Program Ensures Delivery of Digital Video Ad Campaigns Through Guaranteed Impression Volume to an Advertiser’s Target Audience

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwire – Oct 6, 2011) – BrightRoll, the leading provider of digital video advertising services, today announced the launch of TAG™, its Total Audience Guarantee for campaigns run on the BrightRoll network. The first-of-its-kind program gives digital video advertisers the ability to pay only for the impressions that actually reach their target audiences.

“As more of our clients look to allocate portions of their TV budget to online video, it’s essential that we not only hit their target audience, but do so in a way that is consistent with their broadcast campaigns,” said Doug Wyatt, Digital Associate Director, Maxus. “We’ve had great success with BrightRoll in the past, which is why I’m excited to see TAG™ in action. It’s definitely the kind of tool that will help to further bridge the gap between online video buying and traditional television buys, and demonstrate to advertisers that we’re able to reach our precise audiences efficiently and effectively.”

With TAG™, advertisers know how many impressions will reach target audiences before a campaign begins. BrightRoll then delivers the campaign at scale, targeting 100% of the guaranteed impressions to the advertiser’s audience. Post campaign, advertisers receive confirmation of impression delivery through comScore’s AdEffx Campaign Essentials. TAG™ is available for segments based on age, gender and geographic data. Delivery of each TAG™ campaign is optimized to the specified audience through a combination of targeting methods and data providers using BrightRoll’s BRIQ™ technology platform.

Read More: Marketwire

Vibrant, the Contextual Ad Leader, Names Former Top NY Times Co. Executive Cella Irvine New CEO

New York, October 3, 2011 — Vibrant Media, the leader in premium contextual advertising, announced today the appointment of Cella Irvine as Chief Executive Officer. Irvine joins the fast-growing company as it continues to expand its global reach and suite of contextual ad solutions.

Irvine brings more than 25 years of digital and tech industry experience to Vibrant. As the former CEO of The New York Times Company’s About Group, she has extensive experience in contextual advertising, which drove About.com’s revenue through topic-based content. Prior to About, Irvine was Chief Administrative Officer of Digitas, an ad agency unit of Publicis, where she was responsible for operational, administrative and governance functions. Before Digitas, she was Global Head of Strategic Planning and then Chief Operations Officer for a business unit of Marsh, Inc., a risk consulting firm. She has also previously held management roles at Hearst and Prodigy.

Read More: Vibrant Media

Depending on who you ask, conversion rates on websites hover around 2 or 3 percent. That leaves at least 97 percent of site visitors with unfinished business potential.

We all know that your maximum unrealized potential isn’t 97 percent, but it’s probably not 0 percent either. Somewhere between these two extremes lies the size of the missed opportunity. This is where retargeting comes in.

Retargeting, also known in some circles as remessaging, and by Google AdWords users as remarketing, is the act of presenting a display ad to someone after they either:

-Saw one of your ads but failed to convert (creative retargeting — these people don’t even go to your site).
-Visited your website but failed to convert (site retargeting).
-Searched and found, but the website failed to convert (search retargeting).

Read More: Search Engine Watch

The Highs and Lows of Advertising in Online TV

In theory, video ads that appear within full TV episodes online should be an unstoppable force in digital advertising. They provide brands with a captive, focused audience for their video creative, but more than that they’re more effective than TV ads alone.

In its most recent Advertising Fact Sheet, Nielsen reported increases in general ad recall, brand recall, message recall, and ad likability for TV plus premium online video versus TV alone. In other words, those consumers who saw a commercial spot embedded in a TV program online demonstrated a more favorable response to that ad than those who saw the same ad on TV alone.

For those countless advertisers running cross-media campaigns, this is big news. There are plenty of opportunities to advertise in this way online, thanks to video players from major television networks and premium ad-supported streaming video sites. And as of last year, there are also more ad placements for the taking.

Read More: ClickZ

AOL Inc. and several private-equity firms are exploring making an offer to buy Yahoo Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, devising a bold plan to marry two big Internet brands facing steep challenges.

Silver Lake Partners and Blackstone Group LP are among the firms that have expressed interest in teaming up with AOL to buy Yahoo or trying to take it private on their own, these people said. They added that at least two or three other firms could be interested in participating if a formal buyout proposal is drawn up.

The people familiar with the matter cautioned that these discussions—involving private-equity firms, AOL executives and financial advisers—are preliminary and don’t yet involve Yahoo. The conversations may not lead to an approach given the complexities in structuring a proposal, the people said.

Spokeswomen for Yahoo and AOL declined to comment.

AOL, which spun off from Time Warner Inc. in late 2009, currently has a market capitalization of $2.68 billion, far smaller than Yahoo’s $20.56 billion market value.

