Report: Nearly 17% Of Exchange Ads ‘High Risk’

During the second quarter of the year, the highest-risk inventory was served via ad exchanges. That’s according to a report to be released Wednesday by AdSafe Media, a company that markets proof-of-performance and content safety solutions.

A full 16.9% of inventory served by ad exchanges was high risk for advertising, while 6.3% of inventory served via ad networks was high risk, and 3.8% directly via publishers was considered high-risk.

What’s more, inventory transparency is the lowest on ad exchanges, which served 64.4% IAB Category I inventory — with full transparency regarding referring URL — while ad networks served 82.6%, and publishers directly served 97.4%.

Publishers, the study found, tend to follow geotargeting requirements more than any other buying channel. The study revealed that 1.9% of publisher inventory fell outside of geotargeting requirements, while 3.9% of ad exchange inventory and 4.3% of ad network inventory fell outside of geotargeting requirements.

Read More: MediaPost

P&G Execs And VCs Want Startups With Branding Potential

The Internet turns branding and marketing dreams into reality. For Procter & Gamble executive Dave Knox that means transforming Cincinnati, Ohio into the Silicon Valley of consumer marketing. Knox, who works at P&G with venture capitalists and startups by day, sees moonlighting as an opportunity to take the business model built by TechStars or Capital Factory and apply it to startups focusing on branding and consumer marketing.

So, Knox and fellow co-founders J.B. Kropp, Dave Knox, Bryan J. Radtke, and Robert W. McDonald launched The Brandery three weeks ago. On Wednesday they close submissions that give five startups a 12-week launch program, earn $20,000 in seed funding, and provide access to partners, mentors and resources typically reserved for major corporations. The lucky winners will pitch to a group of angel investors, VCs and strategic partners.

In exchange for the seed funding, each company will give up 6% equity that goes to The Brandery, a non-profit, 5013C organization. When these startups emerge through successful exits, the equity will fund operating capital for The Brandery.

Mentors include Get Satisfaction’s Wendy Lea, P&G’s Lucas Watson, Third Screen Marketplace’s Suzanne Tosolini, Venture Investments at the Kraft Group’s Steve Schlafman, and E.W. Scripps’s Adam Symson, among many other industry executives.

Read More: MediaPost

The People’s Web

At Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg’s D8 conference a couple of months back, the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, stated that one of Facebook’s objectives was to “rethink the web stack around people.” This statement echoed the thoughts I shared in a recent post concerning the way social networks are poised to change all types of digital experiences over the next few years. In this posting, I will expand a bit on the implications of this transformation from a “site-centric” Web to a “people-centric” Web in the area of content.

Today, content experiences are built around a link-based architecture, in that links are aggregated to create static channels. Relevancy of a specific link is determined by how it relates to other links or analyzing the metadata used to describe that link. Generally, sites are designed to act as a holistic product rather than a modular one, although sites have certainly become more modular as they optimize themselves for search engines.

However, the overall product is designed to be controlled by the publisher rather than the users. Users’ ability to impact the way most sites package content has been primarily through click-through activity. User comments to a certain extent introduce user participation but that is probably where users’ involvement stops.

So, what would a content site designed with people as its primary focus offer?

Read More: SpectatorBytes.com

Brands on Sidelines as Disney, Google and MTV Charge Into Social Games

There’s a land grab in social gaming, but at this point, it doesn’t look like there’s much room for advertisers.   On Tuesday, Disney acquired top-three developer Playdom for $563 million plus $200 million in incentives. Google, meanwhile, is reportedly in talks with Playdom, Electronic Arts and Zynga in a social-gaming push. And MTV Networks this month acquired social-game developer Social Express and plans to launch games based on its TV shows later this year.  With the draw of their established storylines and characters in social games — not to mention well-oiled marketing machines — established media companies hope they can use casual gaming to grow and interact with their already massive audiences.  “When media companies integrate their brands, it’s going to be easier for people to get into the games because they are familiar and that will expand the market,” said Justin Smith, founder of social-game research firm Inside Network.

Johnson & Johnson is Holding a Roster Review of its Estimated $3bn Media Business.

On Tuesday, Disney acquired top-three developer Playdom for $563 million plus $200 million in incentives. Google, meanwhile, is reportedly in talks with Playdom, Electronic Arts and Zynga in a social-gaming push. And MTV Networks this month acquired social-game developer Social Express and plans to launch games based on its TV shows later this year.  With the draw of their established storylines and characters in social games — not to mention well-oiled marketing machines — established media companies hope they can use casual gaming to grow and interact with their already massive audiences.  “When media companies integrate their brands, it’s going to be easier for people to get into the games because they are familiar and that will expand the market,” said Justin Smith, founder of social-game research firm Inside Network.

