Babelfish Articles #12 Jan-June 2015

Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

Articles

Jan-June 2015

Brian [email protected]

SummaryProgrammatic buying: just a buzzword or the future of media buying?..................................7

Pandora Exec Says 8 Seconds Could Be the Sweet Spot for Mobile Video..............................9

Video Advertising: How Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Snapchat are Changing the Rules..................................................................................................................................... 10

How 'phygital' products connect offline and online..............................................................14

Facebook: Redefining Video Advertising...............................................................................17

The future of agency trading desks: Evolve or die................................................................27

7 Deadly Sins: Where Hollywood is Wrong about the Future of TV.......................................28

Welcome to the ‘walled garden’ era of ad tech....................................................................37

Inside AdWords..................................................................................................................... 39

Forget Ad Avoidance, Growth of Digital -- TV Holding Its Own..............................................42

Procter & Gamble CMO Pritchard: Programmatic Delivers Business Lift...............................44

How Starcom trained 1,200 employees to speak programmatic..........................................48

Agencies Scramble to Keep Young Talent.............................................................................49

New Facebook Study Reveals Psychological Motivation Behind Status Updates..................51

Publicis moves programmatic ad buying from VivaKi into media agencies..........................53

Media groups form digital advertising alliance.....................................................................53

BORGES' MAP Navigating a World of Digital Disruption........................................................54

How cars really get bought...................................................................................................66

How programmatic and 'always on' strategies can improve performance...........................71

Broadcasters, Cable Companies and MVPDs Unite to Form the New Video Advertising Bureau............................................................................................................................................. 78

DSPs Showcases Key Ad Tech Companies............................................................................79

Marketing Tech Stack Illustrations Highlight Wide Range of Approaches.............................81

Uncommon sense: the appification of tv..............................................................................82

Mobile Payment System Rumble: Apple Pay Vs. Samsung Pay Vs. Android Pay...................84

Programmatic, changing consumers and viewability: Future challenges for media planners and media agencies..................................................................................................................... 86

Data Breaches and Brand Management: How to Preserve Your Brand Value.......................91

Programmatic 'still needs planners'......................................................................................93

Mondelez Makes New Call to Startups for Retail Tech..........................................................93

Pernod targets 'consumption moments'...............................................................................95

Google entra na briga para substituir cartões por celular.....................................................96

There Is No More Social Media -- Just Advertising.................................................................97

The One Slide From Mary Meeker That (Still) Makes No Sense At All....................................98

We Overlook Humans And Creative When Talking Programmatic, Says InSkin Media’s GM. 99

Programmatic TV to hit $10bn............................................................................................100

Digital markets mature.......................................................................................................101

For Video Ad Viewability, Size Matters................................................................................102


Why Your Agency Needs Fewer Project Managers and More Producers..............................102

TV strategy: The optimal TV ad length...............................................................................104

4G Development in Latin America Is Slow, Uneven............................................................109

Wearables: The Next Employee Accessory?.......................................................................111

Brand journalism to go mainstream....................................................................................112

The connected car report: Forecasts, competing technologies, and leading manufacturers113

It's Not Just Cyclical: Industry Change Is Driving Marketing Giants to Review Media Agencies........................................................................................................................................... 116

Media environment trumps media quality..........................................................................117

10 Steps to Make Each Day Exceptionally Productive........................................................118

The Rise Of The SSP For Programmatic TV.........................................................................120

Corporate Storytelling: Coming To Your Emotional Rescue................................................121

How People Will Use the Apple Watch................................................................................122

From F8: What’s New with Facebook Video........................................................................124

Facebook video challenges YouTube..................................................................................125

Copy for faster ad strategy.................................................................................................126

Você quer mesmo deixar o Brasil? Tem certeza?...............................................................127

Havas Worldwide CEO Andrew Benett on the Reality of Digital TV.....................................129

The problem with media agencies......................................................................................130

Young people see more than 20 hours of online video versus only 8 TV............................132

Video viewers demand choice............................................................................................133

Google vai vender propagandas de TV. E isso é uma péssima notícia para as emissoras..134

Google Fiber May Have Created a Game-Changer: Real Measurement of TV Ad Views......135

WPP and dunnhumby - Strategic Positive At Right Price.....................................................136

L'Oreal USA Moves to Make All Types of Ads -- Online and Off -- 'Shoppable'.....................138

Moradores das favelas brasileiras movimentam R$ 68,6 bilhões por ano..........................138

SXSW Interactive Panel Picks for CMOs and Big Data Futurists..........................................140

O melhor palestrante do mundo: desconstrução da apresentação campeã.......................142

Canais de TV também adotam modelo de mídia programática..........................................144

Creativity is key to programmatic.......................................................................................145

MediaCom tightens procedures..........................................................................................145

Data Will De-Commoditize TV Advertising..........................................................................146

Audience Insights: Why Marketers Need To Put Analytics First..........................................149

Uncommon sense: how to increase your digital advertising effectiveness through 'reach efficiency'........................................................................................................................... 151

Connected Cars Digital Media Apps....................................................................................153

Big Brands Find Data Is As Much A People Challenge As A Technology Challenge.............156

Meerkat for iOS Lets You Live Stream Video to Your Twitter Followers...............................158

Tim Cook Says the Upcoming Apple Watch Will Replace Your Car Keys.............................158

Strategy Corner’s Digital Trends of the Week: March 2nd..................................................159


Programmatic Fact vs. Fiction.............................................................................................161

Social Media Week: Digital Marketers Must Predict the Future to Succeed........................162

Online behaviour moves in-store........................................................................................163

Shoppers Bringing Online Competition Inside Bricks-and-mortar Stores............................164

A new tool aims to discover what the subconscious mind is really thinking when people post on Twitter................................................................................................................................ 167

Facebook Launches Dynamic Product Ads for Data-Minded Retailers................................167

Target and Shutterfly are among the first merchants testing Facebook product ads.........169

IPG Will Remain Out Of The Inventory Resale Business......................................................172

WPP and comScore Partner for Cross-Platform Measurement............................................173

Heineken joins list of brands demanding independent ad tech solutions...........................174

Google’s impending data platform restrictions raise concerns...........................................176

SMG Strikes Deal To Integrate 'Granular' Set-Top Data Into TV Planning/Buying System...179

New marketing models emerge..........................................................................................179

Rising angst over airbnb operations...................................................................................180

6 Things They Don't Tell You When You Leave the Big Corporate World for Your Own Business........................................................................................................................................... 183

Two Big Questions About Video in Social Media (and Some Answers)................................185

Big Data Has Big Effect When Shared Companywide.........................................................191

Innovid Releases The First Interactive Video Benchmarks Report......................................192

Online Video Has a Completion Rate of Almost 50%..........................................................196

Marketers shift retargeting focus........................................................................................196

The shopper of the future: How today's young shoppers see tomorrow's shopping experience........................................................................................................................................... 197

Clear QR Code..................................................................................................................... 205

AB InBev takes digital into stores.......................................................................................210

How CPG Advertisers Stack Up for Digital Video.................................................................211

Twitter And The Venture-to-Public Company Transition Challenge.....................................213

AAPL Ad-Blocking Concerns - Too Early Too Worry.............................................................214

ANA to Launch Fact-Finding Probe Into Media-Buying Kickback Claims..............................215

P&G "hacks" the laundry category with Swash...................................................................216

Virtual Reality’s Future Relies on Improved Storytelling – Interview with Aaron Koblin......219

Digital's Third Wave Is Coming: Don't Miss the Ride...........................................................222

Even Small Businesses Are Ready for Marketing Automation.............................................223

ADBE Summit Comments, WPP Panel and GOOG Threat?..................................................223

Twitter embraces livestreaming, confirms periscope purchase..........................................225

Digital Banking in Brazil Reaches Milestone.......................................................................226

Blippar app visual overhaul aims to identify everything around you..................................228

Media agency role must change.........................................................................................231

With $25 Billion Up for Grabs, Media Agencies Need to Change.........................................232

Marketing Research Industry and NLSN Outpaced Advertising In 2014..............................234


Starcom and Zenith bring programmatic in-house.............................................................235

Marketing Tech Stack Illustrations Highlight Wide Range of Approaches...........................236

SMG Unveils New Global Operating Structure.....................................................................237

Publicis' Programmatic Arm Sends Traders to Individual Agencies.....................................238

SMG launches real-time content marketing solution across EMEA.....................................239

Tudo que você precisa saber sobre os lançamentos do Google.........................................240

Why Pre-Roll Video Ads Need to Be Interactive..................................................................242

The Future Is Personalized..................................................................................................243

Can Marketing Tech Adoption Catch Up to Data Adoption?................................................245

No Brasil, 68 milhões de pessoas acessam internet pelo smartphone...............................248

68 milhões usam a internet pelo smartphone no Brasil......................................................249

Content marketing should be layered.................................................................................251

The New Media Buying Formula: Upfront + Programmatic.................................................252

Programmatic TV: Why Agencies Should Start Watching & Investing.................................253

Can't Marketing and IT Just Get Along?...............................................................................254

The world’s first atm with facial recognition technology is unveiled to the public in china 256

Coca-Cola's Javier Sanchez Lamelas: tech can't save average creative campaigns...........256

Kellogg Has Stopped Buying YouTube Ads Over Viewability Verification Issue...................257

The meeker report..............................................................................................................260

Data, Data Everywhere in the Upfront: An Overview -- Part 1 (Updated)...........................265

Data, Data Everywhere in the Upfront: An Overview -- Part 2............................................267

How Automation Will Change Content and Native Ads.......................................................269

Retailers focus on bridging digital-physical divide..............................................................271

Do Marketers Need Agencies to Get 'Ahead of the Curve'?................................................273

VP to agencies: understand consumers' digital behaviour and deliver KPIs.......................274

Disruption and woulda, coulda, shoulda.............................................................................276

For Video Ad Viewability, Size Matters................................................................................280

Assembly's Jeff Brooks Talks Data-Planning Engines and the Infrastructure Age...............281

New Media Agency Reviews Highlight Sector Risk..............................................................282

Agencies and Barter - Great Businesses, But Perception Problems Remain.......................283

The Next Frontier in Customization: Lay's Potato Chip Bags..............................................286

YouTube “How To” Video Searches Up 70%, With Over 100 Million Hours Watched In 2015287

Red Bull redefines role of data in videos to enrich viewing experience..............................289

IPG’s Cadreon Developing TV Buying Software With Video Ad Tech Firm TubeMogul........292

Reddit Builds Out Video Capability.....................................................................................293

“Why Play A Game, When You Can Live It?”.......................................................................294

Introducing Facebook’s Instant Articles..............................................................................294

Programmatic Creative: Look to Existing Processes for Guidance......................................295

O Brasileirão 2015 já começou no Twitter..........................................................................296

Com 'empurrão' da classe C, smartphones dominam mais de 90% do mercado no Brasil.298


UK lags when it comes to video ad completion rates..........................................................300

Long Road Ahead for Programmatic in Latin America.........................................................301

The important things that came out of the NewFronts.......................................................302

Expedia Adds Emoji To Its Title Tags To Increase Click Through Rates In Google...............303

Marketers Share Data Externally, Whether or Not They Want To.......................................305

Context is about more than ad placement..........................................................................306

TrueView coming to DoubleClick: User choice meets programmatic..................................307

Spotify’s Announces Impressive New Features, Including Video Integration & Ultra-Personalized Playlists............................................................................................................................... 310

Pinterest Advertising Strategy Blossoms with Unveiling of ‘Cinematic Pins’.......................310

Google-Twitter Partnership Develops, Tweets Will Now Appear in Google Search..............311

How PepsiCo sweetens up consumer insights....................................................................311

25 maneiras de como perguntar aos seus filhos 'Como foi a escola hoje?' sem perguntar 'como foi a escola hoje'................................................................................................................. 313

Did Google just nail the Age of Context at I/O?...................................................................315

'Mobile is Increasingly THE First Screen for Video in Brazil'................................................318

IAB Takes Over Open Video View Initiative, The ‘Standard Before The MRC Standard’......321

Businesses no longer have to choose between mass market reach and niche market richness........................................................................................................................................... 322

Preparation, Preparation: Be prepared for any kind of interview........................................324

The media plan of the future..............................................................................................326

‘Ghost Malls’ Haunt Brazil...................................................................................................329

HOW BIG DATA AFFECTS MARKETING.................................................................................332

Tim lança serviço de set-top-box........................................................................................335

TV Remains Most Effective Ad Medium...............................................................................336

Is there really a “more effective medium”?........................................................................337


Programmatic buying: just a buzzword or the future of media buying?

Posted 26 May 2015 9:30 AM by Jessy Davis

Programmatic is a word we’ve heard a lot lately. And when it comes up in conversation, other terms quickly follow: DSP, SSP, DMP, PMP, reserved, guaranteed and non-guaranteed. So what does all this chatter mean? Is programmatic buying just a new concept or the new reality?

As the subject and the practice continues to gain momentum, most agencies and publishers are starting to train and develop dedicated experts to be their “go-to personnel” for programmatic questions. Yet as programmatic spending increases and more premium inventory (e.g., home page takeovers, custom executions, etc.) becomes available, all — yes, all — media buyers and sellers should have at least a basic understanding of programmatic buying. And that’s the goal of this blog. By the time you finish reading it, you should have a general sense of what programmatic buying is. You’ll also know why it will become increasingly more important as the media landscape evolves.

What is Programmatic Buying?

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), programmatic buying is “the buying and selling of advertising, real-time bidding, automation, and the buying and selling of digital media.” In simple terms, programmatic media is a marketplace for buyers and sellers, with digital media being the product. By leveraging data and real-time bidding (similar to paid search), advertisers are able to stretch media dollars further than ever to hit the right customer at the right time on the right site. Except with programmatic, the buying is now happening faster than it takes to load a web page.

Breaking Down Programmatic

In a marketplace, a buyer (media agencies or advertisers) is looking to purchase digital media ads/impressions (inventory) from media sellers (publishers), while publishers are looking to sell their inventory to advertisers and media buyers. In summary, someone’s looking to buy, and someone’s looking to sell.

How does the buying and selling occur and where does it take place? Open exchanges and private marketplaces (PMPs) are accessed by demand-side platforms (DSPs) via integrations with supply-side platforms (SSPs) and exchanges. That’s a bit of an alphabet soup, so here’s a more detailed explanation of each: DSPs are the platforms where buyers manage their digital media purchases and try to obtain the most efficient CPMs for their digital ad spend. SSPs are the platforms where sellers sell their products to maximize their profits on their inventory. Like an ad server, there are two sides with similar technology that connect digital media buyers and sellers.

Now that we’ve covered the buyer and seller platforms, next up are the several ways to purchase this inventory. The programmatic buying structure is like a funnel: Inventory starts at the top (higher value) and travels down to the bottom (lower value). Along the way, buyers are bidding to win the impression. If it sells, it’s gone. If it doesn’t sell, it continues to move down the funnel until (ideally) someone purchases it. The flow of inventory between the funnel levels is fast — only seconds long, if that. As such, it’s usually advised to use a mix of the buying structures to purchase the most effective rate and win relevant impressions.

Two main tiers of programmatic buying are PMPs and exchanges. PMPs allow a scalable solution for advertisers to utilize established relationships to buy more select inventory and secure efficient rates,


while exchanges embrace real-time bidding in an auction-based environment that grants mass scale and inventory.

5 Common Programmatic Buying Structures (Reserved and Unreserved)

1. Automated Guaranteed (Private Marketplace)

• Direct Sales – buyers and sellers agree to a fixed rate on inventory that delivers guaranteed impressions

2. Programmatic Reserved (Private Marketplace)

• Reserved Inventory – publishers negotiate deals on a fixed rate that reserves inventory that delivers guaranteed impressions

3. Unreserved First Look

• Unreserved Inventory – publishers present inventory that is not sold in the reserved tiers to a select advertiser before opening it up to any other advertisers

4. Invitation-Only Auction (Exchange)

• Unreserved Inventory – publishers invite selected advertisers to an auction to bid for the impression

5. Open Exchange (Exchange)

• Unreserved Inventory – auction for unsold inventory without guaranteed impressions


Why Buy Programmatic?

The simplest answer: It’s an easier and more efficient way to buy media. Automating the buying process allows advertisers to maximize their media spend by (1) utilizing existing consumer data across all buys, (2) enabling the negotiation of more effective rates, (3) creating more flexibility in purchase decisions and (4) providing access to premium inventory on premium sites without having to manage multiple publisher contracts, which saves time for both parties. Publishers also benefit tremendously by having a place to sell their entire inventory.

DSPs, SSPs and buying structures are just the tip of the programmatic iceberg. There are many more complex details, but that is where the programmatically trained really become valuable to agencies and publishers. As Laura Desmond, CEO of Starcom MediaVest, stated in Ad Age, “If you're a marketer, do you want your programmatic decisions siloed and balkanized from everything else that you're doing? No. You want it integrated." Understanding the foundation of what programmatic buying is, popular buying structures and the advantages of purchasing programmatically differentiates media professionals as adaptable and invested in the ever-changing, integrated advertising ecosystem.

As a forerunner in the digital media arena, Moxie is taking programmatic by the reins. In addition to implementing and leveraging our own internal resources, proprietary technology platforms and centralized data warehouse, we recently developed and launched a 10-week agency course in programmatic buying for our media team. If you want to find out how programmatic can drive your business forward, contact Moxie today.

Jessy Davis is an Assistant Media Planner at Moxie. She is currently preparing to represent Moxie at the 2015 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in the Young Media Academy. Follow Jessy on Twitter, @_JessyDavis, through her journey at Cannes beginning June 19.

Pandora Exec Says 8 Seconds Could Be the Sweet Spot for Mobile Video

But do brands want to create for yet another format?

ByLauren Johnson June 10, 2015,


Pandora's sponsored videos could be getting shorter.

Instagram locks advertisers in to the 15-second social video ad, while Vine requires them to build six-second clips. As just about every platform and publisher pushes brands to run shorter videos that grab consumers' attention, Pandora's chief revenue officer John Trimble said he thinks eight-second promos could be mobile video's silver bullet.

Late last year, Pandora rolled out Sponsored Listening, an ad format that lets consumers listen to one hour of ad-free music in exchange for watching a short video promo. Bud Light, Fox and Sony PlayStation have all tested the format since then.

Currently, those pre-roll videos are at least 15 seconds and can run up to two-and-a-half minutes. But it's no surprise that getting people to pay attention for even 15 seconds is tough, causing Trimble to make the case for eight-second preroll. The idea is that an eight-second ad is a nice balance between the length of a six-second Vine and a 10-second video.

"As the competition for consumers' attention heats up, we're focused on developing ad products that are good for both advertisers and listeners—Sponsored Listening is a great example of that," Trimble said. "Our video advertising product has performed well thus far, and we are exploring various video formats on an ongoing basis. Looking ahead, I could envision video and audio ads as short as eight seconds being something advertisers and listeners will be interested in."

Pandora said it doesn't have any immediate plans to start selling eight-second video or audio ads, but is considering it as a way to better target millennials and younger consumers.

Greg Manago, creative development and production lead for Mindshare's content and entertainment division, said he liked the idea of eight-second video as an alternative to Vine's six seconds. "It gives us another two seconds to work with," he said. "The trick with mobile is to be engaging quickly without being annoying. You need to be very creative at this length, but we love a good challenge."

Getting brands on board


Steve Carbone, managing director and head of digital and analytics at Mediacom agreed that snackable clips are needed on mobile, since some video ads are still sold as 30-second spots. He said that when consumers have a choice, they skip 50 percent of those longer ads halfway through.

That said, an eight-second cap could be a tough sell for brands that have already struggled to turn traditional 60- and 30-second ads—which they spent decades perfecting for TV—into shorter digital promos.

Plus, the growing fragmentation in how media companies sell video ads could make the eight-second video just one more headache for media buyers. Just last week, eMarketer cited more video options as a challenge that may hold back mobile spending. The research firm expects mobile video advertising to hit $2.6 billion this year.

"Most brands will struggle to tell a story in eight seconds, as they still think in a TV world," Carbone explained. "Eight seconds requires a different level of creativity and a huge shift in how you need to get your message out."

Video Advertising: How Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Snapchat are Changing the Rules

Debra Aho Williamson | December 22, 2014

Executive Summary

It’s primetime for video in social media.

2015 will see a rapid increase in video advertising on Facebook and other social platforms. Facebook in particular is coming on strong and has the potential to put pressure on YouTube, which captures nearly 20% of US video advertising spending right now, according to eMarketer estimates.