Shares of Yahoo jumped 13% to $17.23 in after-hours trading Wednesday, after rising 5.7% to $15.25 at 4 p.m. on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The stock traded 49.6 million shares in the regular session, compared with an average of 17 million shares a day so far this month. It was one of the best-performing tech stocks of the day.

One of the scenarios under discussion among the buyout firms is a complex deal in which China’s Alibaba Group would buy back Yahoo’s roughly 40% stake in Alibaba, the people said.

Some of Yahoo’s other assets would also be sold off to interested media or technology companies, and the remaining company would be of a much smaller valuation that private-equity firms could get financing for, one of the people said.

Another scenario involves AOL combining its operations with Yahoo in a reverse merger after Yahoo disposes of the Alibaba stake, the people said. It is unclear if the resulting entity would be listed publicly.

Alibaba Chief Executive Jack Ma has expressed interest in repurchasing Yahoo’s stake in his company, which analysts value at about $10 billion. A big chunk of Yahoo’s current market value comes from its Alibaba stake.

Separately, AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong has also talked privately about the idea that Yahoo could buy AOL, according to a person familiar with the matter. Another person familiar with the matter said private-equity firms may also look to partner with media companies to buy Yahoo.

A combined Yahoo-AOL would have greater scale to compete in online advertising against industry juggernaut Google Inc. While both companies draw huge amounts of users, their advertising businesses have struggled as they’ve faced competition from a range of websites. The scenarios being discussed are similar to ones financial firms have discussed before. Yahoo and AOL discussed a merger in 2008, as Yahoo weighed a $45 billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp. Microsoft eventually pulled its bid.

While private-equity firms have long contemplated a deal for Yahoo, talks have heated up in recent weeks as several senior Yahoo employees have left the company, intensifying pressure on Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz to prove she can turn the company around, the people familiar with the matter said.

Ms. Bartz has improved Yahoo’s profitability by cutting costs, but revenue hasn’t grown much and the company faces other problems. The Internet pioneer, for example, has shown fewer benefits than competitors from a broad recovery in display advertising—an area where it faces increasing competition from Google and Facebook Inc.

The company, which reports third-quarter earnings next week, claims that more than 600 million people use its home page, email service or other sites every month. But the number of Yahoo pages viewed by its users, known as “user engagement,” began shrinking in the second quarter. Yahoo also has seen a drop in the value of advertising against content that Yahoo pulls from other sources.

Ms. Bartz said in a recent interview she needed more time to pull off a turnaround.

Read More: WSJ.com (Full Article Here)

Google, NBCU Cancel TV Ad-Sales Pact

NBC Universal and Google have discontinued their ad sales partnership begun in 2008, the companies have confirmed. The split deprives Google’s TV ad sales unit of one of its major alliances, although it still has deals in place with Dish TV, DirecTV and a handful of smaller networks like Ovation and the Tennis Channel.

The NBCU networks covered under the arrangement included CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, SyFy, Chiller and Sleuth.

Two years ago, when the deal was struck, it was seen as a groundbreaking boost for Google’s efforts to transform the TV business by providing a powerful online platform for ad sales.
 
But sources said that NBCU had concluded that there was little value derived from having an Internet company sell its ads. Some of the nets—like Chiller and Sleuth—were just getting off the ground at the start of the deal, and are just now being assigned to national sales teams at NBCU, according to sources.

Buyers complained that the sales proposition was somewhat exaggerated compared to what was actually available through the Google service. “There was little if any prime-time inventory available for Syfy,” said one buyer. “It was weekend or daytime or overnight. And with Oxygen you couldn’t even get daytime and it was mostly weekend or overnight. So there were a lot of issues that had to be explained to clients once you got under the hood.”

Buyers also have questioned Google’s approach—selling spots to the highest bidder via an online auction process—for some time.

Read More: MediaWeek

A Roadmap to a Better Media Buy

In the new display media environment of 2010, media buyers have literally thousands of options when it comes to ad network and website buys. How can buyers approach this in a way that is smart and delivers good value for clients? We’ve seen simple mistakes based on the “bigger is better” fallacy — that a plan with 30 media buys is better than a plan with just three. The core problem with these super-complicated plans is that they trade comprehensibility, quality, and results for bulk; it’s going to be a whole lot of work for underwhelming results.

Instead of size, the perfect digital media plan should focus on four core features:

• Reach — lots of people who are good targets for your message
• Knowable results — every plan should incorporate tools and measures that will help you know if you’ve achieved the outcomes you want
• Relevant content — sites that provide strong support for a message, brand, or product
• Integration — make your message a part of the consumer story

Each focus has a place in a media plan and must be part of the overall strategy. A really great media plan balances all of these things. Here’s how they can all be integrated into the perfect media plan.

