NEW YORK, April 20, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Alloy Digital, a leading creator and distributor of media and entertainment for the 12-34 demographic, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of B5Media, one of the fastest-growing female-oriented lifestyle digital publishing and media networks.
B5Media’s websites include award-winning TheGloss.com, Crushable.com, Blisstree.com, Mommyish.com, and TheGrindstone.com, featuring content focused on fashion, beauty, wellness, career, relationships, parenting and entertainment. The B5Media network, which has distinguished itself through honest, intelligent and relatable content, reaches females 14-34 and boasts a combined audience of more than 4 million monthly unique visitors.
The B5Media sites join Alloy Digital’s top ranking network of owned-and-operated web properties, including Gurl.com, Teen.com, and Smosh.com, which is also one of the top-three most subscribed to channels on YouTube.
Alloy Digital is the largest media and advertising network of young adult targeted websites, attracting more than 70 million consumers each month and reaching over 43% of P12-34 internet users. The network holds its position as a top-10 video network delivering several hundred million streams monthly and has ranked at top of its category for more than three consecutive years running according to industry measurement leader, comScore.
Read more: GlobeNewswire
Does Everyone Hate Banner Ads?
Whether you’re in advertising or not, at some point, everyone has been a banner ad hater. From a loud auto-initiated video at the office to an inundating takeover by Taylor Lautner – one that mysteriously became the background of my iPad and then wished me a “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” – we’ve all been victims of an unwanted, unwarranted, or irrelevant banner ad. Even when I tell people what I do, and mention online banner ads, their faces typically show a mild tolerance for the topic. Or they say flat-out, “I hate pop-ups.”
EMarketer estimates spending on U.S. online advertising will grow by nearly a quarter in 2012. However, banners’ projections are below average for the category. And they’ll continue to grow at a slower pace than other forms of online advertising such as paid search, video, and mobile. While banner click-through rates continue to decline, marketers are working to find more ways to validate that banner messaging resonates with consumers, from engagement to direct response metrics.Guess what? The secret is out: blasting billions of untargeted impressions to the masses and tracking latent activity is not an effective form of advertising – at least to some of us it is.
According to comScore Ad Metrix, AT&T, which has been the leader in advertising impressions for the last several years, served nearly 106 billion impressions in the U.S. during 2011. What’s more, the number of advertisers who served over 3 billion impressions in Q4 2011 increased from 24 to 46, compared to the same quarter the previous year. But let’s put this in context. EMarketer reported 231.9 million online users (18+) in the U.S. last year. So, if every adult watched an AT&T ad an even number of times, then it would have been seen an average of 456 times during the year. Yikes! Apparently we have a ways to go in shifting the paradigm.
Read more: ClickZ