Facebook isn’t the only one angling for a slice of the video advertising pie. Twitter is beta testing Promoted Videos; Instagram is rolling out video advertising; and Tumblr and Snapchat have new video ad products.

This report details the growth of video on social properties and assesses the benefits and drawbacks of placing video ads on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Snapchat. In addition, the report looks at two important issues: whether these new video ad offerings are causing TV budgets to shift, and how the social platforms are complicating the viewability issue.


This is one of two linked reports about video advertising in social media. See our related report, “Video Advertising in Social Media: 11 Insights to Help You Make the Most of It,” for advice and insights drawn from in-depth interviews with executives and thought leaders at agencies, marketers and publishers.

Key Questions

• How much video is consumed on social platforms?

• How is Facebook redefining video advertising, and how much of a threat will it be to YouTube?

• Will Twitter’s strong ties with the TV business lead to success in video ads?

• What role will Instagram, Tumblr and Snapchat play?

• Will TV ad budgets shift, and how are the social platforms complicating the viewability debate?

Social Properties Are Becoming Major Video Platforms

Cisco predicted in a June 2014 report that video will account for 80% to 90% of global consumer internet traffic by 2018. If Facebook, Twitter and others have their way, they will be the conduits through which a significant portion of that video moves.

Facebook already ranks as the second biggest online video property in the US, according to comScore data from October 2014. The ranking only includes desktop viewers, not mobile.


http://totalaccess.emarketer.com/eStatDatabase/ChartRedirect.aspx?181001-182000/181045

While platforms such as YouTube and streaming video players still attract many internet users, a greater percentage use social networks for video than use other types of video platforms, such as news sites. According to a 2014 survey by Google and TNS, 73% of internet users in the US and in Canada used a video site or app to watch digital video. Social networks ranked second, at 30% of respondents in Canada and 29% of US respondents.

A study like the one above might be perceived as biased, considering that Google owns YouTube, but a study from Frank N. Magid Associates, conducted in June 2014, had a similar finding. Here, Facebook was used by 33% of digital video viewers, trailing YouTube’s 75% but a greater percentage than other well-known video services like Netflix and Hulu.




“We are seeing a little bit of a shift in how consumers are consuming video,” said Steve Carbone, managing director and head of digital and analytics at MediaCom USA. “It used to be YouTube was the first place that they go to search and see video, but a lot of those initial video impressions are happening on [Facebook’s] newsfeed. And then the second and third views are happening after they are being searched for on YouTube.”

Social properties provide a different viewing experience than YouTube or a TV network’s streaming player. A key differentiating element is the ease with which users can share and comment.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge typifies this difference. It showed that Facebook users were not only willing to upload video of themselves being doused with ice water, but also that they would use Facebook’s sharing and tagging features to encourage others to view and participate.

Between June 1 and September 1, 2014, 17 million videos related to the ALS challenge were uploaded to Facebook; they were viewed more than 10 billion times by 440 million Facebook users.

All of these developments are causing marketers to change how they think about the role of video in social media.

• “We are looking at social platforms at large as a new video distribution opportunity. This is a whole new space for us to be able to distribute our video assets.”—Natalie Bokenham, vice president and managing director of digital, UM Worldwide

• “It’s not just YouTube anymore. It’s figuring out how to incorporate snackable video content on channels like Instagram, Vine, animated GIFs, etc. Your content has to have a lot of legs that can span multiple channels.”—Kellee Montgomery, social and emerging digital marketing manager, Ford Motor Co.



• “Where it used to be every marketer just looked at YouTube, now we see that shifting to Facebook and Twitter.”—David Vogt, associate director of digital strategy, Vizeum

With the groundwork laid for social media to become a common place where consumers view and share video and where marketers distribute video, video advertising is poised to grow as well. The next sections detail the video ad opportunities on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Snapchat.

How 'phygital' products connect offline and online

This Trend Snapshot includes

• Trend overview: what it is and why it's important

• Brands ahead of the curve: examples from Heineken, Coca-Cola and Philips, among others

• What it means for brands: expert practitioner insight

• What can we expect: where this trend might lead

• Further reading: where to find more on this subject

Trend overview

Connecting physical products to the internet is a trend many marketers are exploring. These are known as 'phygital' products, and examples vary from bottles of whisky to T-shirts. They are being used by companies to extend their brands, stand out in a crowded market, provide new services, stimulate online buzz and generate valuable consumer insights.

This shift relates to the surge in popularity of 'wearable tech', such as the Nike+ FuelBand, and the availability (and greater affordability) of technologies such as facial-recognition software, near-field communication and RFID tags. It has also been encouraged by consumer uptake of tools such as smartphones, which can serve as a bridge between online and offline, and social media platforms, which allow consumers to share 'phygital' experiences.

More broadly, these developments can be linked to the emergence of the 'internet of things', the name given to the advent of an ever-growing range of devices and appliances which are connected to the web. Cisco, the information technology group, has forecast that the profits attributable to the data, processes, people and 'things' in this ecosystem will reach $613 billion in 2013.

Brands ahead of the curve

Members of the alcoholic drinks sector have been among the early-movers in the phygital space. Heineken, the Dutch brewer, is one example, having introduced the first 'interactive beer bottle'. Powered by a battery the size of a coin, the Heineken Ignite bottle houses LED lights that flash when drinkers touch them together during a toast, spin if a consumer takes a swig of beer, and go to 'sleep' if the container is placed on a flat surface. Using wireless sensors, Heineken can even sync the LEDs with the beat of music in a nightclub.

Staying in the drinks category, Diageo partnered with EVRYTHNG, the specialist software provider, on ascheme enabling Brazilian shoppers buying bottles of Johnnie Walker, Buchanan's or Old Parr


whisky as a gift for Father's Day to attach personalised films to every purchase. Each bottle was identified with a specific code, and the film was accessed through a mobile website.

Ballantine's, another whisky brand, has allied with fashion and technology specialist CuteCircuit, agency Work Club and digital production firm MediaMonks to make aprototype connected t-shirt. This garment boasts a 1024 pixel 'screen' controlled by an iPhone app, and displays images or messages – including Twitter posts – of the wearer's choosing. Additional features incorporate a built-in headphone jack so consumers are able to listen to songs from Apple's iTunes music service and a camera that uploads pictures straight to Instagram.

In the apparel industry, Asics formed a tie-up with agency Ogilvy Brasil on the Pacecolor Experiment. It utilised GPS technology embedded inside its sport shoes to identify a runner's speed over a given distance, and thus determine which precise colour the footwear should assume. A viral video starring Lelo Apovian, who twice competed in the marathon at the Olympics, demonstrates how the shoes look when they are in motion.

Coca-Cola Amatil, a bottler for the soft drinks giant in Australia, turned to one of its primary assets to attract the attention of consumers, in the form of thousands of refrigerators spread across the country. A transparent LED screen door allowed customers to interact with bottle designs and view offers and price-points, while mounted cameras let shoppers snap pictures of themselves next to a selection of augmented reality props, and send the photo to a digital destination of their choosing. The fridges were fitted out with intelligent measurement software, too.

In a more low-interest category, Philips, the electronics manufacturer, tapped this trend with hue, a web-connected lightbulb which is controlled by smart devices. Owners can programme when their lights go on and off, switch between colours, use photos to create bespoke combinations of light, and activate settings to help them concentrate, wake up, fall asleep, read, relax, and so on. In its first two days on the market, hue hit 200% of its monthly sales target.

What it means for brands

In assessing the opportunities for marketers, Niall Murphy, founder/chief executive of EVRYTHNG in London, argued that brands will be required to embrace "product relationship management" as product digitisation becomes more widespread. Product personalisation, the creation of value-added services and collecting valuable data will all form part of this process.

"Conventionally, a lot of marketing money gets spent to tell people about a product, to tell people about the opportunity of purchase, and all the rest, but the actual product itself is a passive entity," he said. "And so the key value opportunity is to activate that engagement point and actually figure out who the consumer is and establish a communication channel with them."

But Murphy warned that it is vital to consider just what kind of digital extension to a product – such as offering access to exclusive content, providing customer service or enhancing loyalty schemes – is likely to be the most beneficial. "It's important to spend time working on the logical value proposition for the consumer; the technology obviously has to make that work. But if these things are technology-driven, they will fail," he said.

This year, Murphy reported, some 3.3 trillion products will be sold worldwide. Of these, half a trillion are candidates for digital enablement. And brands in the FMCG category, which are high-volume but "data poor", make up the majority of this group. For them, finding low-cost solutions will be crucial given the need to limit manufacturing expenses. But the rapid adoption of mobile and social media leaves considerable room for optimism about the future of connected products overall.Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

"I think it's going to become an extremely mainstream phenomenon. I guess I'd put a five-year timeframe on most consumer products in the world having a de facto digital service experience and engagement associated with them. The reason for that timeframe is more to do with how long it takes to roll out these capabilities themselves," Murphy concluded.

In providing a more general view from the agency-side, Spiro Mifsud, head of technology at Tribal Worldwide in New York, argued that 'phygital' products should be seen within a "a holistic strategic plan for truly integrating the new technology that is being released."

That is a difficult task, given the scale of the changes reshaping the market. "It is difficult for brands to develop a holistic digital strategy when the playing field changes so quickly – choosing which technologies to buy in to and 'own' can be overwhelming and discouraging to brands," Mifsud said.

Although many of the examples of 'phygital' development to date have been experimental and limited in scale, Mifsud believes brands brands must keep a longer-term strategy in mind when building these products, rather than serving short-term tactical needs. "Brands need to understand that digital technology requires commitment. Brands not only need to know the technology, but also need to understand the implications of releasing something digital out in the wild," he said. Too often, for example, mobile apps are neglected once a specific marketing programme ends, even though they continue to "live" on a user's phone.

An additional concern with the digitisation of almost all aspects of the marketing cycle relates to privacy, an issue which has to be addressed if firms are to build lasting relationships with consumers. "With greater awareness of big data and data security, brands will also need to become adept at using their data to provide more relevant digital experiences while still keeping the trust of the customer," Mifsud said.

What can we expect?

Many marketers will hope to use 'phygital' innovation as another means of creating differentiated goods that appeal to shoppers and fuel word of mouth, both online and offline. But the benefits could become much wider as the 'internet of things' expands. Ultimately, the 'phygital' trend will encourage brand owners not only to rethink their products and services, but also open up new sources of data that can lead to competitive advantage.

For example, there is potential to use highly-granular data regarding where an item was purchased and when it was used. Geo-location software is able to show the whereabouts of a consumer, while connectivity to social media supplies a rich seam of qualitative insights surrounding the attitude of the user towards a product, and the context in which they are using it.

Expanding on this, companies now have the chance to launch a range of paid-for services. Automakers might build tailored music playlists or pull up information related to nearby hotels and restaurants on in-vehicle communication and entertainment systems. The manufacturers of ovens and fridges might begin to deliver recipes and cooking tips.

The services sector will also find opportunities in this trend. Some motor insurers, for example, are exploiting data from in-car systems (as pioneered by State Farm, thanks to a tie-up with Ford) to track the driving habits of their customers and decide their premiums as a consequence. Health insurers may find similar benefits as consumers embrace 'wearable tech' that can, for example, track the amount of exercise they do. Greater personalisation, behaviour-based rewards and rising loyalty are just a few of the possible payoffs, as long as brands can tackle the issues around privacy.


Facebook: Redefining Video Advertising

Facebook is on a global push to make video its next big ad format.

In marketing presentations from New York to Abu Dhabi this fall, Facebook has been touting its video capabilities.

Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, indicated during the company’s Q3 2014 earnings conference call that video could be as important a content type on Facebook as photos have become. “If you go back five years, most of the content was text. Now, a lot of it is photos,” he said. “If you look in the future, as networks get better and the ability to capture good video and share it in a good way improves, then I think that going forward a lot of the content that people share will be video.”

On the same call, chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg tried to temper expectations, saying, “We think there is good opportunity with both video and Instagram ads, but we’re going to remain deliberate and slow in our approach to scaling those businesses.”

But Facebook’s recent moves show a major push into video advertising. In the past six months Facebook has:

• Introduced autoplay ads, which start to play as a user scrolls through the feed

• Acquired LiveRail, one of the leading platforms for programmatic video advertising

• Launched a set of video metrics, including the video-view count, enabling comparisons with performance on YouTube and other platforms

eMarketer’s interviews confirm there is strong interest in testing Facebook’s video advertising.

• “Facebook’s targeting and mass reach is just so dominant right now. Having the opportunity to do Facebook video [advertising] almost seems like a no-brainer.”—Kevin Hung, senior vice president and digital innovations director, Havas Media Chicago

• “I would expect to see the share of budget going to Facebook video to increase pretty substantially over 2015.”—Noah Mallin, head of social, North America, MEC Global

• “There may not be any more powerful video distribution medium than Facebook at the moment.”—Maikel O’Hanlon, vice president of social media strategy, Horizon Media

Just how much digital video ad revenue Facebook will generate will be a closely watched subject. Investment bank JMP Securities in October 2014 called video “a multi-billion dollar opportunity for Facebook.”

Facebook won’t get there next year, however. RBC in August 2014 estimated that it could see $700 million in worldwide revenue from autoplay video ads in 2015.

eMarketer forecasts that marketers will spend $7.77 billion on digital video in the US in 2015, up 30.4% from 2014.


At this point, eMarketer does not forecast video ad revenue for Facebook. There are a number of factors. First, the company has not broken out any data for the video revenue, and, per Sandberg’s comment, it is attempting to mute expectations for now. Second, the few third-party estimates of possible revenue levels vary widely. Taken together, eMarketer does not feel there is sufficient data to make an estimate.

Facebook vs. YouTube: By the Numbers

Just how big a challenge will Facebook be to YouTube? eMarketer believes that while Facebook has grown quickly as a video platform, there are many reasons to think YouTube will continue to be a favored video advertising destination for marketers, and that Facebook’s entry could help grow the overall video market, rather than take away from YouTube.

eMarketer expects YouTube’s video ad revenues will rise in 2015. We forecast that it will have $1.55 billion in net US video ad revenue next year, amounting to a 20.0% share. That would be up from 18.8% in 2014.

In recent months, media reports have declared YouTube in trouble—or even dead—as a result of Facebook’s moves. But an in-depth analysis of the data behind some of these reports reveals a different picture.

One set of data that got a great deal of publicity was a comScore finding that Facebook had more desktop video views than Google did in August 2014.


While the data shows that Facebook has been successful at incorporating more video in the newsfeed, the change isn’t as shocking as the chart makes it seem.

• In June 2013, there was far less video on Facebook than in August 2014, and users had to click to launch a player to view it. August 2014 was the height of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and by then, autoplay was a standard feature. These two things led to a bump in video views

• A view on Facebook isn’t the same as a view on Google/YouTube. Facebook videos autoplay, while on YouTube, a user must initiate the view by clicking to play the video. This implies a different level of engagement on the part of the user.

• The data only compares desktop views. Facebook still trails Google in total video views, including mobile, according to Beet.tv.

In another study, Socialbakers reported in October 2014 that “social media marketers have done more than just walked away from using YouTube for video content—they have sprinted.”

To support that conclusion, it cited its analysis of 180,000 video posts on 20,000 Facebook pages owned by businesses, brands or organizations. The company found that between January and September 2014, Facebook pages increased their use of native Facebook videos by 64%. Moreover, Socialbakers said that in September 2014 more than 70% of the interactions with videos that pages posted were with Facebook videos (as opposed to videos from YouTube or other companies).

The fact that pages increased their use of native Facebook video over the past few months isn’t surprising given Facebook’s heavy push to encourage them to try it. And while it sounds impressive that 70% of interactions were with Facebook native videos, Socialbakers’ blog post indicates that in January, Facebook’s share was already at around 60%.

A third analysis compared the performance of #MontyThePenguin, a holiday-themed video that UK retailer John Lewis uploaded on November 6 to Facebook and YouTube. In the first 24 hours, according to data from marketing technology company Unruly cited by The Telegraph, the video was shared 202,953 times, with 156,000 shares on Facebook and 47,000 on YouTube.



However, sharing is easier on Facebook than on YouTube, and is only one measure of success. As of December 16, the video had 20.5 million views on YouTube vs. 6.2 million on Facebook.

What this data, along with eMarketer’s interviews with marketers and agencies, indicate is that while there is no question Facebook is growing as a video platform, its impact on YouTube may not be what it seems.

As Carbone of MediaCom USA put it: “I love Facebook video. I have no issue with it all. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop using YouTube. I want to use as many platforms as I can to push my message out.”

For more on YouTube’s advertising business, please see the report “YouTube Advertising: Ins and Outs of Making It Work.”

Benefits and Drawbacks

Facebook’s efforts to redefine video advertising are creating several benefits for marketers, but also some risks to be aware of. Among the benefits are the ease with which ads can be shared, Facebook’s strong mobile presence, and its native video player. However, Facebook’s search capabilities are limited, the feed is ephemeral and it isn’t a destination for video so much as it is a sharing tool.

Benefits

Sharing: Marketers that have experimented with video ads on Facebook say they can get a great deal of organic distribution on top of paid distribution. The viral potential is appealing, said O’Hanlon, of Horizon Media. “I see Facebook becoming an enormous player in the video distribution space, and that is the byproduct of the level of targeting and the size of the audience and the way Facebook has found to present the video experience.”

Mobile: As mobile video grows, Facebook is well positioned. In Q3 2014, 83% of its worldwide users accessed Facebook on mobile. Google doesn’t release comparable figures about YouTube, but according to GlobalWebIndex, in Q3 2014 39% of worldwide internet users had visited YouTube on a mobile device.

“The native player on Facebook … offers a better mobile experience. That’s going to be critically important given the numbers in mobile video usage and the value of mobile video viewers,” said Kevin Lange, senior vice president and social media director at Starcom MediaVest.

Targeting: Facebook’s targeting capabilities are a key reason why its ad business has grown rapidly. That same targeting will be available to video advertisers, enabling them to target the people most likely to respond. “You definitely get more targeting capability inside a platform like Facebook than you would get anywhere else,” said Mark Aikman, department manager for digital marketing and customer relationship management at Mercedes-Benz.

Native video player: Facebook is wooing publishers and marketers to upload their videos directly to Facebook, rather than link to a third-party site such as YouTube. There are several benefits to using native video on Facebook, including the fact that the video appears larger in the feed and that it autoplays. In addition, Facebook provides more analytics and the ability to retarget based on video viewing.


“If you’re looking to retarget consumers off of video consumption, that is a benefit of a native player vs. embedding a link,” said Vogt, of Vizeum.

Autoplay: Autoplay is a benefit because it gives users a taste of what a video is like. An ad that must be clicked to be played is judged based only on the static image. “The autoplay feature lets someone get a little snippet of what you’re offering, and it really brings people in. We love it as a brand,” said Katie Fischer, US media manager for Beam Suntory.

Drawbacks

Limited search capabilities: Although Facebook has improved its search functionality, nothing can beat the fact that YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google, according to comScore. Finding a video that you saw in your newsfeed a couple days ago got easier only recently, with the launch of improved search functionality. But finding videos is still much easier to do on YouTube.

This means that for now, Facebook will not be somewhere people go to look for videos. “I don’t see Facebook becoming a video destination, the way that people know to go to YouTube or Hulu or Vimeo to search for video,” said O’Hanlon.

It also means marketers must consider people’s mindset when they view videos on Facebook vs. other platforms. “Google and YouTube are the two largest search engines in the world right now. Facebook is a social utility platform,” said Hung. “The consumers’ frame of mind when they’re in either of those spaces has a lot to do with how receptive they are to advertising.”

Not a library: One of YouTube’s strengths is the fact that marketers can use it as a library for their video assets. Many have gotten used to pointing their video advertising there. Although Facebook is making a strong pitch to convince marketers to upload videos directly, it’s not the same experience as they get by uploading videos to YouTube.

“Where does your video live before it gets distributed? At the moment it makes sense for it to be on YouTube because that’s where all your videos can be together and then you can fish them out as needed,” said Bokenham.

Facebook promises improvements. “We understand that marketers want this repository of videos, but when we look at user consumption patterns, it’s mostly in feed, so that’s why we’ve focused there,” said Fidji Simo, product director for ads-newsfeed and video at Facebook. “We recognize that having a central place would help, especially if you’ve seen it in the feed and you want to find it later on. So we’re going to make that experience better.”