Read More: iMediaConnection

Ad network VideoEgg will acquire Six Apart, owner of the MovableType and TypePad publishing platforms as well as a sizable social media ad network, and rebrand as Say Media. The combined company will boast 345 million monthly global unique users.

For VideoEgg, the new company name will emphasize its focus on social media and will dissociate it from the video ad space in the minds of media buyers.

“It pigeonholed us,” said VideoEgg President Troy Young. “People thought we were a streaming media network, which we weren’t. And VideoEgg, while a spirited name, didn’t feel like the mature media company we wanted to be.”

Six Apart CEO Chris Alden will step down when the transaction is completed in approximately 60 days, but most of the firm’s other senior management will transition to roles at Say Media. Say Media’s total headcount after the sale will be over 200, and its base of operations will be in San Francisco. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The main driver of the acquisition was scale in social media. Six Apart’s ad network reached approximately 90 million U.S. unique users on thousands of sites in April, according to comScore. In May the company unveiled an ad product, TypePad Conversations, that uses sponsored questions to help brands leverage that audience in meaningful ways.

Read More: ClickZ

Digital Ad Agencies Attract Interest of Would-Be Buyers

The deal-making in online advertising continues, as talks over the sale of two ad firms heat up.

Private-equity firm General Atlantic LLC has held preliminary talks with several companies over a possible sale of AKQA Inc., one of the U.S.’s largest digital ad shops, according to people familiar with the matter.

Meanwhile, New Jersey-based Rosetta LLC, another large digital ad firm, is in talks to buy Level Studios, a 15-year-old interactive marketing firm, according to a person familiar with the matter. Terms of the deal could not be determined.

General Atlantic, which took a majority stake in AKQA in 2007, hired Morgan Stanley to explore a possible sale after it received an unsolicited bid for the San Francisco-based agency, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. One company Morgan Stanley has approached is Dentsu Inc., Japan’s largest ad company, the people familiar with the matter said.

Dentsu hasn’t made a formal bid for AKQA but has made an “expression of interest” and suggested AKQA is valued at about $500 million, one of these people said. Two people familiar with the matter say that General Atlantic is seeking at least $600 million for AKQA.

AKQA, which has more than 800 employees, has long been an attractive acquisition target because of its ability to attract big brand advertisers, including Coca-Cola Co., Microsoft Corp. and Unilever PLC. A person familiar with the matter says early financials on AKQA shows the firm had about $120 million in revenue last year and is expected to have $150 million in revenue this year.

Tom Bedecarre, AKQA’s chief executive, has long wanted to take AKQA public. Mr. Bedecarre declined to comment.

A U.K. blog reported Dentsu’s interest in AKQA. A spokeswoman for Morgan Stanley declined to comment.

Dentsu has been on an aggressive buying spree, snapping up ad firms such as McGarry Bowen in New York, as it seeks to become less-dependent on its homeland for revenue.

Chris Kuenne, chief executive of Rosetta declined to comment on talks to buy Level Studios, except to say, “We are always looking at possible acquisitions.” Executives at Level couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Level Studios, which is based in San Luis Obispo, Calif., has worked on half of marketers such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Research in Motion Ltd.

Digital ad firms—which help companies pitch their products on the Internet and through mobile devices—are of particular interest to ad and media companies as online ad spending continues to grow and other mediums struggle. ZenithOptimedia, a media-buying firm owned by Publicis Groupe SA, predicts global online ad spending will rise 13% next year to $61 billion while global ad outlays in newspapers is expected to decline about 3% next year to $95 billion.

The pace of deal-making on Madison Avenue is accelerating as the recession begins to lift, ad executives say. Indeed, earlier this year newspaper and magazine publisher Hearst Corp. acquired iCrossing, a digital ad firm that specializes in search ads.

Read More: WSJ.com (Full Article Here)

Shaping Ads for Web-Connected TV

Technology companies racing to deliver video to the living room over the Web are exploring the idea of offering ads on their services, seeking to capture some of the billions of ad dollars that flow to television.

A few companies, including TiVo Inc. and Microsoft Corp., have released ad products tied to broadband-video services designed to be accessed on television sets, not computers. They include ads that can take a viewer to a movie trailer on YouTube when the viewer pauses a TiVo-recorded TV program, as well as ads that can be accessed by clicking a tile on the navigation menu of Xbox Live, the online gaming and video service for Microsoft’s Xbox game console.

Other efforts are also afoot. Google Inc. has been meeting with some of Madison Avenue’s biggest media-buying firms, exploring ways to sell ads through its Google TV software due out this fall. Sony Corp. and other hardware makers are launching TVs and set-top boxes equipped with the software, which allows users to search and watch Internet programming.

