital part of digital culture. The campaign didn’t come from any of the digital-agency stalwarts like R/GA, AKQA or Razorfish. Instead, it came from Wieden + Kennedy, a shop not long ago often labeled as wedded to TV and print. The Old Spice success followed a strong showing for non-digital specialists in this year’s awards shows. At Cannes, for example, top honors in the Cyber category went to Wieden for Nike Livestrong’s “Chalkbot” and DDB Sweden for Volkswagen’s “Fun Theory.” The Cyber Agency of the Year Award went to Crispin Porter + Bogusky.
Read More: AdWeek
Right Media Exchange Update From Yahoo! VP McGrory
The following is an excerpted interview with Ramsey McGrory, Yahoo! VP and Head of Right Media Exchange. McGrory discusses recently announced plans for Yahoo!’s display advertising exchange – Right Media Exchange. Topics covered include:
The results of the Demand-Side Platform (DSP) Pilot Program…
A new Search Engine Marketing pilot on Right Media Exchange…
Demand Media, a publisher for RTB participants on Right Media Exchange…
On Right Media Open, an event produced this week by Yahoo! for its Right Media partners…
On the results of the Demand-Side Platform (DSP) Pilot Program…
RM: The specifics on DSPs are actually pretty good. We expected to see improvements in targeting. We expected to see, conversely, that would mean higher bidding, which is valuable to the publishers. And so I think we generally got what we bargained for. Which is the targeting efficiency, the control of frequency, the control of cost. The DSPs are, by and large, moving directionally on executing on that vision. That’s a good thing.
Read More: AdExchanger
The Career-Relevant Timeframe
I’m attending the Right Media Open in Chicago and, no surprise, change is in the air. Although there is a general consensus on where the industry is headed, I am seeing a healthy debate around the timeline for that change. While discussing the importance of indirect, bid-based sales to publishers, Dave Zinnman from Yahoo pumped on the brakes, saying that if you believe exchange-based inventory will become dominant in a “career-relevant timeframe”, you need to “step back from the punch bowl.” For me, “career-relevant timeframe” is the most important phrase I’ve heard today. No matter what your business, its important to have a realistic understanding of how fast your market is changing. Just today, VMM founder Darren Herman retweeted his 2008 post comparing the rate of innovation with the rate of adoption, and reminding entrepreneurs to build for today’s market. That’s the relevant timeframe for a venture backed startup between rounds. Here in Chicago, the question of the day is: what is the relevant timeframe for advertising-related companies evaluating the momentous shift toward automation? Up until now, I think media decisionmakers have been very confident in their ability to influence the rate and direction of change. At the 2009 24/7 Real Media Summit, I was struck by GroupM CEO Irwin Gotlieb’s remark that he felt it was, in some part, his responsibility to manage change in this new media landscape on behalf of various stakeholders. Consolidated media buying firms exist for the sake of exerting this type of influence and the comment made me think a lot about how and when the industry would change.
Read More: GregHills.com
RockYou Strikes Virtual Currency Deal With Facebook
RockYou has entered into a five-year agreement to make Facebook Credits the exclusive payment option in its social games and applications on the social network. The deal, unveiled Thursday, is a boon for Facebook, as RockYou is one of the largest developers on the site, with about 34.6 million monthly active users and 2.7 million daily active users, according to Inside Network’s AppData. The move helps ensure that Facebook’s virtual currency will gain wider distribution across the site. Until recently, Facebook Credits, which cost 10 cents each and allow users to buy virtual goods in games and apps, had only been available in a limited number of apps for testing. But Facebook has lately been trying to build the user base for Credits through deals with significant developers, who get a 70% cut of revenue from sales suing the virtual currency. Some developers, principally game maker Zynga, have resisted offering Credits because of the 30% cut Facebook takes. In a five-year deal announced in May, however, Zynga broadly pledged to expand the use of Credits in its games, which include wildly popular titles like “FarmVille” and “Mafia Wars.” Separately, smaller developers including CrowdStar and Lolapps have also signed exclusive five-year deals to use Facebook Credits exclusively.
Read More: MediaPost
iPad As A Business Tool? Probably Not Yet
AT&T’s activation of 3.2 million iPhones in the second quarter got the attention of the tech media Thursday, highlighting the Apple device’s continued importance to the company’s wireless business. But during its earnings conference call, AT&T also shed some light on that hot-selling Apple product, the iPad. The carrier said it activated 400,000 to 500,000 iPad 3Gs in the quarter, with usage about as expected — higher than a typical iPhone user, but less than someone using a laptop. Apple said last week that 3 million of the Apple tablets had been sold since its April 3 launch. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, said during the company’s conference call this week that it is selling iPads and iPhone 4s as fast as it can make them. And apparently the iPad doesn’t appeal only to consumers. AT&T’s Chief Financial Officer Rick Lindner said Thursday the company has been surprised by the level of interest among business users. When the iPhone was first launched, he noted that businesses, and especially chief information officers, were reluctant to adopt the phone as a business tool. “Over time that’s changed dramatically,” he said. But “right from the beginning with the iPad, we’ve had a number of business customers express interest.” Lindner also suggested some companies might even use iPads to replace laptops.
Read More: MediaPost