CPM pricing: Autoplay isn’t automatic for all advertisers. Video ads won’t autoplay if advertisers use cost-per-click bidding to buy them. Facebook recommends advertisers use either CPM or reach-and-frequency buying optimized for video views. This can be a drawback for advertisers that want to pay for ads based on a deeper action than an impression. It is also a different model than YouTube or Twitter uses.

“They’re going to have to start charging in a way that’s competitive to YouTube. When you have a YouTube player where you’re only paying for a completed view, and then you have a Facebook that’s charging with CPMs, that’s more of a TV model,” said Renee Whittingstall, partner and digital media director at MediaCom USA.

Twitter: Beyond TV Partnerships


Twitter’s foray into video advertising involves two ad products that may eventually become one.

Last year, Twitter unveiled Amplify, which places pre-roll ads on short video clips that TV networks and other video providers upload to Twitter. Amplify now has over 100 partners, many of whom use it to distribute real-time video such as exciting moments in a sporting event, clips from live awards shows and breaking news.

More recently, Twitter began a beta test for Promoted Video. These are essentially Promoted Tweets that include a video. While Amplify ads are limited to 6 seconds, Promoted Video ads can be several minutes long and don’t need to be associated with other content.

Among the advertisers that have tested the newer format is Budweiser, which promoted a followup to its highly regarded puppy spot that aired during the 2014 Super Bowl. The new ad, #FriendsAreWaiting, got more than 2.5 million views in the first week after its release on Twitter during the fall. Twitter said the ad had a 6:1 earned to paid ratio, meaning that for every paid view, the ad had 6 unpaid, or earned, views from people retweeting and sharing it.

The company does not break out its video ad revenue, but the figure is likely only in the tens of millions of dollars. In November 2014, Twitter said that four new ad formats (website cards, mobile app install ads, video ads and off-network ads) combined to generate $93 million in revenue in Q3 2014.

Video “is one of our fastest-growing lines of business; we’re seeing tremendous demand for it,” said Baljeet Singh, product director for TV, video and music at Twitter.

One difference between Twitter’s video ads and Facebook’s video ads is that the Twitter ads do not autoplay. A user must click to start the ad. However, media reports that surfaced as this report was being published indicated that Twitter was considering using autoplay.

Benefits

TV relationships: Twitter’s partnerships with TV make it appealing to advertisers who want to extend their message. “We’ve taken assets like our video brochures and [created an ad that said,] ‘You just saw the C-Class commercial; explore the C-Class for yourself,’” said Aikman of Mercedes-Benz. “We’ve found that those not only break some of Twitter’s advertising benchmarks, but they’ve been phenomenal traffic drivers.”

Real-time: Twitter has long been associated with discussions surrounding real-time news and events, and its Amplify product is designed to take advantage of that. Promoted Video also has a real-time component. “Twitter’s key selling point is real-time conversation targeting. If you have content that’s specific to a certain topic, be it fashion or cultural events or cold and flu conversations, since we’re in that season now, it makes the video content that much more relevant,” Vogt said.

Vine: Marketers appreciate the creative opportunities provided by Vine as well as its close ties with parent company Twitter. Although there are no plans to monetize Vine yet, some companies have used Vines as ads on Twitter and even on TV. HP, for example, turned a series of Vine videos into a TV spot that showed off the capabilities of a notebook computer that can turn into a tablet.

Drawbacks

Scale: Twitter’s smaller size is still baggage for some advertisers. “With Twitter, there are concerns around the scale when you stack it up against what Facebook brings to the table,” said O’Hanlon.


Format: Twitter’s roots as a service for mobile phones is evident in the fact that it is still very text-heavy, even as it has tried to incorporate more images and graphics into the timeline. Video, to some marketers, seems out of place.

Ease of use (for Amplify): Although Amplify has more than 100 partners, the process of selling these ads can be cumbersome, a fact that Singh acknowledged, saying, “What we want to do is try to figure out ways to automate some of the process and take some of the friction out of the process for the brands and for the publishers.”

In a typical Amplify execution, the publisher sells the 6-second pre-roll ad, and then the advertiser buys a Promoted Tweet to advertise the video. That two-step process has led to a situation where “today, there’s been a broader advertiser adoption of Promoted Video, because the creative canvas is open and it’s a standalone unit which means it doesn’t have to be associated with content,” Singh said.

Off-Twitter strategy: While Facebook owns LiveRail, one of the largest providers of programmatic video advertising, Twitter is less far along in its own plans to deliver video advertising outside of its walls. It owns MoPub, a mobile ad network and technology provider, but Singh characterized MoPub’s video capabilities as “early days.”

Instagram: Bid for Exclusivity

Exclusivity is a key benefit of video advertising on Instagram. Because Instagram is selective about the types of marketers that can advertise there, the prospect of being among the chosen ones is appealing.

Video ads went live on Instagram in October. The first advertisers included Banana Republic, The Walt Disney Co., Lancôme and Activision.

“Any advertiser waving a checkbook can’t advertise on Instagram,” said Jonathan Anastas, vice president of digital marketing at Activision. “They’re looking at your current organic community and what kind of engagement you’re getting. Does it seem like a brand is a fit with the platform’s users? What is the quality of all of the assets you’re putting out there? To some degree, you have to be invited into advertising on Instagram.”

The price of admission is the willingness to live by Instagram’s rules, however.

“Instagram has a distinct aesthetic. There is a distinct community and way that people use the platform,” said Jim Squires, director of market operations at Instagram. “Then there is the format itself. It is a square format, and [the ads are] 15 seconds. Repurposing video content is typically not going to do as well and is not as encouraged.”

Benefits

Engagement: Instagram’s message to advertisers is that it is a welcoming place for beautiful brand imagery. For example, Banana Republic’s ad showed a time-lapse of a designer sketching an outfit, which fit with the creative bent of many of Instagram’s users. However, Activision’s ad for the game Call of Duty was more similar to a 15-second TV commercial. Still, the results were positive.

“Since the campaign launched, while it’s still early, we’re seeing engagement metrics much higher than our overall social media averages,” said Anastas.


Relationship with Facebook: Although Instagram operates as a separate company within Facebook, Facebook’s ad sales team can sell Instagram ads if the client is a customer of both (the buys are done separately, however). Advertisers also anticipate more opportunities to cross-promote on both services.

Creative opportunities: Instagram provides an opportunity to try out new forms of video marketing, such as its Hyperlapse time-lapse video app. Mercedes did two such videos, for the CLA model and the ML63 AMG sport-utility vehicle.

Likewise, Lancôme saw a chance to think past the typical TV spot when it ran ads for a fragrance and a mascara. “We want to challenge ourselves in thinking beyond traditional TV creative and be able to customize the video experience,” said Brian Chang, assistant vice president of media at L’Oréal Lancôme USA.

Drawbacks

Targeting: So far, the targeting capabilities are limited, particularly in comparison to Facebook. Advertisers can only target by age, gender and country. “The Instagram platform should be smarter with the way that they’re targeting their ads. They have so much targeting capability, but they are rolling out really broad,” said Whittingstall.

Restrictions: Instagram’s guidelines for advertising won’t be a hit with some marketers. In addition to the fact that the video must be square and no longer than 15 seconds, Instagram doesn’t allow advertisers to overlay ad imagery with text, Squires said. There are additional internal guidelines that aren’t published or shared publicly, a spokesman added.

“The guidelines we have in place are to guide marketers to understand the platform and to put together creative that will fit well and ultimately achieve their objectives,” Squires said.

Tumblr: Reaching Passionate Fans

Tumblr this fall launched a native video player with advertising partners including The CW Network, Lexus, Ford Motor Co. and JCPenney. The ads autoplay in a user’s stream, as Facebook’s do, but have a novel twist; on the desktop, users can pop out the video player and continue watching video content while they scroll through their feed.

However, Tumblr isn’t expected to be a major player in video advertising. It will have just $100 million in revenue in 2015, including video and other forms of advertising, and most executives interviewed by eMarketer are intrigued but consider it a lower priority.

Tumblr prices its video ads on a cost-per-view basis. The ads loop silently unless a user clicks to play.

Benefits

Immersive rather than interruptive experience: Unlike Twitter, which has been text-heavy and is now trying to work in more images and video, Tumblr has always been multimedia-heavy. Video fits more naturally.

“From the user perspective there is really no difference between an animated gif and an autoplay muted video,” said Lee Brown, global head of brand partnerships at Tumblr.


Relationship with Yahoo: In June, Yahoo began displaying some Tumblr ads on its sites, including Yahoo News and Yahoo Beauty. The ads appear as sponsored content or in-stream native ads. Although Tumblr’s video ads aren’t yet a part of this, it’s a possibility for the future.

The prospect of displaying Tumblr ads across Yahoo’s network “is very intriguing,” said Mallin of MEC Global. “When you add video to that, I think it starts to bring some of the scale that we look for.”

Time spent: Tumblr users tend to be very active, logging more time on the service than on other social platforms. According to November 2014 data from Cowen & Co., US users spend an average of 34.2 minutes per day on the service, second only to Facebook, at 42.1 minutes. People ages 18 to 29 reported the highest usage, 50.6 minutes per day, almost the same amount of time people in the same age group used Facebook (51.0 minutes).

Drawbacks

Size: Tumblr’s audience is smaller than other social properties; in a July 2014 survey, A.T. Kearney found that 11% of US internet users have an account, compared with 81% who were on Facebook, 37% on Twitter and 23% on Instagram.

Analytics: With the new video player, Tumblr offers many of the same video analytics as its competitors do, such as paid views, earned views, number of times the video is played and average completion rate. It also provides unique metrics, such as pop-outs and loops. But some marketers say that they want more. “Even with the new player, it doesn’t seem to have the same level of analytics that the other platforms have,” Anastas said.

Targeting: Ads can only be targeted based on location, gender and interest on Tumblr. That has caused it to fall lower on the list for some advertisers. “We’ve got some concerns around Tumblr’s targeting capabilities. It’s not in our top tier of consideration at the moment,” O’Hanlon said.

Too much of a good thing: Tumblr’s youthful users upload a great deal of content and tend to be very active. While that’s generally a good thing, it can also be overwhelming for brands. “It’s a community that shares quite a bit. We wouldn’t be able to properly monitor or respond or maintain the level of community management inside a platform like Tumblr that we are able to on our other platforms,” Aikman said in explaining why Mercedes-Benz doesn’t yet have a presence on Tumblr.

Snapchat: Bringing Video to Real-Time Marketing

Snapchat’s ability to curate video around live events is intriguing to marketers, but its smaller user base as well as the newness of its ad products makes it a lower priority for most.

Snapchat launched Our Story in June; the feature allows multiple users to upload pictures and videos from the same location or event. The result is a package that represents users’ own experience of the event. So far, Snapchat has curated Our Story packages for events such as college football games, music festivals as well as the Indian holiday Diwali.

In November, Samsung became the first advertiser to sponsor an Our Story. It included images and videos that were labeled “sponsored” in an Our Story for the American Music Awards.

The possibilities intrigue marketers, who see similarities to live TV sponsorships and also to the way YouTube organizes content into ad-supported channels.


YouTube’s channels “monetize user-generated content video in a way that is safe for advertisers. That’s exactly what Snapchat is doing with Our Story— curating user-generated video around live events,” said Starcom’s Lange.

The Our Story ads follow Snapchat’s first foray into advertising. In October 2014 it began including occasional ads in a user’s Recent Updates list. Users can choose whether or not they want to view the ad, and it disappears after 24 hours.

Benefits

A fresh take on curated user-generated video: The collection of images and videos gives an intimate perspective on an event, one that other services may not be able to duplicate. During some college football games, for example, Our Story included footage inside the locker room before and after the game, which fans don’t normally get to see, Sporting News reported in October 2014.

“I think [Our Story] has potential to be game-changing in terms of how user-generated video is both consumed and monetized by marketers,” said Lange.

Real-time marketing: This can be both a benefit and a drawback. On the positive side, for marketers that routinely use Twitter to share real-time posts tied to news and events, Our Story provides another way to be relevant. A smart integration of a football-themed video ad in an Our Story about a big game would make the advertiser seem like it is paying attention.

Disappearing creative: This is also both a benefit and a drawback; the benefit for marketers is if their creative, or their product, in some way aligns with Snapchat’s user experience, in which Snaps disappear after they are viewed. “There’s a huge opportunity to do some really interesting things that marry media and creative because there’s a feature that disappears,” said Catherine Davis, US president for Vizeum. “When you think about the number of products and services where the ability to disappear is important, I think there are some incredibly creative solutions.”

Drawbacks

Disappearing creative: For some marketers, the fact that ads on Snapchat don’t last long will be a drawback. There’s no archive of past Our Story collections. And in keeping with Snapchat’s mission to not make ads intrusive, users can easily skip over them if they appear in an Our Story. “They require brands to take a step outside of the comfort zone of the way that impressions have always been measured,” said O’Hanlon.

Real-time content is risky: Snapchat curates the content in Our Story, but there is still a risk that something a user uploads will not be appropriate or positive regarding a brand. Marketers that buy Our Story ads will need to accept this.

Targeting: Snapchat is purposely avoiding ads that it calls “creepy and targeted.” However, the lack of targeting will give some advertisers reason to delay using Snapchat. “I think we’ll have to see how video ads and Snapchat evolve to see if there are targeting capabilities or if we’re just talking about reaching broad-based enthusiasts,” said Aikman.

The future of agency trading desks: Evolve or die

Emily Siegel | March 3, 2015


Digiday first reported about “trouble on the horizon” for agency trading desks in 2012. Now, it seems, that horizon has been reached: Clients have increasingly moved media buying in-house, seeking lower costs, transparency and control. Media goliaths like Google have also threatened the model with a wider offering of products and analytics.

Like successful search companies of the past, trading desks must evolve or face extinction. When ad tech tides start to turn, young companies are often faced with one of two options: consolidation or a disappearing act. Whether this is the categorical direction of the industry, we cannot say — but things are certainly changing.

Digiday checked in with the industry’s largest holding companies — Publicis Groupe, WPP and Omnicom — to gauge their opinions on the future of agency trading desks.

VivaKi, Publicis Groupe

The first to buck the traditional trading desk model was Publicis Groupe, which announced in January it would be merging VivaKi into the company’s agencies. The client-service portion of its programmatic business — including account management and analytics — has ceased to exist independently, while the data and technology pieces have been spun into the VivaKi Operating System.

“It was a natural step for us,” explained Marco Bertozzi, president of global clients at VivaKi. “But we didn’t want our agencies to start from scratch in terms of the infrastructure for programmatic. That’s why those [data and tech] teams remain aggregated: so that VivaKi can continue to serve as a centralized point of expertise on that topic.”

For example, without specifying which one, Bertozzi referenced a piece of ad tech that was introduced to the marketplace this year. While initially agencies had a positive reaction, the programmatic experts at VivaKi were able to spot red flags. Their experience with programmatic platforms enabled them to ask the right questions — and saved the Groupe from months of headaches.

And since many Publicis agencies have their own technology ventures, Bertozzi argues that the company has found a perfect balance: consolidate programmatic client services, but keep VivaKi as the company’s epicenter for technology relating to the topic.

“This is a marketplace that has changed at such a rapid pace over the last three years — and what business doesn’t have to change and evolve according to the industry around them?” said Bertozzi.

“Clients don’t trust the concept of a trading desk anymore. And although it’s early days, we’ve had two or three clients — whose names I won’t mention — that have already given us good feedback. The general sentiment is that this was definitely the right move. It’s going to be quite a tough argument for another agency to go up against in this current climate.”

Xaxis, WPP

Unlike Publicis Groupe, WPP chose not to consolidate its programmatic arm — Xaxis — the primary reason being that it doesn’t consider Xaxis a trading desk.

“We are absolutely not a trading desk,” said Brian Gleason, CEO of Xaxis Americas. “We’re a programmatic media company. And we’re unique because we can be accessed three different ways:


through an exchange, our direct business channel or our managed service offering — which is the closest thing we have to a trading desk.”

Direct business at Xaxis means working with clients outside of GroupM. Whereas VivaKi has only worked with existing Publicis clients, Xaxis is allowed roam free.

“We started our direct business two and a half years ago,” Gleason explained. “And it is now our fastest growing line of revenue: 25 percent of our direct business actually comes from outside of GroupM.”

Another important indicator of Xaxis’ sheer independence is that they have no financial commitments with GroupM agencies. So when asked whether he ever envisioned a scenario in which Xaxis would be consolidated, Gleason was emphatic.

“We have a completely different model than the other holding companies,” he said. “We always have been and always will be a distinct entity.”

Accuen, Omnicom Media Group

Although the Accuen model is akin to a trading desk, Omnicom does not consider it to be one as it has set up its structure uniquely and chosen to keep its programmatic unit independent.

Although it is an independent company, the “teams already sit alongside our media agency teams across our office locations,” explained Steve Katelman, evp global partnerships for Omnicom Media Group. “Because many clients want their programmatic resources to be connected to their holistic media strategy.”

But don’t expect Accuen employees to be moved onto the agencies’ payroll.

“Some clients prefer to have their programmatic effort operate more independently with a different set of KPIs,” Katelman explained. “And there are still some programmatic customers who aren’t clients of our media agencies. The point is we need to provide programmatic services in whatever structure meets the needs of our clients.”

7 Deadly Sins: Where Hollywood is Wrong about the Future of TV

May 25, 2015

At REDEF, we consume all types of content – from indie films to long form points of view, executive perspectives and the passionate blog posts of industry insiders and outsiders. Our curators sift through the infinite so that our members can be better informed about their business and its future. In some instances, we share our thinking on ideas and areas we believe are overlooked or underappreciated. This was the inspiration behind our REDEF Originals.

Over the past few years, the television landscape has been as dramatic and character-filled as the best of Game of Thrones episodes. To that end, it should come as no surprise that there have been threats that have gone unseen or under-addressed by the major and minor television networks. After a few lively conversations above the monitors at REDEF HQ, we came up with “7 Deadly Sins: Where Hollywood is Wrong about the Future of TV”, written by our Head of Original Content, Liam Boluk. Not every threat applies to every network – nor are they equally menacing – but as a whole, we believe they’re critical to both understanding and planning for the future of television. We hope you enjoy it and be sure to subscribe to REDEF newsletters here.


1. By the Time You’re Ready for OTT, You’ve Already Been Supplanted

For years, executives at the major television networks have repeated the same refrain: “We’re aware of the over-the-top and direct-to-consumer opportunities... When it makes [economic] sense, we’ll do it.” And to point, nearly every network has a team of analysts obsessing over statistics such as the number of US broadband homes or annual authenticated video streams – all in the hope of discovering when, exactly, is the “right time” to disrupt their current Pay TV model.

What makes this strategy so dangerous is its tunnel vision: Every network assumes that when the OTT economics finally "make sense", they’ll be as relevant to their audiences as they are today (or, more accurately, as they were yesterday). While Big TV waits, the major digital video providers and platforms will continue developing deep, routine and lucrative audience relationships. By the end of the decade, many traditional networks will be shocked to find they’ve been supplanted in the minds of many Millennials and Generation Zs. But this should come as no surprise:

• The largest YouTube Multi-Channel networks (Maker, Fullscreen and Machinima) are already delivering enough minutes to US audiences to challenge major TV networks such as CNBC, FXX and Fox Sports 1. And while traditional television ratings erode, the three MCNs (and many others) are doubling year over year

• In the first quarter of 2015, Netflix’s 41M US accounts averaged nearly 2 hours of video on the service each day – making the “network” bigger than two of the four major US broadcasters and twice as large as the largest cable network. At its current pace, the OTT giant will become the most popular video provider in the US by the end of 2015. Not to be forgotten, Amazon Instant Video and Hulu are roughly 75th and 100th largest respectively, and continue to grow quarter over quarter

• Amazon’s Twitch would be another Top 75 network, with its 13M US monthly viewers watching an average of 14 hours a month. Furthermore, the service has grown US minutes delivered by an Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

astounding 7% each month for the past three years. By this time next year, it could be contesting Top 25 networks such as AMC and FX

In the coming years (if not months), many more services will begin chipping away at TV’s video dominance. YouNow, which enables users to broadcast their everyday lives (minutiae and all), now counts more than 50M monthly streams in the United States. SnapChat’s Discover feature includes original series (which are created by Snapchat and/or digital-first production companies) that are amassing tens of millions of views – even though they disappear only 24 hours after release. Several major television networks, such as ESPN, CNN and Comedy Central, do have a presence on Discover, but they’ve yet to treat the service as much more than a dumping ground for previously aired television clips. BuzzFeed, which counts nearly 110M unique visitors in the US each month, is also pursuing short, long and feature length video content – and Reddit announced its original video initiative less than a month ago. Vice, which began its digital video efforts in 2006, has become so successful that it now supplies branded content to cable giant HBO and will soon take over and rebrand a cable network owned by one of its minority shareholders, A+E Networks (which is also the 7th largest cable group).