The Internet giant has told ad executives that it eventually plans to sell ads that appear in search results when consumers search for what they want to watch, some of those ad executives say. But those spots won’t interrupt the ad stream that appears during a program.

The company has told media-buying executives that it doesn’t plan to put ads on its service for at least a year. A Google spokeswoman says the company has been approached by advertisers about Google TV, but it is “solely focused on launching a quality experience for users, and does not have any specific plans for advertising” at this time.

Sony, meanwhile, is considering selling video ads that play before premium programming that consumers can access through its Internet-connected TVs, Blu-ray players and PlayStation 3 video consoles, says one person familiar with the matter. The person says these ads could be available in coming months. Sony declined to comment.

At the same time, traditional online-ad companies like Yahoo Inc. are adapting their Internet-ad technology to display ads that run alongside Web video displayed on TV screens.

This isn’t the first time that tech companies have sought a foothold in the TV-ad market. In recent years, Google and Microsoft launched television-ad services seeking to sell commercials targeted to specific kinds of consumers and measure those ads’ performance based on data from set-top boxes. But analysts say those businesses have remained modest, in terms of revenue, constrained by the type and amount of inventory TV networks and satellite companies have given them to sell.

A Google spokeswoman its TV-ad business has grown “significantly.”

This time around, tech companies are looking for new ad possibilities created by delivering video directly to TV sets over the Web. The software for doing so offers them new screen real estate for showing ads and the ability to target ads based on what viewers watch and the Internet services they access. Analysts say such ads could chip away at the market for conventional commercials over time.

TV ads are a massive business. Last year, TV accounted for nearly 36% of the $148.3 billion U.S. advertising market, according to ZenithOptimedia, a media-buying firm owned by Publicis Groupe. The firm predicts the U.S. TV-ad market will grow 3.8% to $55.8 billion in 2010.

Cable and satellite companies, too, have been testing new technology to target ads more precisely, along with new ad formats that let consumers respond to an ad through their remotes.

TiVo Chief Executive Tom Rogers says that since cable operators use differing set-top-box technology, the cable industry doesn’t have the ability to sell targeted ads on a mass scale, leaving an opening for tech companies. Cable and TV networks haven’t moved fast enough to promote new formats, he says. “The old models, with the amount of commercial avoidance, just aren’t going to hold up.”

This summer, PepsiCo‘s Mountain Dew brand launched its first campaign with Xbox Live. Unlike traditional TV commercials, the ads, which prompted Xbox users to vote for a new flavor of the soft drink, allowed users to engage with it when they were interested, Brett O’Brien, director of marketing for Mountain Dew.

But many advertisers remain skeptical. For one thing, it isn’t clear which ad formats will work best on broadband-connected TVs, says Tracey Scheppach, senior vice president and video-innovations director at Publicis’s Starcom MediaVest Group.

Tech companies not only have to win over advertisers, but also those who create video programming. While a growing number of TV and movie studios are offering content through new Internet-video services designed to be accessed directly from TVs, many are doing so on a paid basis. That approach is less likely to upset partners like cable operators who pay networks to carry their programming.

“In order For there to be a viable alternative model for distribution, a majority of media companies are going to have to be in a place where they can stomach the shift from subscription to advertising,” says Scott Ferris, general manager of Microsoft’s TV media advertising business group. He says that in the short term he thinks ads on broadband-video services will be confined largely to inside software applications on the services.

But, Mr. Ferris adds that, over time, a broadband-based video services target at TVs will gain national scale and “an advertising model will creep in there.”

Read More: WSJ.com (Entire Article Here)

The (Insert Name) TV. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) gave it a try not that long ago, and now Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) giving it its own go. I must say that Google seems to have put forward a robust, well-rounded attempt to conquer what has thus far been the most important, yet failed endeavor for the Y2K and beyond tech industry: to seamlessly integrate the computer/web-browsing experience with traditional tv and movie media. Microsoft (MSFT) tried with its purchase of WebTV long before Apple gave it its own shot not too long ago and next to bat is Google. Everyone seems to have an inherent bias that considering the prior failures, so too is Google set for the same fate. Yet something feels very different this time around. All in all, Google TV is a huge development for someone like myself–an active investor with a penchant for cutting edge technology–and something that I believe bodes well for future growth of media content distribution.

My Personal Experience with TV in the Living Room

As a user, I was pretty disappointed with the AppleTV from day 1. When first released, it had neither a database of content to buy nor access to YouTube and the device altogether lacked any Internet browsing capabilities. There were some cool features: for the first time I was easily able to bring my personal picture and video collection to my TV and I now had a way to easily play my digital music through the living room surround-sound system without going analog. These were nice perks, but far short of what I was really looking for in an integrated media center.