Read More: AdAge

Mixed Ad Message From Newspapers

Online advertising has turned into a good-news story for newspapers. Will it have legs?   Several newspaper publishers have reported solid growth in digital advertising revenue for the second quarter in recent days, helping offset continuing declines in print advertising. The New York Times, for instance, reported 21% growth in digital-ad revenue against a 6% drop in print advertising, keeping total advertising “roughly flat” with the year-earlier quarter. Digital now accounts for 26% of its total ad revenue, up from 22%.  But that is mainly because print revenue has shrunk so much, rather than because digital has got so big. At the Times Co., print-ad revenue for the news group fell $15 million, to $232 million, while its digital-ad revenue rose $8.3 million. Growth at the About.com portal also boosted digital.

Industrywide, print-ad revenue fell by nearly half between 2000 and 2009, a loss of about $24 billion. But newspapers’ online revenue totaled only $2.7 billion last year.  That includes online classifieds, a segment that has been under pressure from free alternatives. Display advertising, including video, is where newspapers have the most opportunity. The market still is relatively small, just $8 billion in U.S. revenue last year, or 35% of total Internet revenue, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. And newspapers are competing for display dollars with major portals like Yahoo and Google as well as lots of smaller sites.  One bright spot for newspapers is that their sites draw higher ad rates than most other categories, at least as measured by cost per thousand impressions, or CPMs, according to comScore. Precise CPM numbers are hard to come by, but these estimates offer some indication of the differences between sites.

Newspaper sites’ CPMs in April were $6.99, while the rate for portals was $2.60 and 56 cents for social-networking sites, comScore estimates. Newspapers’ traffic isn’t high enough for those rates to translate into huge dollars: Newspapers drew only 8.5 billion impressions in April, translating into a revenue estimate of $59.4 million for the month. Impressions were 69.7 billion for portals and 98 billion for social-networking sites, comScore reported, for revenue of $181 million and $54.7 million, respectively.  Professionally produced content helps make newspaper sites, at least those of major titles like the New York Times, attractive outlets for advertisers. Many marketers are reluctant to have their ads appear on heavily trafficked social-networking sites because of the uncertainty of the kind of content that appears on those sites.  Longer term, video and mobile advertising also offer hope. For now, though, investors need to be wary in assuming that newspapers’ digital potential can outweigh the challenges in their legacy business.

Read More: WSJ (Entire Article Here)

Rocket Fuel Finds Low-Cost CPA Formula Through BlueKai Ad Data

Rocket Fuel has developed a formula to lower cost per action (CPA) and engagement metrics by an average of 43.75% compared with other targeting methods. It built custom campaigns combining BlueKai data based on specific audience models using key metrics to serve up ads in real-time with its own suite of targeting algorithms, analytics, expert analysis and real-time impression-level bidding.  The campaign, designed for an unnamed consumer packaged goods company, focused on indentifying in-market audiences that could scale as needed. Rocket Fuel simplified the problem through rapid testing and automation of multiple kinds of data to target the correct audience.  Tapping into this model to combine technology with data brought success to automakers, retailers, consumer packaged goods (CPG), and those in the travel industry. “It’s not just about one sector or one kind of metric,” says Richard Frankel, president of Rocket Fuel. “Direct-response marketers have one type of metrics, and brand and packaged good marketers have another.”

Read More: MediaPost

Cars May Not Be Flying Off Lots, But Auto Ad Volume Is Higher Than Ever

The recent hard times in the automotive industry have not dented the industry’s display ad volume, according to a new report from campaign management firm MediaMind (until recently known as Eyeblaster).  On the contrary, even as automakers were experiencing declining sales, there has been a significant increase in automotive ad impressions served by MediaMind, and specifically in the average impressions served per advertiser.  Data on online display advertising impressions served by MediaMind from 2007 to 2009 suggest that the global slowdown in automotive sales has actually done well for automotive Display Advertising.  In 2008, the number of total impressions increased and there has been no decline in the average impressions per advertiser. Furthermore, from February 2009, impressions increased significantly, potentially reflecting tighter competition for every customer and plans by governments in Europe and North America to launch new car rebate programs to stimulate the economy.  Last year — one of the worst years in recent memory for automakers — online display impressions per advertiser served by MediaMind shot up even further.  This shows that when ad budgets are becoming tight, advertisers are trading offline budgets for more targeted and efficient online campaigns, the report suggests. “For automakers, online display advertising represents a cost-effective way to interact with prospective customers.”

Read More: MediaPost