It’s important to recognize that these content forms and services threaten Big TV in more ways than by simply cannibalizing time or ad spend. They are now beating the industry across numerous key metrics: audience engagement, authenticity and “trust”, ratings growth and cost efficiency (by orders of magnitude). No matter how well one’s traditional assets are adapting to the digital era – or how bizarre, unpolished and “low value” digital-first content may appear – no major media company can afford to ignore the likes of eSports, ultra-short form video and “user generated content”.

2. The Future of Millennials and Pay TV

What makes the rise of non-traditional video content particularly threatening is that many in Hollywood continue to believe that when millennials make enough money, buy a home or start a family, they’ll finally see the value in Pay TV services and subscribe. Vine, YouTube, Twitch, Netflix and other “low quality” or “late window” entertainment is just a stopgap until that epiphanic point.

The problem with this hypothesis is that it’s rooted in the fact that every modern generation eventually adopted Pay TV (during the 2000s, the service penetrated nearly 90% of US households). However, Millennials and Gen-Z’s are first generations to have these non-traditional substitutes available – and they show levels of engagement with this content that far exceeds that of traditional TV. As a result, we truly cannot know what the future holds. What we do know is that young audiences love these substitutes today. A lot. With age and added income, many may feel the pull of traditional Pay TV subscriptions (via cable or OTT). But to belittle their affinity and affection for non-traditional content is dangerous; to assume that they’ll eventually want to pay for yours could be lethal.

3. Outdated Organization Model and Priorities

Since its creation, the linear TV business has been defined by the medium’s constraints. As each channel can air only one video feed at a time, linear networks typically have typically focused on specific demographics and/or taste profiles – a choice that affects everything from greenlights, branding and scheduling, to advertising and even potential viewership. However, no major media company is ever satisfied with only a portion of the total TV audience. As a result, the Pay TV industry eventually experienced an unprecedented surge in the number of available, 24-hour channels – each targeting a smaller niche or genre, be it music videos, game shows, or Oprah fans. Though this channel proliferation was much ridiculed at the time, it’s directly responsible for today’s “Golden Age of Television”, as well as the industry’s record profits.


In recent years, however, this model has begun to both undermine the traditional Pay TV ecosystem and impede its evolution. Since 2005 alone, the average Pay TV household has more than doubled the number of channels it receives (to ~200), while the number of channels they actually watch has increased by only one (from ~16.5 to 17.5). This, combined with the price increases needed to pay for this content, has not only antagonized tens of millions of households – it has driven nearly 10M to abandon Pay TV entirely. Similarly, the addiction to channel empires has resulted in a disastrous online user experience (and one that hasn't changed in years):

Rather than rethink the structure of their linear television business, the major network groups have chosen to simply recreate it online. As a result, users end up with a handful of different network apps and websites, each with its own UI/X, settings, content windows and capabilities. The shift to direct-to-consumer OTT distribution, which creates the additional complexity of managing multiple log-in credentials and billing relationships, will only make this worse.

In a digital environment, "TV networks" face none of the limits of the linear television model. There’s no limit to the amount of programming a network can offer, no cap to the number of genres and demographics it can serve, “no one size fits all” lead in show and no single performance metric. Netflix, for example, is targeting TV and film viewers of all kinds – even kids – under a single brand. This not only creates a simpler consumer offering, but provides Netflix with numerous strategic benefits,such as the ability to program for the individual, rather than a specific channel or genre. Though this approach defies years of industry beliefs around building audiences and launching series, the results speak for themselves. In the first quarter of 2015, Netflix delivered more minutes of video in the United States than two of the four broadcast networks, twice as many as the industry’s largest cable network (The Disney Channel) and more than the bottom 117 (of some 200) cable networks combined. What’s more, this figure is up an estimated 45% (or 38 billion minutes) year over year.

While the traditional network strategy still makes sense (it does optimize short-term affiliate fees and advertising revenue), it also prevents these groups from leveraging their entire portfolio in order to


create better consumer experience or offering. Furthermore, it is this very tunnel vision that allows Netflix to rebundle this same network content to create such a cross-network service. To make matters worse, Netflix is pursuing a much more powerful end goal than channel empires: owning the full extent of a consumer’s premium video experience. And for many subscribers, it already does.

But it doesn’t need to be this way.

Netflix may be twice the size of largest “cable channel”, but it ranks 7th among cable television groups. It may be that no single channel has the breadth of content and scale to be a serious Netflix competitor, but their parents certainly do. The future of television is not a la carte networks, but a la carte network groups (i.e. a rebundled cable package). To that end, many viewers may balk at paying $6 to $9 a month for an individual network such as CBS All Access – but at $15 to $20 for an entire network group, the value equation becomes far more favorable.

This isn’t just about competing with or defending territory from Netflix. As cable unbundles, access moves online and on-demand consumption proliferates, every aspect of the TV business is being challenged (#1, #4, #7). Individual channel empires, however sensible in a linear delivery environment, will undermine the user experience, profitability and differentiation. And only a consolidated view to programming will allow networks to resolve the original series crunch (#7).

4. “Winner Takes Most” Competition

One of the more under-recognized perks of the traditional Pay TV model is the fact that no network group can “own” the entirety of a household’s video time or spend. No subscriber, after all, can order only Viacom networks or just Time Warner channels – no matter the package, tier, or price. As a result, each of the major network groups profits from every Pay TV subscriber (via affiliate fees) and


benefits from the fact their channels can be discovered and watched without that subscriber needing to call their cable company or enter their credit card information.

Online, however, this communitarian utopia will be replaced by a whole new competitive dynamic – one that challenges the idea of “shared subscribers” and makes it harder than ever to acquire new ones.

Though the future of television depends on the major network groups collapsing their channel portfolios into a single consolidated offering (#3), the consequences of this shift are far more destabilizing than simply offering networks a la carte. The average Pay TV household today watches roughly 210 unique hours of television each month[1], spread across only 17.5 of the roughly 200 channels it receives. Given the surplus of content available and the breadth of content offered by each of the major network groups (which count 13 to 25 24-hour channels apiece), many households will likely find they need only 2-3 consolidated offerings to meet their video needs. What’s more, the friction involved in paying for and managing multiple apps will give subscribers an incentive to watch more of the content they’ve already paid for instead of adding a third or fourth network for another $10 or $20 each.

True media lovers may still pick up five or six different consolidated services, but how many will include the smaller network groups? And how will these companies price their services given their relatively limited offerings? How is this price affected by any one hit show? Is one stellar show enough? Are three? How do you incent new subscribers? How does this model affect the minimum amount of original programming needed? How do you ensure ongoing subscriptions, rather than single-month content binges? What’s the consequence of licensing prior seasons of content to the major SVOD services such as Netflix? The top 100 networks today are available in 8 of 10 Pay TV homes; how will reduced access penetration affect a Tier 2 network group’s ability to compete for content?Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

The current Pay TV model is effectively a safety net for the network programming industry. Though ad revenue ebbs and flows based on audience demographics and ratings, networks can always rely on multi-year affiliate agreements during the inevitable slumps and find relief in the fact that audiences are but a channel change away. As a result, the shift from linear cable bundles to digital a la carte distribution (whether on a per network or a per network group basis) will not only bring about the death of weaker Tier 2 and Tier 3 cable channels, it will fundamentally destabilize the industry playing field.

5. The New TV Bundle

As the cable bundle erodes, “TV” content is beginning to be rebundled with other forms of media. Sony’s PlayStation Network and Amazon’s Prime program now offer free, high-quality TV content as part of their broader subscription services (though Microsoft’s Xbox Live abandoned the same strategy last year). Yahoo, BuzzFeed, SnapChat and Vox Media have all begun efforts to bundle short and longform original scripted series into their expansive multimedia offerings.

Not all of these endeavors will succeed, but they will nevertheless have a strong effect on the role of TV content in the media ecosystem. Historically, the TV business has been an end in and of itself, but as Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe has demonstrated, video can also play a far more lucrative role: establishing or supporting a broader storytelling platform. In fact, many digital-first content companies already depend on brand extensions (e.g. events and apparel) to make video ends meet. As the TV bundle is reconstituted and diversified, what role will pureplay TV networks (as opposed to production companies) play? How much value will they be able to capture? How many can survive?

6. Loss of the “Middle”

One of the most transformative shifts in the television landscape stems from the way digital audiences choose content. Even as we moved into the era of appointment TV in the late 2000s, most television consumption was passive. Viewers would either hire a particular channel/network to entertain them for a few hours or channel surf until they found something that would. In an online environment (or where free TVOD is available) content is "on-demand" – and thus actively selected by the user. As Amazon Studios head Roy Price told The Hollywood Reporter last year, this fundamentally rewrites the programming playbook:

“Let’s say you had a show where 80 percent of the people you show it to think it’s pretty good. They might watch it, but none of those people think it’s a great show nor is it their favorite show. But then you have another show where only 30 percent of people like it. For every single one of them, they’re going to watch every single episode and they love it. Well, in an on-demand world, show No. 2 is more valuable.”

This shift has profound consequences for content monetization – and not just because it challenges decades of network television performance metrics (i.e. ratings). First, true hits will be more valuable than ever before (and thanks to OTT distribution, they’ll be bigger, too). Second, content that connects with a passionate but niche audience becomes an asset – not a missed opportunity or failure that needs to “broaden its base” to be renewed. However, the remaining content (shows people watch “if it’s on”, but never specifically look for or plan around; broadly targeted but “well-rated” series) will be severely squeezed. Not only does this “middle” content represent the majority of programming today, it dominates the industry’s most lucrative revenue stream: syndication. Similarly, the shift to on-demand consumption means that middling content can no longer rely on a strong lead-in program to boost or incubate its ratings. Finally, this tightening will also make select genres particularly hard to program. Much has been said about the death of the sitcom, but comedy tends to


be the most particular of tastes. In the on-demand era, comedy lovers no longer need to settle for “I guess that’s funny” – making sitcom audiences inevitably small in size.

These changes will (continue to) distort programming economics and require afundamentally different set of metrics and business models (#3). Television networks today aren’t ready. And the problem isn’t just Nielsen measurements.

7. The Original Series Crash

In 2014, there were roughly 400 original scripted series on television, up from only 125 at the turn of the century. Though this growth is often attributed to the proliferation of television networks, the majority has stemmed from what might be called the "AMC Effect". For nearly 25 years, AMC was existed as stable, if unambitious Tier 2 cable network. Ratings were reliable, but unexciting; content was strong, but also old; profits reliable, but far from lucrative. With the start of its original series (Mad Men in July 2007, Breaking Bad in January 2008), the network began a rapid turnaround that transformed it into one of the strongest, most prestigious brands in cable. With this newfound fame came increased ratings and added MVPD negotiating power that helped the network grow ad revenue by nearly 200% and affiliate fees by more than 75% over the next seven years.

What's more, AMC now has the most-watched scripted series across broadcast, basic cable and premium cable, The Walking Dead. As one might expect, this success has prompted all networks – new and old, linear and digital – to view originals as essential to driving awareness, building a brand, retaining users and generating profits.

Yet this growth has not come without consequences. As a perfect illustration of microeconomic theory, the heightened competition in original series has increased both the risk and the costs involved with the content form. When Mad Men debuted, only 20% of original series were cancelled


each year. Seven years later, that figure has climbed to more than 50%. To combat such stark odds, networks are now pursuing whatever means possible to differentiate and bolster their original series: casting Hollywood stars (and hiring celebrity directors and producers) has rapidly moved from “game-changer” to necessity; production quality has surged to nearly feature-film levels; and marketing/promotional expenses have skyrocketed. To secure the best series, networks have also been forced to significantly increase their bids and commitments: Put pilots, straight-to-series orders and full season commitments are simply the new cost of doing business. Furthermore, rising cancellation rates have prompted many viewers to avoid new shows until they’ve hit their second or third season. As a result, it’s not uncommon for networks to renew shows before their pilot has even aired – thereby increasing downside risk considerably.

Over the past decade and a half, the TV industry has seen not just escalating failure rates, but also increased costs of failure. To make matters worse, ongoing audience fragmentation and oversupply of “quality TV” eliminated much of the upside of a hit original. As individual players stumble, economics continue to compress and the cable bundled is slimmed, many networks (OTT or linear) will be forced out of the original series space. Still, the number of active original series is likely to keep rising. In an era where hundreds of video providers are available at a moment’s notice, original content is essential to driving awareness, ensuring consumption and retaining viewers.

Solving the original series crunch will therefore require a profound change to the television business model, as well as its key performance metrics (not that this isn’t already overdue #3). Consider the programming model today. For most of the major networks, programming efforts and spend focus on the “primetime” window, during which the US television audience typically peaks. Though the duration and type (scripted v. unscripted) of content varies, it’s the timeslot that defines the number of original series. For digital video providers such as Netflix or Amazon, however, there is no “right” or “required” amount of programming. Are 12 series enough? 13? 20? 40?

This may be of little solace to linear networks, but with such a surplus of content available today (and on demand), audiences will always be in short supply. As a result, the classic television model – where a show’s “value” is how many people watch it – provides only a rudimentary view to its ROI. Instead, networks need to investigate more meaningful metrics. For example: How did an individual show affect a subscriber’s likelihood to watch other programming on the network? How much more likely are they to remain a subscriber? Or to share the show? If Netflix "needs" only 15 shows, then a 16th – no matter how good the ratings are – may actually destroy value. Is it "better" for top 50 network to have two shows with 1.0 ratings, or one with a 2.5? Two shows with the same audience – or two shows with different ones? The answer isn’t a singular value for all networks, nor is it a rating point.

Many of today’s original series are being cancelled not because they aren’t good enough or because there’s too much out there, but because the industry’s business models and metrics haven’t been updated to the on-demand, non-linear era. Until that changes, cancellation rates will only get worse.

REDEF creates interest remixes for curious minds. Subscribe to our daily mixes in Media, Tech, Music, Sports and Fashion here.

Liam Boluk heads up Originals at REDEF and can found at @LiamBoluk or emailed at [email protected].

NOTES:


[1] For example, three members of the same household watching the same live airing of Criminal Minds for an hour is one unique hour. Three people watching different episodes would be three unique hours. The distinction is made in order to better identify how frequently individual networks are “hired” to entertain

[Chart 1] Netflix projected based on historical company estimates and statements; Twitch’s US minutes estimated based on US share of monthly visitors; Amazon and Hulu estimated based on their relative share of peak downstream US bandwidth versus Netflix

[Chart 3] Netflix projected based on historical company estimates and statements; Time Warner and CBS Allocated 50% of CW minutes

[Chart 5] Includes OTT original series, such as those of Netflix and Hulu; Survival rate defined as any series that airs the following year, without distinguishing between a network ordering a “final season” versus “cancelling” the program. First-year series likely face even worse odds

Robert L. McCullough 2nd

Author at Butterfly Beach Media LLC - Co-host of "Where Hollywood Hides" weekly podcast

Great article; should be the foundation for a graduate course in a School of Communication. At the end of the day, of course, it's always about the CONTENT. Audiences don't really pursue their entertainment based upon the distribution channel. Whether it's the story being told around the campfire or a holographic series of 3-D images and sounds beamed to us from one "cloud" or another, it's always been about engagement driven by the immutable human thirst for a tale well told. Just as talkies destroyed the nickelodeon business, just as television forced changes in the film distribution business, just as the internet is destroying the television business (who needs a TV with a tablet/smartphone in hand?), the evolution of technology will always undermine today's

Welcome to the ‘walled garden’ era of ad tech

John McDermott | February 12, 2015

The dais at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Annual Leadership Meeting in Phoenix served as a platform for industry luminaries to expound on any number of challenges. Viewability and ad fraud were chief concerns, and the proliferation of ad blockers — specifically among millennials — would need the same amount of attention in the near future. The IAB’s newly elected board chairman David Morris even insinuated that the digital video market might be glutted.

But away from the stage — in the hospitality suites, at the cocktail hours and around the dinner tables — digital media executives of all stripes were discussing a rarely-broached but troubling concern: The rise of the so-called “walled garden” era of ad tech.

That is, marketers are concerned about platforms — namely Facebook and Google — restricting third party ad tech companies from operating on their networks. It raises questions about whether Facebook and Google’s ad tech products can be trusted to function objectively, or if they’re merely being used to funnel ad spend through their respective media networks.

Terry Kawaja — founder of Luma Partners, an investment bank that specializes in digital media — applauded Heineken’s recent decision to select TubeMogul as its provider of video ad buying technology over Google’s DoubleClick Bid Manager, saying it was a sign brands are finally wising up to the conflict of interest inherent in using a company’s technology to purchase their inventory. In this


case, that would mean Google using its ad bidding technology DoubleClick Bid Manager to direct ad spend to its video ad platform YouTube. In a negotiation last fall, Google used access to YouTube inventory to incentivize snack brand Mondelēz to use DoubleClick Bid Manager.

Google did not return a request for comment at press time.

AOL CMO Allie Kline echoed Kawaja in a separate conversation, saying the growing skepticism was a result of marketers becoming more sophisticated about programmatic ad-buying. The complexity of ad tech meant that marketers were for years content with using just one company for all their programmatic needs. Now, marketers understand the risks of only using only one company, such as not being able to retain their data if they switch data or attribution providers.

Google’s lack of openness is why Kellogg doesn’t buy any YouTube ads, Jon Suarez-Davis, vp of global media and digital strategy, said in a previous interview.

These growing concerns have motivated AOL to keep its network “open” and integrate with third-party ad tech firms instead of pressuring marketers to only use AOL-owned products, Kline said.

She added that AOL is having ongoing discussions with Google about Google restricting data management platforms from operating on its ad network, a decision that, once enacted, will affect AOL’s data management platform.

But marketers should be concerned about Facebook and whether its Atlas ad server will provide objective tracking results, or whether it will trump up the effectiveness of Facebook’s mobile ad network, Kawaja said.

Facebook, for its part, has maintained that Atlas will be wholly objective. Atlas is only serving or measuring ads that appear on other websites, and not for any ads on Facebook proper or its mobile ad network, according to Facebook spokesman Tim Rathschmidt.

“We are remaining agnostic and working with a number of agencies and other partners. We’re pushing an open ecosystem rather than a walled garden,” Rathschmidt wrote in an email. “Partnerships are important to us because, like Facebook, Atlas is a platform company – they help us globally scale our solutions much more quickly to help marketers achieve success with people-based and cross-device marketing.”

And considering three agencies (Omnicom, Havas and Merkle) have already signed on to use Atlas, the industry seems open to the DoubleClick competitor.

Still, Kawaja and others have predicted that the programmatic industry will soon bifurcate: Marketers will use DoubleClick’s ad serving and demand-side tools when executing Google buys, and Atlas when purchasing Facebook inventory. (Facebook has reportedly been building a real-time bidding feature for Atlas, but it has not yet commented on those plans.)

Agency executive have said that digital video will diverge along similar lines, with marketers using Facebook and YouTube’s video playersalongside one another.

The irony in having these systems operate parallel to one another is that ad servers and demand-side platforms were intended to be neutral, allowing marketers to track and execute ad transactions, respectively, across multiple websites.


Kawaja speculated that this would possibly give rise to a new layer in the already complex ad tech ecosystem, ad tech companies that would provide serving and real-time bidding software to work across all servers and walled gardens.

“When you close systems off,” AOL CEO Tim Armstrong said last month, “open systems will continue to leapfrog closed systems.”

Inside AdWords

Google's official blog for news, tips and information on AdWords

Tuesday, May 05, 2015

Building for the next moment

Billions of times per day, consumers turn to Google for I want-to-know, I want-to-go, I want-to-do, and I want-to-buy moments. And at these times, consumers are increasingly picking up their smartphones for answers. In fact, more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan.1 This presents a tremendous opportunity for marketers to reach people throughout all the new touchpoints of a consumer’s path to purchase.

Together, we’ve come a long way since this time last year:

• Our suite of app promotion tools are now driving real results, even as we’re piloting new innovations like ads in the Play Store. A study published today shows that search engines and app stores are among the top ways smartphone users discover new apps.2

• Businesses around the world are measuring the impact of their search and display campaigns as consumers switch between multiple devices, using cross-device conversions.