The AppleTV eventually stopped working (yep it broke…) and I’m still not sure as to exactly why, but rather than fixing it, I decided to pickup a Playstation 3 instead–a video game console with built-in browsing capabilities, and most importantly, a BluRay DVD player. This was a significant step for me. I am not really a video game enthusiast (although I do like Rock Band) and never in my life had I owned a gaming console (outside of the Nintendo (NTDOY.PK) Gameboy my parents reluctantly caved on letting me share with my sister as a young ‘un), but I made the jump. I did this not to play video games, but rather to bring to my living room the Sony (SNE) online entertainment store, Internet access to sites like Hulu, and the Netflix (NFLX) online library. I now have my own on-demand system. Yet it all feels largely incomplete. The browser is far from seamless in its capabilities and the scalability and customization are greatly lacking. I need more.

Read More: SeekingAlpha.com

Real-Time Automation Changing The Media Planner Role

Martin Lawson of media agency Maxus Global – which is under WPP’s groupm umbrella – was recently appointed Maxus’ Global Data and Insights Director. Previously, he was Head of Insight at digital agency i-level.

From the release, much of Lawson’s work for Maxus “will focus on strengthening Maxus’s ‘Relationship Media’ offering, a new media agency model powered by creative media thinking and sophisticated, real-time customer data.” Read more.

Lawson shared his thoughts on his new role and the evolution of the media agency model.

AdExchanger.com: As global data and insights director at Maxus, overall, how do you see your new role helping shape a new media agency model?

ML: It’s clear to me that most ‘traditional’ media agencies still need to improve their digital offering. They are in a great place to integrate digital into the media mix, but sometimes fall short in either strategic or technical competence. Or they may have both competences, but struggle to join them together. This shouldn’t really be a surprise, since they are already covering a lot of bases and are often of sufficient size that they can’t adapt their processes quickly enough to response to changes in the digital market. I also suspect that they aren’t being pushed hard enough by their clients in terms of integrated, digital strategies.

So this creates an opportunity for nimble, digitally-savvy agencies to exploit. The agencies that succeed in this area are likely to be small and young enough to avoid the trappings of scale and legacy process. However, to make an impact, they also need clout – primarily achieved through buying power. Maxus meets all of these criteria and is well on the way to delivering an innovative, future-facing approach to media planning. My contribution to this effort is to bring a blend of digital and traditional media evaluation experience and use it to underpin a planning process aimed at today’s consumers. We believe we have a compelling approach that is relevant for many advertisers. It’s a model that also recognises that consumers are increasingly engaging with media that aren’t bought or traded in a conventional way. It’s not a fixed model either, in fact it’s one that will need constant innovation.

Read More: AdExchanger

Today, Microsoft Advertising is launching our Mobile Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 7 and Microsoft Advertising Exchange for Mobile, the industry’s first real-time, bidded ad exchange in mobile. The release of these innovative platforms is designed to enable display ad serving for Windows Phone 7 applications and deliver tangible benefits to many key industry stakeholders.

With this launch, Windows Phone 7 app developers can maximize their mobile ad revenue by leveraging the industry’s first real-time bidded Mobile Ad Exchange, our superior ad targeting, multiple purchase models and leading resellers including Microsoft’s sales force –as well as the large-scale adCenter marketplace. Specific capabilities of our Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 7 include Demographic, Category, Carrier and Location targeting; Text and Image Units; Click to Call and Click to Web ad actions, and robust reporting on in-app ad revenue, ad inventory, clicks, CPM and sell thru rate.

Read More: Community.MicrosoftAdvertising.com

Looking Ahead: The Future of Yahoo! Products

A few months ago, when I first yodeled my way into Yahoo!, I told folks that I was stoked for the opportunity to join up with some of the smartest and best-in-class talent in the world to deliver the future products vision for a company with such a rich history. With more than 600 million worldwide users, Yahoo! has become one of the largest and most trusted Internet brands ever. In fact, we’ve been so successful in bringing the Internet to the masses that, for many, Yahoo! is synonymous with the Web. Over the last 15 years, we’ve delivered habit-forming communications products, highly intuitive search functionality, and awesome content services that make us central to the online lives of vast audiences on global scale — in turn, driving killer value to publishers, advertisers, and developers.

As I’ve learned more about the people and products that make Yahoo! great, I’ve grown even more positive that our future will be a bright one. Our products continue to evolve — and at the heart of that evolution is our commitment to bringing personal meaning to the Web for everyone. In short, that means helping you and the other 600 million people on Yahoo! cut through the vastness of online data by providing the experiences that are most important to you — whether that’s instantly finding the content you are searching for or connecting you with family and friends.