• And with mobile searches driving in-store commerce, we're helping businesses measure the full impact of their campaigns. Our store visits measurement is now available in the US, Canada and Australia and will roll out for thousands of advertisers in 10 countries in the coming months.

But there's so much more to come. This morning, we announced more AdWords innovations in front of a global livestream audience of 20,000 customers. Below are highlights from today’s announcements. You can watch a replay of the full programhere.

Ad experiences that win the moment

Consumers, particularly on mobile devices, now have higher expectations than ever before - they want everything right, and they want everything right away. This requires that marketers answer their needs in the moment, whenever and wherever they are. Our investments in mobile are driven by consumers’ expectations for immediacy and relevance in the moment. Based on your feedback and our insights about how people search for information, we’ve built a whole new generation of ad experiences that are richer, more engaging and designed for screen-swipes instead of mouse-clicks so we meet consumers’ needs, right when they are looking:

• Automotive: Car buyers spend up to 15 hours online researching, comparing and learning.3 When people browse the web for automobiles, they want to see pictures and visuals of their dream car. In fact, about half of Google searches for cars contain images.4 That’s why we introduced Automobile Ads - a new search ad format that takes you directly from Google.com to a beautiful


carousel of car images that shows you how a car looks inside and out -- like how the sleek metallic finish looks with the black leather and wood trim. Tapping on an image brings up more information about the car, like horsepower and estimated MPG while tapping on the “Dealers” link takes you to a page with nearby dealer listings.

• Hotel Ads: There are millions of searches for hotels everyday — that’s millions of potential hotel bookings. When people search for hotels, they’re looking for information like rates, availability, locations, user reviews, editorial descriptions, Google Street View, and high resolution photos. Today, we announced that Hotel Ads will start to show globally for hotel partners around the world, one click away from Google.com. Hotel Ads show current prices from a variety of sources and when a traveler is ready, they can select “Book” to complete their reservation on the partners’ sites.

• Mortgages: Buying a home is one of the biggest financial decisions in life, so understanding your options and having the right tools is critical. The newest addition to Google Compare in the US is Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iKOfotSnjgc/VUgm3U6w3EI/AAAAAAAABhs/5CiZqv0_JLI/s1600/E02092949+-+Dodge+Challenger+Screenshot_2000x1122_2015Apr_v01.png

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z9z52OQcYf4/VUgnOWKLFuI/AAAAAAAABh0/B5r_2bRrb38/s1600/Hilton-detail-view-mobile+(1).jpg

coming soon: mortgages. Whether someone is a first-time home-buyer or looking to refinance, consumers will soon be able to find the latest mortgage rates from multiple mortgage providers, and review a customized set of criteria like interest rate, terms of the loan and fees. They’ll be able to apply directly with an approved lender or speak to a qualified adviser for more information, directly from the Google search ad.

Automation to capture moments at scale

Consumers engage with brands, across billions of monthly searches, billions of hours of videos watched every month, and billions of interactions with various sites and apps. The sheer scale can be staggering, but with automation you can master the complexity and show exactly the right ads for consumers’ intent and context.

o Automated Bidding: AdWords bid strategies are setting billions of bids per day5 for tens of thousands of advertisers, enabling you to be more efficient and effective. Today, we introduced a new reporting dashboard that provides more transparency and control as you evaluate the performance of bid strategies over time. New simulation tools also show advertisers the tradeoff between volume and cost at different CPA targets.

o Dynamic Search Ads are a powerful way to automatically show timely and relevant ads based on the content of your website -- without the need to manage keywords. Today, we announced significant enhancements, including recommended category targets based on your website's content, suggested CPCs for every category and more visibility into the ads that will show and pages where your customers will land.

Measuring every moment that matters

Marketers need to ensure they’re measuring all the moments that matter -- from first impression to final conversion. To do so, you need methods and metrics that speak to today’s increasingly complex path to purchase--across devices, apps, calls, and stores. By incorporating all of these touchpoints, marketers can measure the full impact of their campaigns and make better decisions for their business.

Today we introduced several new products to help you do so:

o AdWords attribution: We are making it easy for search marketers to move beyond a last-click attribution model. You’ll be able to select an attribution model for each of your conversion types. The choice you make will be reflected in your AdWords reporting and integrated into your automated bidding. We’re also introducing data-driven attribution, which uses your own conversion data to calculate the actual contribution of each keyword across the conversion path.

o Cross-device conversions integrated with automated bidding: New consumer paths to purchase make it more important than ever for marketers to measure activities that start on one device and are completed on another. Later this year, you’ll be able to take action on these insights when cross-device conversions are integrated into automated bidding. This is part of a broader update that will give you the option to include cross-device conversions as part of the Conversions column.

o Marketing experiments: This morning, we introduced new tools to help marketers measure the incremental impact generated from your Google ads. HomeAway, a global vacation rental marketplace, worked with the Google account team and learned that its Google Display Network ads


are driving a 49% lift in click-related traffic to its website. Read the case study here and reach out to your AdWords account team to learn more.

Google is a company built on intent and immediacy. Our mission has always been to connect people with what they are looking for in the exact moment they are looking. These are moments that matter to consumers, to marketers and to us at Google because they are when decisions are being made and preferences shaped.

Thank you to everyone who attended the AdWords Performance Summit or watched the livestream. I can’t wait to see the great things you do with these new products. We look forward to continuing this journey with you: delivering the best possible experiences for consumers in the moments that matter.

Jerry Dischler, Vice President, Product Management, AdWords

1 Google Internal Data.

2 Mobile App Marketing Insights: How Consumers Really Find and Use Apps, Google/Ipsos MediaCT, May 2015

3 Polk Automotive Buyer Research, 2013 (source)



Forget Ad Avoidance, Growth of Digital -- TV Holding Its Own

Medium is Still Most Effective Ad Vehicle, Study Finds

By Anthony Crupi. Published on June 09, 2015.

Marketers who are siphoning dollars out of their TV budgets may need to reconsider that strategy, as a new study suggests that the good ol' idiot box is still the most effective advertising medium.

'How I Met Your Mother' Credit: CBS

According to new research by the marketing analytics firmMarketShare, TV remains the most efficient vehicle through which to drive consumer purchases, out-delivering digital media (display and social), print and radio. Automotive and telecom particularly favor TV; at similar spending levels, both categories enjoy a six-fold sales lift on TV versus online.

Commissioned by Turner Broadcasting and Horizon Media, the study gauged thousands of marketing optimizations by top advertisers over a five-year period (2010-14). That TV's effectiveness has held up during such a radical proliferation of digital media—when the study began, 50 million tweets were


sent each day; that number has since metastasized to 500 million—should be of particular interest to marketers.

"When you stop and think about all the technology that emerged over that period of time, it's remarkable that TV hasn't suffered an erosion in its effectiveness," said Eric Blankfein, chief of Horizon's WHERE Group, who added that the study "busted the conventional wisdom about the relative efficiency of digital versus television."

Despite the seismic impact digital has had on everything from consumer behavior to media planning, TV's value proposition practically has gone unchanged. According to the MarketShare study, TV's effectiveness in driving sales dipped just 1.5% between 2012 and 2014, whereas online's lift suffered a 10.3% decline.

Obviously, as a TV programmer (its roster of ad-supported cable networks include TNT, TBS, Adult Swim, truTV, CNN and Cartoon Network), Turner has a vested interest in proving that TV is a better buy than anything else out there. But as Mr. Blankfein said, Horizon is, by its very nature, media agnostic.

"We don't have any skin in the game," he said. "It's not a matter of pushing more clients into TV. The media mix is dependent upon a number of factors, and a lot of our clients are heavy in digital…and that works for their particular needs.… This is all about gaining a better understanding of the role media plays in conversion."

As one might expect, TV didn't run the table on the categories under consideration. For example, a plan that incorporates radio, online and print will likely ring up more retailer cash registers than even the most judicious national TV campaign.

For marketers investing in TV, MarketShare advocates a shift away from sports. The study suggests that a more efficient plan would reduce the current allocation of TV dollars tied to high-CPM live sports by nearly a third. As with most TV-related issues, this is all about getting more bang for the buck.

"We would never question the value of sports, but we're always putting them into perspective for our clients," Mr. Blankfein said. "Sure, there's low ad skipping and delayed viewing, but at the same time you have to think about the limits of your creative assets. How often can you repeat a message over and over again before you plateau?"

And of course, even if 18 million people see your ad, is it worth the expense of, say, an NBA buy, if your product isn't likely to curry favor with a pro hoops audience? A half-million-dollar investment for 30 seconds in the Cavs-Warriors series may not be such a good call if you're trying to move HurryCanes or Poligrip.

"We've got to be smart about scale and trying to reach the right people in the right place," Mr. Blankfein said.

Speaking of smarter media, even the robots who handle automated buying aren't necessarily Mensa candidates. When MarketShare analyzed programmatic buys in online video, the priciest inventory generally delivered the lowest returns on investment. "If you look at the group where the ad dollars were high, the ROI was pretty low," Mr. Blankfein said. "It's sort of ironic, given that these video ad networks are supposed to provide a more targeted environment."


As much as linear TV deliveries are being eaten away at by online media, the study suggests that a radical reduction in TV spending can have a deleterious impact on ROI. Per MarketShare's modeling, a telecom brand that moves 20% of its TV dollars into online display can expect to see its sales drop 7%, largely as a result of its diminished reach.

The MarketShare study was devised as a means to highlight the efficiency of TV, which is forever being undermined as rivals tout the precision targeting capabilities inherent in digital. (Also not helping matters: digital is cheap enough for clients to feel like they're getting a real bargain.)

Howard Shimmel, Turner's chief research officer, characterizes the study as something of an educational tool. "As an industry we pay so much attention to average ratings and we don't talk about the effectiveness of the media enough," Mr. Shimmel said. Reach is important, but the opportunity to bring the consumer down the sales funnel is more important."

Procter & Gamble CMO Pritchard: Programmatic Delivers Business Lift

by Sarah Sluis // Friday, March 6th, 2015 – 1:52 pm

Programmatic ad buying is an inexorable and positive progression for the marketing industry, according to Global Marketing Officer Marc Pritchard of Procter & Gamble, the world's largest advertiser.

"[Programmatic] is inevitable, and we’re definitely interested," Pritchard told AdExchanger on Thursday. "It enables you to more precisely target, and do it at a very valuable price, and then get a nice business lift from it."

But Pritchard says the automation trend has created a host of problems requiring urgent attention – among them ad fraud, viewability and the hidden rebates agencies procure from publishers.

“Despite the tremendous creative and business potential enabled by digital technology, value is being eroded through financial and operational lapses in the media supply chain,” Pritchard told an audience of fellow marketers at the ANA Media Leadership conference in Hollywood, Fla.


As for his stance on viewability?

“Last I checked, an impression was a measure of viewability," Pritchard said. "What exactly is an unviewable impression? And why would any advertiser in their right mind pay for that?”

Despite the challenges in digital, P&G is reaping its benefits. The company is taking a “digital-first approach to building brands,” Pritchard said, currently riding the wave of its “Like A Girl” campaign for Always, which went from a digital, viral success to a Super Bowl ad.

After seeing the campaign resonate on digital, P&G’s agency cut the three-minute, 19-second spot into a 60-second Super Bowl ad supported by paid digital media across search, social, display, video and mobile.

Pritchard (who also serves as vice chairman of the ANA) spoke with AdExchanger.

AdExchanger: How is P&G evolving its measurement approach?

MARC PRITCHARD: We work with internal and external partners to figure out how to find the right attribution for an act that leads to a sale. If more publishers can offer that and more suppliers or more partners and media agencies can offer that, that will make it easier too. That makes it so we’re focused on the outcome together … as opposed to trying to measure everything.

[The technology] either exists or it could be developed. If we’re clear about what we’re trying to accomplish, which is connecting our brand-building acts to the ultimate outcome of sales, I’m sure someone can do that.

Analytics are a major part of what we’re about, and it’s an obvious part of what the industry is moving toward. We’ve always used some form of analysis to understand what consumers are doing, so we can create brands, products and ideas that will create value for consumers. And the good news is now there’s more data available, and more analytics capability to do that.

Is that data something that lives only inside P&G, or are you giving that to publishers, partners or agencies?

It always has existed, and will still exist, at several steps throughout the supply chain. It’s smarter to ensure that you work across different partners, different approaches, because the technology is changing so rapidly, so we’re trying different things, and working across different platforms or partners.

What role does first-party data have in what P&G does?

We’ve had first-party data from the very beginning when we pioneered consumer market research, going door to door asking consumers questions. We use first-party research and first-party data to understand what consumers are doing, their behaviors, attitudes, practices. That’s something we’re deeply committed to as a company. One of our core strengths is consumer understanding –how you understand that first-level data to gain insight, to create ideas and opportunities to more effectively target.

For many of the emerging digital channels, the audience comes first and then the marketing dollars. How are you approaching some of these channels that have the audiences but are still looking for dollars?


To commercialize digital media, it needs to be at a high enough reach so it makes sense for an advertiser to target and use as an advertising platform. Then you have to figure out how to do the creative work to make that a decent experience that creates value for the consumer, and therefore the advertiser and the medium.

We experiment, and we try to identify partners where we see consumers gravitating and translate that into some kind of programming. That’s exactly what we did with Facebook, Google, YouTube, Instagram.

What new parts of media are you excited about?

I’m very excited about where the mobile revolution will take us. I think that will provide a whole range of opportunities. I’m excited about where TV will go, and I don’t know where it will be. It’s obvious that TV technology can transform with digital technology, in some point in the future.

What are you doing around addressable or connected TV?

I wouldn’t want to divulge too much. Let’s just say – addressable, programmatic, automation – it’s inevitable. So we’re interested. And we’ll work with partners to see where it takes us.

Last year, it was reported that P&G had the goal of spending 70% of its ad budget this year on programmatic. What are you doing there?

We didn’t express that specific goal, but it’s just like what I said about addressable. It’s inevitable, and we’re definitely interested. The reason why is that it creates more value. It creates value for the consumers, and therefore creates value for the publisher and for the advertisers/brands. It enables you to more precisely target, and do it at a very valuable price, and then get a nice business lift from it.

P&G has a renewed focus on its beauty brands. What are you doing there, especially in the digital space or using data?

Cover Girl is a good example of leveraging the combination of creativity plus data-driven marketing. Our Grammys activation with Katy Perry was classic. Most of that was digital, and involved targeting consumers through understanding where they were and figuring out how we could best reach them through Facebook and YouTube and Instagram – Instagram was huge – as well as TV. Cover Girl is probably one of our best brands at effectively doing that.

With Facebook reducing the organic reach of posts on its platform, have you changed your strategy there?

No, because what’s important is great creative that is well-targeted. That is going to produce better value for both consumers and the company. If it’s brilliant creative, it gets shared. So it keeps putting the emphasis back on coming up with a great brand idea that expresses the brand promises that is targeted to the right consumers. If they like it, they will share it and then get the earned media that comes along with it.

What actions is P&G taking that you can share around issues like fraud and viewability and trust that you hope others will follow?

The first and most important is trying to elevate everything to focus on the consumer experience. That means ensuring we can target consumers with ads or content that they want to see when they want


to see it, and get the right creative so we can engage them in an effective way and that will end up leading to sales.

Then we want to create value throughout the supply chain, whether you’re an agency, publisher supplier or ad server. The rest of it is the partners we choose – we trust our partners – and the way we operate. We’re transparent, they’re very transparent and that’s what others need to do.

If you get too hung up on the in-process metrics or the technologies or transactions, you lose sight of what we’re trying to do, which is create value for consumers. When you focus on the end outcome for consumers that leads to trials and sales, the rest of it takes care of itself.

Publicis Chief Strategist Rishad Tobaccowla spoke yesterday about the "walled garden" issue with large platforms operated by Facebook and Google. Do these walled gardens work against your brands’ best interests? How are you working around that?

It’s an interesting thought, and it will probably be one of those debates that rages on for several years. There’s a lot of data out there that enables us to figure out how to best reach consumers and engage with them. It’s a matter of figuring out how to navigate through those three different sources, available, walled and first-party, and use those resources effectively. Where data exists, we get it from [available] sources. Where it’s walled, we work with the publisher to get the data, or work with them to do specific levels of targeting based on their capabilities.

PROGRAMMATIC AND THE AGENCY

Any fan of the series “Mad Men” can tell you that times have changed since the days of the main character Don Draper. Not only has traditional advertising taken a backseat to digital advertising, but also big shifts are taking place within the digital advertising realm. Rather than relying on agencies to create and manage ad procurement, more and more publishers and brands are starting to purchase targeted content through programmatic ad exchanges. Does this mean that agencies that don’t offer programmatic are doomed to become extinct?

In June 2014, an article by Sebastian Joseph in Marketing Week announced that Mondelez International had entered into an agreement with Tubemogal to use their “software to optimize media planning, buying and serving across all its online channels. The platform will audit ads and measure their viewability through alternative channels such as publisher sites or ad networks as well as develop premium inventory.” Mondelez is by no means the first large organization to invest in the programmatic space. Procter & Gamble, American Express, Allstate, Kimberly-Clark, Unilever, Kellogg’s, Lenovo, 1-800-Flowers, Netflix and several others have also taken the plunge.

“Agencies seem ready to accept a more assertive role for the client in managing programmatic spend,” according to a Zach Rodgers’ article posted by adexchanger also in June. Rodgers goes on to say, “… success still depends on integrating with a large number of technologies, and a small private desk working with one or two technologies can’t pull that off.”

It is too soon to predict the outcome, but one thing is for sure. With more and more brands and advertisers literally buying into the programmatic concept, agencies will need to evaluate their strategy and ensure that the products and services that they offer will provide sufficient value to keep their customers coming back. But then again, isn’t that something that any commercial entity has always needed to do? Perhaps advertising has not come quite as far from the Don Draper days as we have thought

Sources:Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

Joseph, Sebastian. “Mondelez aims to buy all online video ads programmatically.” (2014, June 17). Retrieved from: http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/sectors/food-and-drink/news/mondelez-aims-to-buy-all-online-video-ads-programmatically/4010841.article.

How Starcom trained 1,200 employees to speak programmatic

Shareen Pathak @shareenpathak May 5, 2015

This is the first article in a series on “Agencies in the Ad Tech Era,” a look at how the call for automation and efficiency is challenging agencies to rethink their structures.

One of the major fears about programmatic ad buying and selling is that it will replace humans with machines. But media agency Starcom has argued that it doesn’t have to be that way. So it has spent the last 20 months orchestrating a large-scale internal reorganization that would make all of its employees ready for the ad tech future.

The problem was, that its classic “buy media, sell media” structure was made outdated by the realities of programmatic. So it launched a large-scale talent overhaul that included training every single one of its 1,200 employees how to be well-versed at all things programmatic.

“We needed to step away from channel allocation and an investment-by-channel approach,” said Amanda Richman, president, investment and activation.

Starcom was going through what most media agencies are: An internal structure that is based on channels, instead of technology, just doesn’t work for programmatic. On top of that, there is other external pressure forcing agencies to rethink internal structures. The lines are blurring between media and creative.

The solution: Everyone at Starcom went back to school.

The first step, which Richman and Starcom senior leadership took two years ago, was a to create a map that showed the agency of the future. The ideal was a structure that didn’t align with channels like national broadcast, local marketing or search, but one that worked directly with clients, no matter the channel. Every single role in the agency was mapped out: what that person did, where they were better suited, and what had to be done to get them there.

For example, execs realized that in the investment group, where roles centered around “head of print” or “head of national broadcast” were better off embedded in a client team dedicated to Kraft or Kellogg’s. There was also a rethinking of roles like “TV,” so they encompassed all video, including online and mobile.

Certain roles faded away, said Richman, such as local TV buyers, for example.

But the agency is quick to emphasize that programmatic and automation did not mean humans were — or will be — replaced. Instead, Richman said the agency chose to invest in its talent just as it also invested in technology.

The second phase of Starcom’s program was to focus in on programmatic and data. A new program called “Data Next Now,” led by Richman and a five-member team, held about 15 sessions across six weeks across three different offices, getting right down to the basics of what a DMP was, how an ad exchange worked, or how real-time bidding worked.


“The big problem with programmatic is that everyone needs a common understanding of the language,” said Richman. “Everyone does. Even if they’re not making inventory calls, they may still do billing and reconciliation, so they need to know.”

A quiz at the end of each training module checked if the employees were ready. (Sample question: “What software organizes and centralizes all data sources that are used to define audiences online?” A: Ad exchanges; B: DSPs; C: Trading Desks; or D: DMPs.)

Then, the five-person team and its “champion” (as the team lead from each department is called) figured out a reorganization for each different department at the agency. The champion was responsible for making sure deadlines were met and everyone was on the right track.

Starcom isn’t alone in pushing through education for programmatic. The IAB, for its part, has also seen demand increase for its programmatic training programs over the past year, “reflecting the uncertainty and fears that initially stemmed from programmatic,” according to Carl Kalapesi, vp of industry initiatives.

The material was originally developed by IAB Programmatic Council for sellers of digital media, but the IAB found that there is now also interest from both buy side and ad tech. “In response, the IAB expanded the training materials to cover both the buy and sell side, because if sellers understand the buyers’ perspective and vice versa, it improves the outcomes for all.”

One welcome side-effect of an agency-wide training program was that it allowed Starcom employees to feel more empowered — essential especially for the millennial and younger employees, said Richman. “What we’ve learned about young talent in general is that they want to show they can make an impact,” she said. “They could do it here, and they were held accountable. Everyone had skin in the game. There was no opt out.”

Agencies Scramble to Keep Young Talent

Saya Weissman @sweissman November 21, 2013

The old saw about ad agencies is that all the value goes down the elevator every night. The real worry, for all agency execs, is that too often it doesn’t come back up the elevator in the morning.

When it comes to talent retention in the agency world, the “grass is always greener” problem is endemic: talented creatives will go wherever they can get the sweeter deal. And at the moment, a lot of places – not just agencies – are looking awfully lush. From tech companies to startups, the most talented (and digitally savvy) have plenty of options. Even worst, young employees in all industries at least anecdotedly are less prone to stay in place to “pay their dues” like previous waves in the workplace.

“It’s human nature to feel like there’s something bigger and better out there, and employees these days are getting bombarded with calls from recruiters pitching the next big agency or brand opportunities,” said Sarah Aitken, managing director of independent agency Iris. “As agencies, we need to make sure that we understand our employees’ career needs and are able to work with them to develop career paths that are nourishing and benefit the agency and client.”

Digiday spoke to a handful of agencies to see what kinds of specific initiatives they have in place to combat career FOMO and create truly creative and fulfilling work environments for their younger creatives.


Here are some key features that agencies are focusing on when it comes to getting talent to stick around longer:

Allowing outside interests in the workplace

An important part of creating a work environment that is accommodating to creatives is acknowledging and celebrating that creatives are, well, creative. They are fueled by different interests and passions, which agencies should embrace and encourage.

That’s why Huge has something called “Off-Topics.” These are monthly talks where a few different staffers are each given five minutes to talk about anything they want to. It’s meant to be a fun way that employees can bring their outside interests and skills into the agency and share them with their coworkers. Off-Topic topics have covered everything from birding to martial-arts demos to dating social media etiquette — that last one was reportedly very popular.

“People in agencies give a lot. They give their ideas, their thoughts and creativity. It’s important that they get that back and feel inspired,” said Andrea Bredau, managing director of Talent at Huge. “Recognizing the whole person is really important, that they are someone outside of who they are with clients — we want people to feel comfortable bringing their personalities to work.”

Career guidance and education

A common complaint from many young agency staffers is not enough guidance or opportunities for growth. That’s why iCrossing, for example, has made it a point to make career paths at the agency transparent so that people feel motivated and understand the possibilities that exist for them to work toward.

Education is also part of career advancement, and it is something that many younger staffers feel they don’t get enough of — which is probably in part because agencies don’t always want to invest in young staffers who may leave within a year. But more and more agencies, including iCrossing, Huge and AKQA, are offering training programs that give younger staffers access to knowledge and tools that will help them do their jobs.

Rewarding creative work

Perhaps one of the most frustrating parts of agency life for creatives is not being able to do fun, exciting work – or not getting their more creative ideas in front of clients.

One way that AKQA makes sure to keep creativity alive is through its rewards program. AKQA regularly recognizes good work across departments from individuals and teams, but not just for work that was bought by the client.

“On a quarterly basis, we give teams an opportunity to present their work even if it wasn’t sold,” explained Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat, senior director of human resources and talent at AKQA North America. “Creatives want their work to be seen and that goes over really well — it gives them a level of cache and credibility within AKQA.”

Independent agency Resource also has an internal system for evaluating creative work that enables everyone to critique work and discuss and reward creativity. As Jeff Tritt, chief talent officer of Resource, explained, “This is a way that makes creativity everyone’s business, and it allows everyone to give and get feedback.”


Flexibility

Agency life often calls for long hours and weekend work, which can suck the life out of creatives — and it’s why some agency folks get drawn to the client side, where the hours aren’t as insane. However, some agencies are trying to change things up a bit to enable more flexibility.

“You have to be flexible about when and how those people work,” said Tritt. “People flow in and out of this building — if people need to work from home or remotely, we accommodate that stuff. It’s important from a recharge standpoint.”

Another way that agencies offer flexibility is by giving staffers opportunities to move to other offices around the country and the world. For example, independent agency Iris has a “Life Swap” program where two agency staffers from different global offices trade lives — not just their jobs but their apartments and even friends — as a way to reward people who have been doing a good job and want a fun way to change things up.

Giving everyone a say

Involving employees in the process of creating and maintaining a creative culture is key.

Iris conducts an annual internal employee-satisfaction survey called “Have Your Say.”

“It allows us to check the overall agency ‘health’ and get a better read on what our employees are thinking and feeling, so that we can act on the negative results and celebrate our positives,” said Aitken.

Resource similarly includes all employees in the process of coming up with new agency values or refreshing old ones as the agency continues to evolve and grow. One fun exercise that Resource did was what it calls the “aspiration gallery.”

“Every single person in the agency had blank canvas on their desk, and they were asked to creatively articulate what their creative aspirations for the agency are in the future,” explained Tritt. “What you saw was the hearts and minds of everybody wake up and pour themselves into these projects.”

The agency put all of the canvases on display and hosted a gallery showing so that everyone could see people’s work and see what their colleagues envisioned for the future of the agency.

New Facebook Study Reveals Psychological Motivation Behind Status Updates

May 23, 2015 Andrew Hutchinson

A new study has reinforced what many already suspected – people who constantly post Facebook status updates about their relationships are insecure, while people who post about their gym sessions and healthy meals are egotistical.

The research, conducted by Brunel University in London, suggests that those who are insecure regularly post updates about their relationship status in order to garner attention, and likes, in order to disctract from their own feelings of insecurity. Conversely, egotists tend to post about their achievements in order to get the boost of likes and comments, reinforcing their sense of self. In this sense, the Facebook eco-system can form a sort of validation for personality traits and types.


So is this a good thing? Should we be validating egotism by through the endorsement of Likes and comments? Do we really ‘like’ such updates, or do we simply interact with them as a form of support? Such questions formed the basis for this research, and frame the greater context around the psychology of Facebook and what it means in a wider sense.

An Influential Relationship

In a previous, and controversial, study, Facebook researchers found that by manipulating the News Feeds of users, they were able to affect the moods of the users themselves. The data scientists restricted the content shown to more than 689,000 users, removing either positive or negative updates from their feeds in order to see how those actions influenced the content posted by the affected parties. The result? The study found that the inputs people received, via their News Feeds, did, absolutely, affect their moods. People were outraged when the results were made public, with many criticising Facebook for actively manipulating the emotional states of their users – users whom they could not possible know the emotional states of. What if they’d brought down the mood of someone who was already depressed?

The potential dangers of such experiments are frightening, but in a wider context, the study showed just how powerful The Social Network had become. Not only is it where 936 million people log-in daily to get the latest updates from friends and family, it’s also become one of our main media inputs, influencing how we think, see and act. It’s that influence that has Facebook positioned as one of the most powerful media players in the world, the keeper of the biggest trove of audience data in our history – but it also positions the network in an unprecedented position of influence, and one which could be abused.

Psychological Interpretation

Does it matter if we know the background, the why, of why users post certain things on Facebook? It’s of interest, of course, many users see positive updates from friends, like a positive relationship status update, and they’ll invariably compare their own scenario to the poster, often times negatively. We’ve all experienced this in some way, seeing how well other people are doing and comparing our own situation in a ‘grass is always greener’ type scenario. This latest research underlines that Facebook updates are not necessarily 100% reflective of the reality of a situation. People post in order to get a reaction – people post about their health regimen in order to get positive reinforcement, about their relationships because they crave support. While to the plain observer it may seem that these people have it all, it’s important to consider that everyone posts selectively, what you’re seeing is not necessarily an all-inclusive documentation of that users’ life.

The key element of this is, don’t take it all to heart. Don’t compare yourself to the lives of other based on their Facebook activity – it’s unfair to you and unrealistic for them. Recognise that there’s often more meaning to such updates than what you may see on the surface.

The Greatest Audience Insights Tool Ever Created

In a wider context, the latest research again underlines what previous Facebook studies have shown – that The Social Network is the best audience insights and analysis tool we have ever had in our history. While at surface and individual level, such comparisons can be harmful, on a grander scale, with all the variables taken into account, Facebook data can provide insights you’d have never thought possible. It’s that scale which poses the biggest strength for the medium – one person saying one thing means nothing. But when you take into account the totality of the interactions on Facebook and correlate them with personality traits and user behaviours, the data becomes indicative. Failing to


listen to this, to utilise this data and gain better understanding of and insight into your audience, is really a failing in general for any business, the learning opportunities are too great to ignore.

As noted in previous research, Facebook data has the capacity to reveal more about your personal leanings than friends, colleagues, even partners. In one sense, that level of insight can be used to influence people – concerns were rightly raised when Facebook got more people to vote. That’s a concern in itself, but it also underlines the power and capacity of social media and its ability to inform and educate brands about their target audiences. The latest study only underlines the medium’s potential in this regard.

Social media data can reveal more about consumer needs and wants than any form of research ever created before it. Social listening and data analysis is essential practice – if research like this doesn’t underline the value of this, I’m not sure what can.

Publicis moves programmatic ad buying from VivaKi into media agencies

16 february 2015

Publicis Groupe has revealed its programmatic arm VivaKi will no longer buy ads, with all programmatic buying to take place within its agencies Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) and ZenithOptimedia.

According to reports, 120 employees will move from VivaKi into SMG and ZenithOptimedia, to help bring programmatic expertise “closer to the business”.

The aim is to help agencies to “more fluidly” incorporate programmatic into strategic media plans for clients, rather than keeping it one step removed within the trading desk, and to enhance programmatic “skill-sets” within the agencies.

VivaKi will become an ad tech centre of excellence for the wider group, focusing on research and development, analytics and training.

A spokesperson insisted "VivaKi will continue", serving as a "hub-and-node" to help share and a tivate solutions that its architects and engineers develops: "We are taking programmatic planning and activation services closer to the media planning process, where programmatic expertise belongs.

“Our media agencies have more programmatic capacity than ever before, and will be equipped like never before to marry online/offline intelligence to optimise consumer engagement plans across all screens and touch points.”

SMG chief executive Laura Desmond told Ad Age: “If you’re a marketer, do you want your programmatic decisions siloed and balkanised from everything else that you’re doing? No, you want it integrated.”

Agency groups have come under increasing pressure over the alleged lack of transparency relating to the fees charged by trading desks.

Commenting in M&M Global’s International Media 2015 annual guide, The Exchange Lab chief executive James Aitken said: “The biggest concern [for the future of programmatic] is it not being transparent for clients. Agency trading desks are big culprits in this matter.”


In the same publication, Dataxu co-founder Mike Baker argued that agencies are in a great position to expand their role into being an “expert service layer”, rather than simply being a platform operator.

Media groups form digital advertising alliance

Estadao de S. PAULO March 20, 2015 | 00 17

The Guardian, 'CNN', 'Reuters', 'Financial Times' and 'The Economist' unite to fight concentration of investments in Google

The Guardian said on Thursday a partnership with the American network CNN, Reuters, the Financial Times and the weekly magazine The Economist to create a unified platform of digital advertising that will give advertisers access to an almost 110 million public users.

Called 'Pangaea' - a reference to the supercontinent that united all the parcels of land on the planet millions of years ago - the union aims to attract part of the digital advertising investment that today is concentrated with Google and some social networks and comes at a time that media groups try to increase the return obtained with digital advertising.

"In a world increasingly complex and interconnected, the 'Pangaea' offer advertisers a unique solution to increase their influence and introduce them in an increasingly fragmented market," the main responsibility for the project, Tim Gentry, commercial director Guardian News & Media. The group ensures that the ads will appear next to quality content.

The new platform starts up, still in test character, next month, offering "automated advertising solutions" or "programmatic", compatible with the current offer spaces for advertisers in the media.

The five vehicles participating in the Pangaea point out that the initiative will attract mainly companies seeking access to a qualified audience and point out that one in four of its members is in the higher income classes. Other potential new members are negotiating participation in the partnership.

The platform has readers and viewers in North America, Europe, Middle East and Asia, which the alliance's members believe to be a perfect solution for global campaigns.

Stronger. "Pangaea is an initiative that strengthens the supply of high-quality publications, as it ensures for advertising a platform on which to rely," said the sales director of the Financial Times, Dominic Good.

The global commercial director of the Reuters Consumer Media, Shane Cuningham said, in turn, that in a market in which the automation of advertising is growing, "trust" that traditional media offer is one of the values that advertisers most appreciate.

The unified platform will be launched through the Rubicon Project, a technology company that Los Angeles has a platform that facilitates the management of ads on the internet. / WITH INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES

BORGES' MAP Navigating a World of Digital Disruption

by Philip Evans & Patrick Forth

. . In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those


Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it.

"On Exactitude in Science" Jorge Luis Borges

DIGITAL DISRUPTION IS not a new phenomenon. But the opportunities and risks it presents shift over time. Competitive advantage flows to the businesses that see and act on those shifts first. We are entering the third, and most consequential, wave of digital disruption. It has profound implications not only for strategy but also for the structures of companies and industries. Business leaders need a new map to guide them. This article explains the factors underlying these disruptive waves, outlines the new strategic issues they raise, and describes a portfolio of new strategic moves that business leaders need to master.

In the first wave of the commercial Internet, the dot-com era, falling transaction costs altered the traditional trade-off between richness and reach: rich information could suddenly be communicated broadly and cheaply, forever changing how products are made and sold. Strategists had to make hard choices about which pieces of their businesses to protect and which to abandon, and they learned that they could repurpose some assets to attack previously unrelated businesses. Incumbent value chains could be “deconstructed” by competitors focused on narrow slivers of added value. Traditional notions of who competes against whom were upended—Microsoft gave away Encarta on CDs to promote sales of PCs and incidentally destroyed the business model of the venerable Encyclopædia Britannica.

In the second wave, Web 2.0, the important strategic insight was that economies of mass evaporated for many activities.1 Small became beautiful. It was the era of the "long tail" and of collaborative production on a massive scale. Minuscule enterprises and self-organizing communities of autonomous individuals surprised us by performing certain tasks better and more cheaply than large corporations. Hence Linux, hence Wikipedia. Because these communities could grow and collaborate without geographic constraint, major work was done at significantly lower cost and often zero price.

Smart strategists adopted and adapted to these new business architectures. IBM embraced Open Source to challenge Microsoft's position in server software; Apple and Google curated communities of app developers so that they could compete in mobile; SAP recruited thousands of app developers from among its users; Facebook transformed marketing by turning a billion “friends” into advertisers, merchandisers, and customers.

Now we are on the cusp of the third wave: hyperscaling. Big—really big—is becoming beautiful. At the extreme—where competitive mass is beyond the reach of the individual business unit or company—hyperscaling demands a bold, new architecture for businesses.

Up The Amazon

THESE WAVES of innovation have come one after another, but they have also overlapped and, in many cases, amplified each other. The exemplar of this is Amazon, whose successive innovations have been at the leading edge of each phase.

Jeff Bezos’s initial idea was to exploit the Web to deconstruct traditional bookselling. With just a well-designed website that piggybacked on the inventory and the index of book wholesaler Ingram, Amazon offered a catalogue ten times larger than that of the largest Main Street superstore, at prices 10 to 15 percent cheaper.


But that was not a sustainable advantage: competitors such as BN.com would rapidly establish comparable selections and price points. Amazon went on to exploit the emerging economics of community. The Amazon Associates program allowed bloggers to post widgets endorsing books and to earn a commission on click-throughs. Amazon curated its reviewer community, encouraging the rating of reviews and awarding badges to the best-rated reviewers. It extracted insights from the behavior of its community of customers and became an early adopter of collaborative filtering algorithms, goosing sales with messages that "people like you who bought X often buy Y." On the selling side, the company launched Amazon Marketplace as a fixed-price rival to eBay: a platform hosting a community of small sellers that now numbers more than 2 million. All these strategies benefited from the network effect: the more participants, the more choices; the more reviews, the richer the experience.

“Bezos saw business architecture as a strategic variable, not a given.”

Well ahead of others, Amazon also embraced what became the third wave of digital disruption, exploiting opportunities to hyperscale. It built a global network of 80 fulfillment centers and relentlessly broadened its product line to include almost any product that can be delivered by truck. It offered fulfillment services as an option for small merchants, which could thereby distribute almost as efficiently as Walmart. Amazon became the broad river of commerce suggested by its name. In parallel, and almost incidentally, it built impressive scale in its data centers and world-class skill in operating them. It then reconceptualized its own computing infrastructure as a product in its own right. The first step, in 2003, was to standardize the interfaces between data services and the rest of Amazon's business. In 2006 (and in the teeth of criticism from Wall Street), Bezos opened Amazon Web Services (AWS)—cloud computing—as a standalone service. This started as the simple rental of raw computing capacity but evolved into a complex stack of computing services. (Amazon even sells the service to competitors such as Netflix.) According to Gartner, in 2013, AWS had five times the capacity of the next 14 competitors put together.

From deconstruction to community curation to hyperscaling: at no point did Amazon sit back and wait for trends to emerge. Rather, it seized the strategic opportunities presented by each successive wave of disruption, ruthlessly cannibalizing its own business where necessary. E-books were inevitable, so it launched the Kindle; customer information and scale in data processing are critical, so it sells cloud services to its own competitors. And at no point did Bezos restrict one business to protect another—Amazon is now run as four loosely coupled platforms, three of which are profit centers: a community host, supported by an online shop, supported by a logistics system, supported by data services.

Unlike many of his rivals, Bezos saw business architecture as a strategic variable, not a given. He did not harness technology to the imperatives of his business model; he adapted his business model to the possibilities—and the imperatives—of technology.

The Limit: Scale of 1:1

THE TECHNOLOGICAL IMPERATIVES described above are not unique to websites: they are universal. The underlying forces, of course, are the long-term falling costs of computing, communications, and storage. But in just the last six to eight years, these forces have begun to converge on an extraordinary pattern that begins to evoke Borges' imagined world. (See Exhibit 1.)


Exhibit 1 Ubiquitous Sensing and Connectivity Drive an Emergent Digital Ecosystem

Source: BCG analysis.

Ubiquitous Sensing. The number of Internet-connected devices hit 8.7 billion in 2012. IP-enabled sensors are projected to exceed 50 billion by 2020. The number of sensors of all types is variously projected at between 1 trillion and 10 trillion between 2017 and 2025. The lower estimate translates to 140 sensors for every man, woman, and child on the planet.

Ubiquitous Connectivity. Mobile broadband subscriptions reached 2.3 billion in 2014—five times the number in 2008. The smartphone is the fastest-adopted technology ever; the biggest absolute growth is in India and China. At the end of 2014 there were nearly 7 billion mobile-cellular subscriptions globally—nearly one per person on Earth.

Convergent Data. The world’s production of data grew 2,000-fold between 2000 and 2012. Its stock of data is expected to double every two years; 99 percent of it is digitized and half has an IP address. This means that half of the world’s data can now be put together, at near-zero cost, to reveal patterns previously invisible. Half of the world’s data is already, technically, a single, universally accessible document.

All this data is linked by fixed and mobile communication networks and is managed by layers of modular, interoperable software. Software is replacing hardware, rapidly accelerating the speed of innovation: the life cycle of many products and services (previously defined by physical obsolescence) is shrinking from decades to just days between software updates. Information is comprehended and applied through fundamentally new methods of artificial intelligence that seek insights through algorithms using massive, noisy data sets. Since larger data sets yield better insights, big is beautiful. Data wants to be big, and businesses struggle to keep up.


The asymptote is where sensing, connectivity, and data merge into a single system. Every person and object of interest is connected to every other: the traffic readout on a mobile phone becomes the aggregation of all the data provided by all the mobile devices in the area reading the traffic. The world becomes self-describing and self-interpreting. At its outer limit, the digital map becomes the world itself.The world and our picture of the world are becoming the same thing: an immense, self-referential document. We are living in Borges' map.