Read More: YCorpBlog

Yahoo’s Ambitious Plan To Change Search

Yahoo previewed features and functions Thursday scheduled for release this fall across its network of sites. During a product demonstration at its headquarters, the Sunnyvale, Calif. technology company focused on search, news and entertainment running on a variety of devices, including Apple’s iPad.

The new design gives Twitter a place on Yahoo, and lets users import Facebook contents into Yahoo Mail. Those who find content on the Yahoo site will have an option to share it via their Twitter feed. Yahoo’s network of sites will integrate social, rather than try to reinvent the social network.

Rolling out on the search engine, an accordion design will allow Yahoo searchers to query broad keyword terms and expand or contract the results by clicking on a link. The tabs will serve up Twitter tweets, videos, events and more. The goal to reduce the footprint on the search page aims to give searchers answers as quickly as possible, according to Shashi Seth, Yahoo’s senior vice president of search products.

Read More: MediaPost

Today, during ClickZ’s Connected Marketing Week in San Francisco which brought together name-your-digital-pleasure marketers to discuss their respective marketing channel, ClickZ and the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) also co-sponsored an Ad Networks & Exchanges event.

Editor’s note: It would seem the name of this type of IAB event may need to evolve. Demand-side platforms don’t want to be called ad networks. And, ad networks – to a certain degree – want to be known as demand-side platforms. Looking forward to the new name!

Just prior to the day-long event, the IAB released news (see it) that 16 IAB member ad network and exchange companies had become “the first to commit to comprehensive self-certification against the IAB ‘Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines,’ [which aims to] increase buyer control over the placement and context of advertising on ad networks and exchanges.”

In the third panel of the day, San Francisco-area media agencies provided their take on the fast-moving ad ecosystem and ad verification technologies, in particular.

Moderated by ValueClick Media’s Matthew Boyd, panelists included associate media director Kim Small of Universal McCann, senior media manager Pablito Padua of Signal to Noise (formerly Agency.com), associate media director Lindsay Wong of Razorfish and vp, digital strategy director Chris Unno of PHD.

Noting the new guidelines and their adoption by 16 member companies, panel members agreed they were heartened to see the step forward in adopting the brand safety measures. But Signal to Noise’s Padua added that he was disappointed that there weren’t additional networks on the initial list.

Read More: AdExchanger

Excess Ad Inventory Pushing Value-Added Services

The movement into value-added services by companies throughout the online advertising space continues to get more interesting. First we saw Google provide free tools and services to support online ad sales. Now search engine marketing companies have begun to provide free tools and platforms to small-and-medium size businesses in hopes of eventually locking them in to subscription services for life. Take that one step further, to find demand side platforms (DSP) building networks of tech offerings on top of real-time bidding platforms.

Xa.net built its platform as an integration hub to bring in data from BlueKai, eXelate and TargusInfo, as well as the media from ad exchanges and publishers. Add to that creative services and it gives advertisers a way to pull in targeting data, purchase ads, and design creative pieces.

The xa.net built technology that allows companies to access inventory from ad networks and exchanges through a real-time bidding system will also offer value-added services that assist companies with copywriting and creating ads. The company’s CEO, Rob Leathern, tells me xa.net began to build the platform earlier this year and will sign on five companies to augments its services. Think of it this way, Leathern wants xa.net to provide the underlying technology that connects complementary services to make everything work together. That includes ad creation for social media platforms, too.

One of those companies will become BoostCTR, a network of copywriters for text ads that will help xa.net clients improve the quality of copy written for Facebook ads. Others include 4Delit, a self-service system that lets small advertisers create Flash and rich media ads; Interpolls, which creates rich-media formats and widgets; OneScreen; and OggiFinogi.

Read More: MediaPost

Google TV plan is causing jitters in Hollywood

Google revolutionized the way people access information. Now it wants to transform how people get entertainment.

The search giant is touting an ambitious new technology, called Google TV, that would marry the Internet with traditional television, enabling viewers to watch TV shows and movies unshackled from the broadcast networks or cable channels on which they air. Users would need to buy a TV or set-top box with Google software that could connect to the Internet, along with a keyboard to type commands. Users could also use their iPhone or Android phone to operate Google TV.

The prospect of Google getting into television frightens many in Hollywood, who worry that Silicon Valley will upend the entertainment industry just like the Internet ravaged the music and newspaper industries.

Read More: LATimes.com

Connected TVs and set-top devices enabling consumers to view video from across the Internet on TVs could ultimately drive online video ads and marketing content budgets. The online video ad segment should grow at a 39% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) during the next five years, becoming a more than $5 billion market by 2014, estimates analyst firm Piper Jaffray, which released a series of reports Monday related to IPTV.