A “perfect" map with a scale of 1:1 would encompass its world and describe its reality in complete detail. It would array the granular in the context of the universal. That is precisely the architecture toward which business (and human organization in general) is evolving: the arbitrarily large as a platform for arraying the arbitrarily small. And each arbitrarily small agent—whether a person, a thing, or a function—reads whatever parts of the map are needed to get to its goal.

Data in this world is infrastructure: a long-lived asset, general in purpose, capital intensive, and supporting multiple activities. Inference, by contrast, is short lived, real time, trivially cheap, specific to a problem or task, continuously adapting, and perpetually self-correcting. The organizational correlates of data and inference polarize in parallel. The minimum efficient scale for data systems and facilities is rising beyond the reach of individual business units within a company, and ultimately beyond that of many companies. Yet tens, thousands, maybe millions of devices or individuals or teams—sometimes sharing, sometimes competing—access that data to solve problems. Polarizing economics of mass are pushing the advantage simultaneously to the very big and the very small, and a new architecture is emerging for businesses of all sizes.

Hyperscale and Architectural Innovation

HEALTH CARE is a prime example of the transformational power of these new business architectures. This huge and dysfunctional industry is at the beginning of a transformation. The cost of sequencing a human genome in 2001 was $100 million, and mapping just one (James Watson’s) took nearly ten years. Today it costs less than $1,000. In two or three years, it will cost $100, and sequencing will take just 20 minutes. The number of sequences has grown as the cost has fallen: the Million Human Genomes Project is up and running—in Beijing. Gene mapping is shifting from an abstract research activity to a clinical one, in which a doctor customizes treatment to the patient’s unique genomic makeup.


The pattern is clear: big-data techniques will be used to spot fine-grained correlations in a patient’s genomic data, medical history, symptoms, protocols, and outcomes, as well as real-time data from body sensors. Medicine will advance by decoding immense, linked, cheap, noisy data sets instead of the small, siloed, expensive, clean, and proprietary data sets now generated independently by hospital records, clinical trials, and laboratory experiments. These databases will make it possible for practitioners and even groups of patients to become researchers and for breakthroughs to be quickly shared around the world.

Of course, progress will be slower than the rush of early expectations. The real hurdle is a profound lack of cooperation. Medical records, even when digital, are kept in proprietary formats, and interoperable data standards are difficult to negotiate. But even after payers have cajoled providers into addressing that problem, how will all that data be melded when providers, insurers, device companies, pharma companies, Google, patients, and governments possess different pieces of the data elephant and view data as a source of competitive advantage? And even though pooled data makes clinical sense, how are privacy and patient rights going to be protected? The fundamental answer is architecture. Health care systems will need an infrastructure of trusted, secure, neutral data repositories.

“Economies of 'mass' are intensifying across the economy, driving new models of collaboration.”

This is already happening. Nonprofit organizations are becoming platforms for the curation of genomic databases, with an emphasis on data protection. Registries run by universities and medical associations are emerging as repositories for shared data specific to particular medical conditions. Security and encryption technologies are starting to reconcile the scientific imperative to share with the personal right to privacy. Drug research is becoming such a massive undertaking that competition is inefficient and prohibitively expensive, so even the big pharmaceutical companies are looking for ways to collaborate. Building a shared data infrastructure will be one of the strategic challenges of the next decade for the health care industry and for policy makers.

The health care industry is not an anomaly. Economies of “mass”—of scale, scope, and experience—are intensifying across the economy, driving new models of collaboration.The operating system of a modern car has 100 million lines of code (and that’s before Google displaces the driver), and since code is a fixed cost, the largest carmakers have an advantage. So the smaller companies in that industry are adopting a shared, open-source model: the major component manufacturers launched the Automotive Grade Linux reference platform in April 2014.

The electricity generation industry is evolving toward its version of the Internet, the smart grid. Scale economies here are polarizing toward the very small, as domestic rooftop solar panels, electric-car batteries, and wind turbines become viable ways to feed power back into the grid. But they are also moving toward the very large, as the intermittent nature of these power sources requires new, shared, long-distance transmission networks large enough to arbitrage the regional vagaries of sun and wind.

The shift to this ultrabroadband world will require a colossal investment in fiber infrastructure. This is a choke point in many markets, because competing service providers cannot rationally justify the high fixed cost of deployment. Municipal and national policy makers are increasingly recognizing that ultrabroadband will be fundamental to creating jobs and competing in the new economy, so they are stepping in to get those networks built as shared infrastructure: from Stockholm to Chattanooga, Singapore to Australia.

From Maps to Stacks


THE ANALOGY with the map imagined by Borges is not just a splash of literary fancy. The 750 MB digital map of an individual genome corresponds one-to-one with the 21 million base pairs of human DNA. Google aims to organize all the world’s data. Look at something through the lens of Google Glass, and the object describes itself. Facebook wants to map the connections of everybody with everybody. Military planners aspire to “total battlespace awareness.” According to General Keith Alexander, former head of the U.S. National Security Agency, in order to find the needle, “you need the haystack”—the haystack being all messages, all conversations, all everything.

These maps describe reality with a granularity and comprehensiveness that is entirely new. But they also shape reality. Facebook has redefined what it means to be a friend. Waze maps the flow of traffic, and thereby equips its users to change it. Sensor technologies render a shopper browsing in a physical store as visible (and malleable) as he or she would be online. Consumers turn complementary technologies on retailers by using Yelp and Kayak to find alternative products and vendors. Google Search maps Web links; SEOs (search engine optimizers) map Google Search; Google Search maps SEOs mapping… and so on.

The map and the terrain, the sign and the signified, the virtual and the real become indistinguishable.

“A stacked ecosystem blows up the classic trade-off between efficiency and innovation.”

These technologies can be extended infinitely and are all converging on the instantaneous. They are built in layers, mixing real and virtual. A sensor is built into a parking space and another sensor is built into a car: one network enables the municipality to charge the driver for parking; another allows the driver to find an empty parking space. Richer networks will eventually enable an autonomous car to navigate and park itself. Still richer networks will enable cars to self-organize into “platoons,” lines of cars like a train that are given high-speed priority by smart traffic lights. Physical cars swarm on an infrastructure of roads, virtual agents swarm on an infrastructure of data: each is a layered system, but there is a one-to-one correspondence between them, and they continuously modify one another.

Modularity and layering, granularity and extensibility, the symbiosis of the very large with very small: these are the recurrent themes of the transformative technologies of our era. Borges’ map is a rich metaphor for an emerging architecture in business: the architecture of the stack.

Stacks: The New Architecture of Business

BUSINESSES IN most industries have a classic oligopolistic structure, with a small number of companies competing on similar vertical value chains. In many cases, this will evolve into a much more diverse architecture of horizontal layers: shared infrastructure on the bottom, producing and consuming communities on the top, and traditional oligopolists competing in the middle. Borrowing a metaphor from technology, we call these industrial ecosystems "stacks."

Stacks are a compelling model when the benefits of community-based innovation in higher layers and improved utilization in lower layers exceed the additional transaction costs incurred by breaking up value chains. Falling transaction costs make that trade-off progressively more favorable. In the right circumstances, a stacked ecosystem blows up the classic trade-off between efficiency and innovation.

Within a stack, different kinds of institutions coexist in a mutually sustaining structure, each focused on the activities where it has an advantage. While the pattern of layers varies, there are four broad types.


(See Exhibit 2.)

Exhibit 2 Digital Disruption Has Enabled New Institutional Options with Distinct Economics

Source: BCG analysis.

Communities of users, professionals, and small entrepreneurs are typically found toward the top of the stack, receiving services from lower layers.They flourish when uncertainty is high but the economies of mass are weak and where innovation comes through many small, seat-of-the-pants, trial-and-error bets. Community members often innovate for their own use or amusement, and sharing or selling to peers is an afterthought. Uncoordinated, autonomous agents compete and collaborate. They chase a million dead ends, then flood the occasional success with a million tweaks. They vary in just how “communitarian” they are: at one extreme, small developers competing to write apps for the iPhone without much, if any, shared social capital; at the other, Linux hackers or Wikipediasts collaborating to build a massive body of shared intellectual property.

Infrastructure organizations are typically found at the bottom of the stack, since they provide services to other layers without receiving services in return.They are most useful when uncertainty is low and economies of mass (specifically scale) are overwhelming. Thus, long-lived monopolies, utilities, or coops. Their core competence is in long-term, numbers-driven capacity management. Their mission is to be efficient and maximize access. It is not, in general, their job to innovate, though they may deploy successive generations of technology innovations generated by others.

Curatorial platforms, narrowly defined as organizations that exist solely as hosts for communities, are a hybrid. In the stack, they lie immediately below the community they curate. Often they start as an innovation by some community member. But they can grow into something resembling infrastructure, sometimes with stunning speed. Where social capital is negligible, the platform becomes a marketplace or a tech standard. Where social capital matters, the platform is rule setter and cultural arbiter, legitimate by grace of the community it supports.

Traditional oligopolists occupy the broad middle of the stack. They have the advantage when uncertainty is high but not incalculable, and economies of mass (scale, scope, and experience) are significant but not overwhelming. They exploit economies of scale and scope by placing big bets on technologies and facilities. They make incremental improvements in products and processes.


A company can participate in any of the four layers in a stack. Traditional oligopolists are companies by definition. Curatorial platforms may be nonprofits such as Wikipedia.org, but also corporations such as Facebook and InnoCentive. While some infrastructure organizations are owned by governments or municipalities, others are for-profit corporations, such as Amazon Web Services. Companies can even participate in communities as small ventures or venture capitalists, or indirectly by encouraging employees to contribute to projects such as Linux.

But what cannot be emphasized too much are the differences among these four types of activity. They require different skills and motives, present different financial profiles to investors, and need to be managed on different time horizons. A company can flourish in multiple layers—Amazon does it—but most organizations consistently underestimate the enormous challenges.

Decades ago, in its evolution from mainframes to PCs, the computer industry moved from an oligopolistic to a stacked architecture. The Internet industry has had that architecture from the beginning, because the stacked architecture of the technologies served as a template for the stacked architecture of the institutions (corporate and noncorporate) that exploited them. The media industry is evolving painfully toward that structure. So is telecommunications. So is electrical power. So is transportation. So must health care. And every business that impinges on these sectors, as supplier or customer, has a profound stake in this evolution.

Much of what is broken in today’s economy stems from activities pursued with the wrong model.

Implications for Executives

IT IS FASHIONABLE (and correct) to assert that business leaders need to worry about disruption. But disruption takes very specific forms, and these forms are shifting. The disruptive impact of deconstruction—like that of low-cost technologies—is now widely understood, but the challenge of the very small, less so. And the challenge of the very large, hardly at all. Put them together and you pass from the familiar world of value chains to the world of platforms, ecosystems, and stacks. Extend that to the limits of ubiquity, and you enter the strange universe imagined by Borges.

So leaders need to focus on asymmetrical rivals and unlikely allies, on hackers and hobbyists, on rooftop solar panels and 3-D printers. They must also adapt their strategies to the possibility of shared infrastructure, to data that wants to be big, to the implacable embrace-and-extend bear hug of Google and Amazon and the National Security Agency. Conventional business models may be simultaneously too big and too small.

How should executives respond? Here are the four major drivers of the new industrial architecture and the key strategic imperatives for companies.

1. BIG DATA

Test your current analytics against the state of the art.

The field is moving so quickly that even well-versed companies can fall behind. There is currently a gold rush of new analytical methods: banks pricing mortgage collateral are adopting relational factor-graph techniques to predict the interdependence of adjacent property values; retailers focused on data-driven marketing are applying probabilistic graphical models to social-network data. Traditional spreadsheet methods are being applied at orders-of-magnitude larger scale, requiring new computer engineering even when the logic is unchanged. New data sources are becoming available. Families of problems trivial at small scale become noncomputable at large scale, so algorithms—successive guesses—substitute for closed-form solutions. Real-time computation replaces batch processing. Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

Short cycles of experimentation and validation replace elaborate market tests. Organizations capable of all this will be ones in which business managers, programmers, and mathematicians talk each other's languages, where small teams iterate in fast cycles, where empirical validation counts for more than the judgments of hierarchies or senior executives.

Consolidate databases across the company.

Big data yields advantages from scope as well as scale, so siloed, business-unit-specific databases are quickly becoming antiquated. Data sets have value well beyond the silos within which they originate, but few companies can integrate their data across product lines or between online and offline channels. Tesco famously targeted promotions to members of its Clubcard loyalty program by developing an integrated understanding of buying patterns across households, time, and points of sale. Woolworths in Australia has used retail-shopping patterns to predict financial risk. It found that customers who drink lots of milk and eat lots of red meat are significantly better auto-insurance risks than customers who drink spirits, eat lots of pasta and rice, and fill their gas tanks at night.

Form partnerships to gain scale.

Given Tesco’s head start, its archrival, Sainsbury's, faced long odds in trying to catch up by playing the same game. So it outflanked Tesco on scope. It formed Nectar: a loyalty card shared with UK retailers such as BP, Homebase, and Argos—and operated by a third party called Loyalty Management Group. Consumers got the benefit of more points redeemable at more outlets, and retailers got the benefit of a wider set of behavioral data. The power of such aggregation lies in the million nonintuitive relationships between things like eating rice and driving safely. The value for sellers lies in more efficient promotion, and for buyers, in messaging that feels less like shrill coercion and more like helpful advice. Done with consideration for the consumer, this can be a win-win.

Manage data as a trustee.

Personal data collected by businesses cannot be treated as mere property, transferred once and irrevocably, like a used car, from data subject to data user. Data sharing will succeed only if the organizations involved earn the informed trust of their customers. Many such arrangements today are murky, furtive, undisclosed; many treat the data subject as a product to be resold, not a customer to be served. Those businesses risk a ferocious backlash, while their competitors are grabbing a competitive advantage by establishing trust and legitimacy with customers.

2. DECONSTRUCTION

Reorganize your business along its economic fault lines.

Define organizational units by their distinct competitive economics in their layer of the stack, and manage these units for standalone competitive advantage. Even if the strategy is to remain traditionally vertically integrated, this will give your managers a clear view of the threats they face and free them to compete as fiercely as any upstart. Never subordinate the competitiveness of one operation to the interests of another. Amazon functions at many different layers of a complex stack, but each part targets competitiveness on a standalone basis.

Look for opportunities to be the lateral aggressor.

Consider one example: the automotive and insurance industries are colliding. How and where a car is driven is the best predictor of the incidence and severity of accidents. For a few years now, innovative insurers such as Progressive have offered “black boxes” that track driving behavior and enable the


company to undercut competitors in pricing policies for the best drivers. But cars are rapidly becoming computers on wheels for other reasons: the Ford Fusion contains 74 sensors, and each year’s model records and interprets more data: time and place, the identity and posture of the driver, seat belt usage, tire pressure, sharp braking, lane changes. All this data is uploaded to the mechanic and to services such as GM’s OnStar. That means the OEMs will own the most detailed underwriting data, across all drivers (not just the self-selecting best), at zero incremental cost. The separate black box will disappear as the OEMs realize they can suck up all that data—and so much more—and use it to take the insurers out of the game. The OEMs have the opportunity to think “outside the black box” and become a lateral aggressor.

Identify where your value chain is most susceptible to lateral attack.

With their actuarial tables and even their black boxes rendered obsolete, how can traditional car insurers survive? The first (and hardest) step is to recognize the problem five years before it hits. First movers that acquire the lower-risk drivers will be able to hold onto them. In many countries, regulators will mandate that consumers have access to their own data, so insurers will not be out of the game, but rather competing on a level playing field. To win, they need to build advantage in other layers of the stack: the analytics that interpret the data, claims adjustment, cross-selling customer service. Even in countries where OEMs own the data, there will be major elements of the business in which they will have little interest. That suggests an ecosystem with alliances among insurer, network provider, and OEM. Players should begin to position themselves today.

The same challenges and strategies—for both aggressor and incumbent—apply for many businesses.

3. POLARIZATION OF ECONOMIES OF MASS

"Up-source" activities to a community.

Digital communities are able to perform many tasks cheaper and faster than companies can. Customers provide free reviews for Amazon and perform crowd-sourced technical support for Cisco and several telecommunications companies. They do it out of a mixture of altruism, ego, and self-advertisement. Innovation contests with dollar prizes—such as GE's Ecomagination Challenge, Netflix's contest to improve its recommendation algorithm, or those posted on the InnoCentive platform—help companies accelerate the pace of innovation while decreasing the cost. The application programming interfaces provided by companies like Google and some telecommunications providers enable communities of entrepreneurs and programmers to create new applications quickly and cheaply by "mashing up" data streams. This drives users and metadata to the platform provider.

"Down-source" activities to shared infrastructure.

In mobile telecommunications, for example, there are significant scale economies at the bottom of the technology stack. In France, SFR and Bouygues Telecom have begun to share their infrastructure of towers and masts in lower-density service areas, allowing them to remove some 7,000 towers. Each company continues to compete with its own transponders. In the UK, carriers EE and Three share towers, masts, transponders, and backhaul, while larger rivals Vodafone and O2 have a passive sharing arrangement similar to the French plan. In Sweden, Telenor and Tele2 even share spectrum. In all these arrangements, competition is diminished in the lower layer of the stack, but the level playing field intensifies competition in the upper. There is additional complexity and some


coordination costs in this kind of joint venture, but that is offset by the increased utilization of fixed assets. In the UK, these arrangements are forecast to save about £1 billion per year.

4. HOLISTIC, STACKED ARCHITECTURES

Curate a new industrial stack.

In light of evolving technologies, reevaluate your value added from first principles. To take just one example: imagine smart agriculture as a stack. Cheap, meshed sensors measure the temperature, humidity, and acidity of the soil; active repeaters embedded in agricultural machinery or in cell phone apps capture, aggregate, and relay the data; data services combine this local data with aggregate models of weather and crop prices; other services tap into their APIs to optimize planting, irrigation, fertilizing, and harvesting. Farmers collect the data, share in the aggregation and pattern recognition, and follow prescriptions that give them a better yield on their crops. Such an ecosystem creates social and private value in both developed and developing economies. For large agribusinesses, this is a major opportunity that poses no challenge to the business model. But where farming is fragmented, these technologies scale beyond the reach of individual farmers. The opportunity is therefore wide open—to governments, NGOs, processors of fertilizer, and builders of agricultural machinery—to orchestrate a new industrial stack.

Many industries could be reconceptualized along these lines by participants with the necessary resources, strategic insight, and imagination.

Where you can't curate your own stack, seek advantaged roles in stacks curated by others.

Every company wants to be the master of its own fate, but not all have the scale and scope to be orchestrators. The "smart" home, for example, is a vision of how thermostats, motion detectors, lighting, home theater, door locks, appliances, phones, and tablets will act and interact intelligently. There are immense benefits in convenience, safety, and cost savings there, but adoption has been stymied by balkanized, overpriced systems that use different control pads and interfaces, run on different wired and wireless networks, and cannot talk to each other. Google, with its recent acquisition of Nest, and Apple, with its launch of HomeKit, are building stacked architectures for granular integration of the various subsystems of the smart home that will allow homeowners customization and increased efficiency. It is not clear how this battle will play out, but the implications for other players are evident and imminent: they must hedge their bets and focus on defensible niches.

For power utilities, to take one example, this is bitter medicine. Although energy savings is one of the biggest benefits of smart homes, the logic for vertical integration by the utility is weak because the price of power is just a number. Utilities have been conspicuously unsuccessful in their attempts to play orchestrator of the smart home. Their biggest advantage is in the field, in installation, maintenance, and repair. They have a new opportunity to exploit their knowledge of grid behavior, neighborhood consumption patterns, and signals from smart-home devices to detect and anticipate mechanical failures in homes. This will broaden and deepen their relationship with customers, increase utilization of the field force, and ultimately reduce customer churn. They are better off fitting into a niche than trying to curate an ecosystem of their own.

Reshape regulation.

The logic of stacks has massive implications for the philosophy of regulation—and requires that both businesses and regulators think differently. Traditional metrics such as market power are insufficiently nuanced in an environment of polarizing economies of mass. Companies have a huge stake in how Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

this thinking evolves, and they can and should influence policy in directions that favor efficiency at the bottom of the stack and open innovation at the top.