The slow shift of consumers spending more time with online video has already begun. The report explains some private video advertising networks admit to securing at least seven-figure budgets from major TV advertisers. Ad networks like Tremor, and those producing proprietary content like Adconion or BBE, could benefit from the transition. The bottom line, according to Piper Jaffray analysts, points to numerous Internet companies like Apple, Google and Yahoo, as well as Rovi, also capitalizing on this move.

Expect Google TV to comprise about 15% of the connected TVs by 2013, rising to 18% by 2014, according to Piper Jaffray. Intel’s CE4100 SoC and Google’s Android operating system is the technology platform that Sony and Logitech will build into products and release in the fall. Other set-top boxes, media players and TV makers have Google TV products slated for the first quarter in 2011.

Read More: MediaPost

Agencies Divided on Where to House New Mobile Units

In a matter of weeks, several new mobile units have sprouted up within adland, prompting debate in ad circles about whether the offerings should take root within creative agencies or form under media shops.

Omnicom Group recently launched a mobile-marketing consultancy called Airwave under media agency giant OMD. According to Jon Haber, U.S. director of OMD’s Ignition Factory, a media shop is the intuitive place to house a mobile unit.

“Mobile is bought in many of the same ways that digital media is bought, but it stretches across coupons, CRM, texts and out of home,” he said. “It bleeds into all other media types. An agency like OMD touches other media units, so it makes sense for mobile to be in-house so it can integrate into everything from TV to digital.”

OMD has also dabbled in mobile creative work; in 2009, it created the Dockers shakable iPhone ad with rich media provider Medialets. While paid media was a component of the Dockers campaign, it also received a lot of attention for creative.

Paid media has dominated recent buzz in mobile advertising with Apple and Google buying into the category. In January, Apple acquired mobile ad network Quattro and just recently launched its souped-up mobile ad unit, iAd, with big-budget advertisers such as Citibank and Unilever in tow. That followed Google’s $750 purchase of AdMob, which was under prolonged investigation by the Federal Trade Commission until just recently.

But for a platform that also includes brand apps, partnerships with developers and location-based services, there’s much more to mobile than display.

Read More: AdWeek

AOL’s Patch Aims To Quintuple In Size By Year-End

Patch, which has already established itself as the biggest network of neighborhood blogs in the country since being acquired by AOL last summer, plans to accelerate its growth dramatically. Patch President Warren Webster tells us the company will add a staggering 400 hyperlocal sites over the next six months, bringing its total to 500. In order to accomplish its goal, Patch will hire 500 more reporters in 20 states, making it—by far—the biggest new hirer of full-time journalists in the U.S.

AOL (NYSE: AOL) had already disclosed that it intended to invest $50 million to expand Patch this year, but the company hadn’t said exactly how it would allocate that cash. Back in April, for instance, when Patch had 46 sites in five states, Webster told us that the company expected to be “in hundreds of towns” by year-end but wouldn’t be more specific.

Webster says that Patch is selecting towns to expand to based in part on a 59-variable algorithm that takes into account factors like the average household income of a town, how often citizens vote, and how the local public high school ranks; the company is then talking to local residents to ensure that targeted areas have other less quantifiable characteristics like a “vibrant business community” and “walkable Main Street.” Patch hires one professional reporter to cover each community; each “cluster” of sites also has an ad manager who is the “feet in the street” selling ads.

The network, however, says that to date it hasn’t been focusing on generating revenue. “Our philosophy from day one was that the first priority should be to build an engaged audience through journalism,” Webster says. “The second phase is to leverage that audience for local businesses that want to target customers. We’re at the beginning of phase two now.” Right now, Patch is letting local businesses buy banner ads and also letting them set up their own business listings, which they can convert into ads.

Read More: PaidContent.org

Google has announced a partnership with DirecTV, allowing advertisers to buy national inventory on 11 networks carried by the satellite provider – including Bloomberg, Fox Business, Centric, and Fuel – through the search giant’s auction-based self-service TV ad platform.

According to Google, DirecTV is responsible for selling between two and four minutes of ads for every hour of programming it delivers, with the networks themselves selling the remainder. The arrangement will see DirecTV effectively hand off its inventory for those 11 networks to Google, which will now offer advertisers access to ads across all dayparts, including primetime.

Speaking with ClickZ, John Saroff, head of strategic partnerships for Google’s TV Ads product, said the intention was to help give online advertisers a taste of what TV has to offer. “Our bread and butter is bringing new advertisers to television – internet advertisers that have grown up with Google,” he said, adding that over 30 percent of advertisers currently using the product are new to TV advertising.

In 2007, Google agreed to a relationship with DISH Network through which it sells ads across 90 different networks. However, that relationship is non-exclusive, meaning the type and volume of inventory fluctuates, depending on negotiations with DISH.

DirecTV, however, has essentially agreed to subcontract all of its ad sales to Google for those 11 networks, representing a significant step forward for the fledgling product. “This is a very exciting day for us,” Saroff said, adding, “We hope to extend the relationship down the line, but it makes sense to start with a relatively small amount of inventory.”

Essentially, Saroff suggested the product has been pitched mainly at small to medium-sized businesses looking for an easy way to extend their marketing efforts. However, a lack of geographic targeting capabilities would appear to limit its appeal to local advertisers, as could the costs associated with producing ad creative. In 2009, an agency exec told ClickZ that most small businesses have little time, or the inclination to experiment with the medium, stating, “You need a professional.”

Read More: ClickZ

Council Proposes Web Content Guidelines

The Internet Content Syndication Council has released proposed guidelines for content syndication for its members– and ultimately the online media industry as a whole — to review.

The  group, which includes CBS, Reuters, Turner and the Associated Press, says it is making a bid to bolster Web content quality and strengthen the utility of the Internet.
 
The guidelines are aimed at countering the rise of shoddy, poorly sourced and edited content, often produced solely with search engines in mind. While not naming these companies directly, the ICSC’s push seems clearly aimed at companies such as Demand Media, Yahoo’s Associated Content and AOL’s Seed.com. Each churns out a large amount of enterprise or general-interest service content — mostly produced by low-paid freelancers.

The ICSC says the stakes are high, claiming “content mill” output is making the Web experience worse for average users. The group believes creators and publishers should work to preserve the utility of the Internet for users and advertisers alike.

To do so, the ICSC guidelines — geared toward informational content, not opinion or entertainment — focus on the importance of journalistic principles. For example, the guidelines encourage that formal editorial processes be used whether articles are produced by staff writers or freelancers. All work should be date stamped, and all corrections be clearly labeled. Plus, perhaps most controversially, the ICSC believes that writers’ credentials should be prominently displayed alongside their work.

Read More: AdWeek

Many pundits have criticized Google as a one-trick pony that makes money from one thing – search on the desktop. There’s certainly some truth to that, but Google’s moves over the last few years foreshadow an audacious three screen advertising strategy that, if properly executed, would represent a ground-breaking second act for the company. By aggressively pursuing platforms on mobile and TV in addition to their traditional perch on the desktop, Google is positioning itself to deliver ads across all three screens and trump the capabilities of both Apple and Microsoft, who have made far less inspiring moves in the advertising world.

Read More: JackMyers.com

John Mayer’s LeBron Spoof Satisfies Fans’ Growing Content Cravings

Since Monday a new video featuring musician John Mayer’s spoof of LeBron James’s ubiquitous “decision” TV special has collected an additional 30,000 views. That brings views of the parody video – which doubles as a summer tour promo – to over 192,000 as of noon today.  “After giving it a lot of thought and careful consideration I have decided that I’m going to play for Cleveland,” says Mayer in the video in a deadpan monotone. “So as not to offend my fans in South Beach, I’d also like to announce that I’ll be playing for Miami,” he continues, adding, “I’m also going to be playing for New York City.”  Those three cities, as anyone who’s glanced at sports coverage recently knows, were among the likely locations for former Cleveland Cavaliers offensive powerhouse LeBron James to choose as his new home as he made his much-hyped decision as a free agent. James chose to play for The Miami Heat starting next season, though the New York Knicks were also reportedly in consideration.  “The John Mayer bit works because it’s timely, clever, and reflects his personality,” said Edith Bellinghausen, SVP digital business at entertainment firm Razor & Tie, which puts out bands and artists including Day of Fire, Matisyahu, and Natalie Grant.

Read More: ClickZ

Online Video Ad Segment Poised to Explode

The online video advertising market is poised for rapid growth over the next few years, according to eMarketer.  The research firm estimates online video advertising spending will grow more than 48 percent this year, reaching $1.5 billion. By 2014, it expects the video ad market will top $5.5 billion.  ”Video fulfills branding objectives better than any other current online ad Format — with the sound, motion and emotion of TV, but with better measurability and targeting,” said David Hallerman, a senior analyst at eMarketer. “The continued development of more professional-quality video on the Web makes the target audience more receptive to advertiser messages and thereby encourages advertisers to spend more for video ads.”  Still, spending growth does not necessarily correlate with current market importance. While video ad spending growth will far outpace that of any other online ad format from 2009 to 2014, it will still represent only 6 percent of all Internet advertising expenditures in 2010.

Read More: AdWeek