In 1945, John von Neumann, one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century, wrote a paper describing a “Turing machine” that made no distinction between its data and its instructions to process that data. This so-called von Neumann architecture became the design of the digital computer: treating data and code as one.

Just a few months later, Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges penned the one-paragraph story at the top of this article, recounting how a lost empire became its own map. Borges imagined reality becoming a description of itself. His map and reality, like von Neumann’s data and code, are indistinguishable.

How exquisite that these two extraordinary visions, one from a supreme scientist and the other from a supreme fabulist, were formulated almost simultaneously. Now, through three waves of digital disruption, technology is finally catching up with both. Executives in the next decade must chart their course through the labyrinth of Borges’ map.

Philip Evans is a senior partner and managing director in the Boston office of The Boston Consulting Group. You may contact him by e-mail [email protected]

Patrick Forth is a senior partner and managing director in the firm's Sydney office and the global leader of its Technology, Media, and Telecommunications practice. You may contact him by e-mail at [email protected]

How cars really get bought

Rob Ellis COG Research

Choosing a car is a big decision for most of us, with the choice having a higher price tag than anything else except a home. The dominant model is the 'funnel' purchase process. In this article, Rob Ellis illustrates the flaws in this model and shows how cars are really purchased.

Haymarket is a leading publishing brand in the automotive sector, with famous brands in print and online such as What Car?. It recently challenged COG Research to find a new and better way of learning how cars really do get bought.

The problem for conventional market research is that much of our decision-taking is both unconscious and, strictly speaking, 'irrational'. Nobel Prizes have been awarded to behavioural economists and neuroscientists who have demonstrated these processes, but you cannot hook car buyers up to scanners.

Instead, we took an established approach: ethnography. With this approach, you live with a subject and observe, rather than ask. We used smartphone apps to track car buyers by asking them to message us whenever they did anything about car buying, or whenever they saw or heard anything about cars, so that we could track their behaviour and touchpoints in the moment over a period of up to six months.

This approach gave much better, more plausible data that challenged conventional assumptions (like the purchase funnel), validated behavioural economics theory and provided useful insights for the car industry.


As a thought leadership piece, it clearly worked for Haymarket. But what did it tell us about buying processes, and what could it help with in other sectors?

Why do research differently?

We started from the hypothesis that consumers (or at least car buyers) were often unreliable witnesses to the multiple touchpoints, decisions, feelings and other triggers that led towards a final purchase decision. This has been well documented. There are two barriers to accurate reporting of complex decision patterns:

The complexity, detail and length of the new car search process meant it was often difficult to recall all the touchpoints and elements within the process accurately (we found an average of 14 cars on the shortlist and, in some cases, more than 50).

Our own views on how we make decisions and what is important to us naturally create a context for the recall of a decision process. While we may not consciously choose to edit our recall, we will be more likely to recall an incident or evidence that fits how we think we made a choice.

Ethnography is different to market research because the primary task is to identify what people actually do, and then go on to capture the reasons they give for doing it.

This was what we wanted to do in the car market, but there were formidable difficulties. The decision process was known to take a long time and the process was often passive: seeing ads, meeting friends with new cars, chance trips in cars, seeing cars on the road, and so on. Conventional ethnography, where the researcher literally observes the actions, would be completely impractical.

Smartphone solution

Our solution was to use digital ethnography. This allowed respondents to record any relevant experiences or touchpoints on a mobile device.

It proved extremely effective, and our experience was that responses to questions or prompts were quickly given and sufficiently detailed. Where we needed more detail, we simply texted back questions (using a web-based text platform and dedicated researcher). When we did this, we found levels of involvement increased further.

We used face-to-face recruitment to assure ourselves of respondent quality and to assure them of our seriousness (they needed to trust that we would reward them over a prolonged period). We then carried out a phone briefing and an initial online survey, and allowed them to contact us whenever any interactions took place. The length of the interaction period was dictated by how long they took to choose a car and the criterion for success was that they placed an order.

The process created rich feedback, with an average of 110 reports back from each buyer and up to 12 messages a day. In addition, we carried out telephone and video follow-up interviews, and buyers regularly filled in mini-surveys about topics such as test drives.


Different buyer types

It became clear that there were a number of buyer segments in terms of the typical length of the process and the depth to which they engaged with it. This segmentation has since been validated by more quantitative research and has proven extremely helpful to manufacturers planning communications and promotional strategies. We have also seen similar typologies in studies of other purchase processes.

The three segments are shown in Figure 1, which shows the proportions we found in the study. They were derived from actual behavioural data (how long the search was, how many cars shortlisted, how much active research undertaken), psychological traits research, and self-reported data (interest in cars, knowledge about and confidence about cars).

Figure 1: Three types of buyer based on behavior

The segments were also correlated with the touchpoints and influences that were key for each group, indicating the role played by word-of-mouth for speedy choosers, for magazine reviews among maximisers, and the extent to which enthusiasts also influenced others.


Other areas in which the longitudinal approach gave us real insight were the influence of advertising and test-drives, which respondents in pre-choice research tended to under- and overestimate respectively.

Test drives

As part of the search process, if there was a test drive requested that could not be provided, this resulted in the car being taken off-list in nine out of ten cases. Clearly, failure to provide a test drive when asked was a major negative for the consumer. However, absolute numbers of test drives were lower than predicted and two-thirds of the sample took only one or no test drives; just one in three made any kind of comparison.

We also found that for those taking one test drive, this occurred late in the process, and in over 80% of cases was followed by a purchase. It seemed this wasn't so much a test drive as a final confirmation. This suggests that every effort must be made to ensure a car is available if requested (the upside is a likely sale and downside is a lost sale), and that broader test driving programmes could help to drive conquest sales.

The shortlist: The 'river'

More than 70 people ended up buying a car, meaning we had complete purchase journeys - some short and some long. To chart these complex journeys we needed to invent a new chart format, which we called the river chart, which shows the size of the shortlist and the cars on the list from week to week.

Figure 2 is a simplified version of one journey, which was by no means the most complex in the study. Close study revealed intriguing detail for our automotive clients that we found repeated in many other purchase journeys. Some salient points are:

• The number of cars on the shortlist first grows, and only then starts to decline (which makes perfect sense but contrasts with the funnel notion, which tends to lead us to think of the long list leading to the shortlist).

• Significantly, the actual cars on the shortlist are not by any means within a coherent segment. An Audi A2 may be considered, along with a Hummer and a BMW 5 series, at different weeks of the journey.

• However, in post-purchase surveys we found the proportion of 'cross segment' cars mentioned to be substantially lower, suggesting that we may be unconsciously editing our recalled shortlists.

We have found these river charts to be extremely compelling and thought-provoking in discussion with manufacturers and agencies. They highlight the process of choice as being more complicated than the attractively simple model of the purchase funnel.

The past president of the IPA, Rory Sutherland, said: "I have always instinctively felt there was quite a bit of friction in the car-buying process – partly because buyers were expected to behave in ways that simply do not accord with human nature or what we know about decision-making – and that the conventional funnel model was not just a simplification, but actively misleading. This research gives me that rare but gratifying feeling of having my instincts confirmed."

Figure 2: The real purchase funnel: Number of cars on shortlist varies from week to week


Contrast with conventional surveys

So do we trust this new evidence or the classic surveys on how car choice is made? At the beginning and end of the process, we carried out online surveys with all participants. At the end of the process, we also recruited a matched larger sample of recent new car buyers. The intention of this was to compare the observations we made and the reports from respondents in the moment with their reflections in hindsight on what influenced them.

The underestimation of advertising impact on shortlisting can be explained by two factors. The first is the tendency to forget the first trigger to a complex set of behaviours, where an ad may (and did) trigger a series of further events.

When we interviewed respondents about why they had not cited advertising as one of the triggers to consideration (when we knew from their daily feedback that it had been a trigger), the usual response was: "Oh yes, I did see an ad, now you remind me." In some cases, there may be a conscious belief that "I am not influenced by advertising", but in other cases it was more plausible that the original ad had simply been forgotten as a trigger.

One of the benefits of this methodology was to follow up differences between expectations, actual behaviour and recalled behaviour. In almost all cases, when the respondent was reminded of actual behaviour, they agreed that it was in fact true but that they had expected or remembered the process as being different, and the expectations and the memory were what they recalled in the survey interviews.

Important under- and overestimates

The analysis showed that we are good at predicting some things, and much less adept at predicting or accurately recalling other elements of car buying. We are pretty accurate about:

Marque choice and what will go on the shortlist (but often the shortlist is twice as long as we expect).

Estimating the amount of money we want to, or are able to spend.

However, we underestimate:

The amount of time taken and the complexity of the process.


The influence of advertising.

Furthermore, we overestimate:

Our diligence – we expect to take more test drives than we do.

We expect to be more deal-orientated than we turn out to be.

Some of these mismatches can be explained by attention and memory, or by behavioural economics. For example, people were more likely to be influenced by trade-in price on their existing car than by a discount on the new car, which fits with the concept of loss aversion (we hate losing money more than we like gaining it).

The underestimation of advertising impact on shortlisting can be explained by the tendency to forget the first trigger to a complex set of behaviours where an ad may (and did) trigger a series of further events.

Conclusion

This study set out to provide better insight into how people made an important purchase decision – their next new car. The belief that we would learn more about the real decision from following people through the process was completely vindicated, and we learned much more than we could have expected from a simple post-purchase survey.

The accurate information about touchpoints and the purchase process meant we could build more accurate and useful segmentations. We were able to track the real effect of ads (greater), influence of test drives (less, but with huge potential), and the importance of word-of-mouth, dealers and online research.

The purchase funnel model was replaced with a new image of the organic and evolving process – an image that car marketers have found useful and illuminating.

We have since applied this approach both to specific car brands, to the media, food and drink, technology and financial services in the UK and abroad. We are sure it will be even more widely adopted in future.

About the Author: Rob Ellis is director of consumer insight company COG Research. He has worked at DDB, Aspect and WCRS, and co-founded research firm Navigator.

[email protected]

How programmatic and 'always on' strategies can improve performance

Tom Barker

MediaCom

Programmatic is a bit scary, for many of us. Each day I watch colleagues screw up their faces as they struggle to understand overly complicated articles on biddable media and 'big data'.


Our clients – the big brands – are asking pointy, jagged questions. They ask about how their business is changing, about how investment in media and data will start to shape their decisions and, ultimately, how programmatic will help them sell more product, cheaper.

Programmatic is a bit of a 'black box' for a reason. The more shrouded in mystery it is, the easier it is to charge additional 'expertise' premiums for handling it. The easier it is too for the less reputable companies to try little bits of skulduggery that make it a bit more profitable for them. It's time now to simplify this for our clients and partners, to tidy it up a little and put it in to some language that we can all understand.

Basic principles

If you use eBay (and according to the stats, most of us do), then you probably 'get' the basic principles of programmatic. You go on to eBay to search for a particular item (in programmatic, this would be an individual). You are searching for this item because you know from experience that it fits your needs (in programmatic, you are looking for an individual that has shown buying intent, according to your site tracking). You skim all the listings, read a lot of product descriptions and check the seller's feedback just to be sure you're buying the right item (in programmatic, this is the 'big data' inputs). When you're convinced that you are, you decide how much you want to pay and start bidding (the biddable media bit). If you win the item (impression) then you are happy. Goal achieved: item purchased (banner served).

There are even recognisable brand pages on eBay (in programmatic, the equivalent is private inventory networks) where you should be able to get greater quality products (people and content) if you're prepared to pay a little more for them. Just beware the potential hidden costs, like extortionate postage (hidden margins and non-disclosed costs) so you know what you are actually paying for.

The obvious difference between the consumer-friendly world of eBay and the data-driven world of programmatic media is that whilst some of us might buy the occasional trinket on ebay, we're theoretically replicating that decision process many millions of times a day in the world of programmatic display. To make that possible there's a complex layer of technology and expensive expertise in play – that's the 'black box' bit.

'Always On' (versus 'Often Off')

Very simply, programmatic offers the potential to target the right person in the right place at the right time with the right message (and you need a bit of 'big data' in the engine to help make those decisions). That's all. And the more you think about it, the more you should challenge yourself, 'if I am not already doing this, why am I not already doing this?'

Since when did a brand ever say 'I would really rather not target the right person, and definitely not at the right time, or at the right place, or with the right message'?

It sounds obvious, but of course unless you are running programmatically, then this very possibly is the case. To correct or improve on that is the programmatic opportunity.

Taking this idea a step further, you would then want to question why you would not be 'Always On' with your programmatic marketing. Essentially, if you're not 'Always On', then you could, in fact, be 'Often Off'. If you're not 'Always On' with your digital marketing, especially for lead-generation tactics, then you're advocating taking breaks from the competition, ducking out when there are sales to be made.


You could, of course, argue that your website is still online, one would hope, and that your SEO is particularly so honed that you're receiving a suitable stream of incoming traffic. Perhaps. But does that validate being on the sidelines?

'Always on' in the auto sector

In the auto sector, for example, 'Seeing an online ad' is the single biggest driver for adding a car to a shortlist, according to a study by Haymarket. If you're not in that game, you're losing your volume to those competitors that are.

In the world of autos it is a long, commonly held belief that the path to purchase was fairly linear, 'funnel' shaped in the sense of decisions and rationalising thought, and that it took about three months to go from that initial trigger moment to an ultimate purchase. It looked something like this:

The classic purchase funnel model. Source: 'How cars really get bought: Beyond the purchase funnel – new insights from digital ethnography'. Neel Desor (Haymarket Worldwide) and Rob Ellis (COG Research), ESOMAR 2012

Well, it seems that's all wrong. More ethnographic research from Haymarket and COG Researchshowed us that some people do take three months. Others take three weeks. Some consider purchases rationally, moving from a large consideration set carefully and calmly down to one option, whereas others simply see something they like and spend six weeks faffing about, justifying it in their own minds until plucking up the courage, potentially making the wrong decision, to take the plunge and buy that two-seater sports car when a sensible saloon ought to have been the choice. Two real-life purchase paths, drawn from the Haymarket/COG Research study, are as follows:


And here's the catch… if you can't predict that consumer thought process, then how on earth can you realistically market for it? By being 'always on' with programmatic, you can track and follow that user's (anonymous) journey, learn about what kind of product they're in to, what models they're researching, how fast they're making a decision and, ultimately, pick that right time and right place to serve them that right message. The days of burst, test, promotional messaging should be dead – the consumers don't really care about your media strategy, they simply care about making the right decision, whenever and wherever that is.

An example is the 'Stealing cars' work MediaCom has done with Audi in the US. Audi is a challenger brand in the US. Its 'always on' approach involved messages personalised via data learning. The creative was adapted using content pulled in from third-party websites. The campaign had a powerful effect on sales.

Don't go offline

There's another point to remember about being 'Always On'. It means, literally, being always online with your media. It doesn't mean taking a break every few weeks to have a think and a breather or going dark to change creative (why, in an age of dynamic creative and almost endless creative options, would you consider doing this?).


Burst versus 'always on'

It means being ever present, to some degree. Why? Put simply, data dies. When your most crucial commodity in understanding unpredictable consumers is data, then you need it to be alive. As long as you're online you're collecting consumer data, updating it, refreshing it, honing it to make better decisions. The second you go offline, it starts to wilt and fade and with that, so does your targeting, your consumer understanding, your conversion rate to sale and your cost efficiency.

You are not alone

Ad Exchanger research tells us that this year 47% of our Display budget will be programmatic, up from 28% in 2013. In 2017, they expect that to be as much as 75%. And big publishers – Microsoft, for example – are planning to move up to 80% of their inventory into programmatic and focus then more on content marketing and big-ticket, premium brand projects. Now is not the time to be 'Often Off'.

But there is a budget question. As convincing as an 'always on' approach might sound, many clients haven't taken this step for one simple reason – cash. It's not a theoretical or conceptual rejection – it simply comes down to budget, so we have to find ways to educate clients and brands out of that trap.

There are now planning tools and methods that allow us to quantify and evaluate how much budget should be spent on brand versus 'consideration', 'evaluation' and other general lead-generation consumer 'moments'. It can be argued that we typically spend way too much money on 'branding'.

To clarify, the relevance and resonance of a message typically grows the further someone gets along their path to purchase. So while it's important to create brand awareness and favourability, it's just as, if not more important, to make sure you're communicating to them while they're actively making and researching their decision.

However, we typically spend so much money on ATL media, get so obsessed with an arbitrary amount of ratings, that we waste an awful lot of money communicating to people who simply aren't relevant, who simply don't care.

What if we turned that on its head? We might invest in content marketing, providing richer product experiences and engaging consumer moments with a well-researched and defined target group over 'spray and pray' ATL campaigns. We might focus on multi-screen planning and following the consumer (whose first screen is, more often than not, now their mobile) by taking TVCs into online video, generating greater reach and higher engagement for less budget. We might be a little bit smarter with our brand budgets and have plenty left over to continue the discussion further down the funnel, programmatically.


Does it work?

Where this model has been implemented, nearly two-thirds of the markets I work with have reported driving more product at far lower costs. None has said the shift to programmatic has been detrimental in any way, either to current brand metrics or long-term funnel-filling. And that's got to be a good thing.

About the author

Tom Barker is Global Digital Director at MediaCom


Broadcasters, Cable Companies and MVPDs Unite to Form the New Video Advertising Bureau

Replaces Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau to provide new advertising insight By Jason Lynch

May 18, 2015,

The VAB is comprised of 110 broadcast/cable networks and the 11 largest MVPDs.

The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau (CAB) is dead—long live the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB).

As of today, the CAB, founded in 1980, has dissolved and been replaced by a bigger, brawnier organization comprising 110 broadcast and cable networks and the 11 largest MVPDs to form a single voice to promote the power of video advertising.

The group has a new name, a new logo and new members (all the broadcast networks, for the first time), but the same goal as the CAB: providing advertisers with the most current insights about premium, multiscreen TV content. By working together, VAB members hope to provide advertisers a single source for the best research and insight on video advertising, including primary research on the impact of TV advertising.

"Our industry is changing rapidly; however, one constant is the unquestionable power of television to reach consumers with advertiser messaging," said VAB co-chairman and Discovery advertising sales president Joe Abruzzese. "By broadcasters, cable networks and distributors coming together in this unprecedented way, VAB members will share expertise and insights, put forward original research and push toward a common goal of elevating television's leadership in driving product sales and brand affinity for clients."


The VAB companies include A+E Networks, AMC Networks, Cablevision, CBS Corporation, Comcast, Cox, Discovery Networks, Fox Networks, NBCUniversal, Scripps Networks, Time Warner Cable, Turner Networks, Verizon FiOS, Viacom and Walt Disney Co. The VAB notes that its members produce and sell about 140 hours, or 80 percent, of the 175 hours of video content Americans consume each month.

With all these companies under one organization, "it accelerates our ability to view meaningful research and develop analytics about being able to do things on an industrywide basis," said Sean Cunningham, president and CEO of VAB (the same title he held at CAB). "Whether the subject is our thoughts on viewability or measurement on multiscreen, these are big topics, and to be able to bring as many players around one table to talk about solutions, developing greater analytics and having the ability to, with one voice, gain commitment against specific priorities, specific initiatives, specific research, this is truly the bigger swath of the business, the better."

The supergroup's top priority is "the race to hard-proof data and analytics" that advertisers and agencies demand, said Cunningham. "We've got the best in class content, and we've got all this time and attention. And advertisers would like data of a quality collectively that's equal to the class of content we have."

While the CAB had been in existence for 35 years, "it only makes sense to expand this organization's focus to reflect the rapidly changing premium video environment and strengthen the research it can provide to content creators and advertisers, regardless of platform," said Linda Yaccarino, NBCUniversal's chairman of advertising sales and client partnerships. "It doesn't matter where the content is consumed, it only matters that it's great."

The CAB-to-VAB shift has been in the works since December; broadcasters were approached earlier this year to come on board. So why make the announcement now? They wanted to take advantage of the industrywide shift toward talking about ad-supported TV on all screens in the marketplace. "It really was the momentum of how well this collective story was working," said Cunningham. "And I think we struck a chord, because the advertisers and buyers were thinking more holistically about premium, ad-supported multiscreen TV."

Yet, the announcement's timing is also interesting because it comes on the heels of an upfront week in which many of the companies separately pitched advertisers and buyers on the notion that they, and they alone, were the companies that had the best solutions to many of these same issues. But Cunningham notes that when the members come together, "they've always been able to focus on the greater good for the common industry."

DSPs Showcases Key Ad Tech Companies

Reply-To: [email protected]

BOTTOM LINE: A new Forrester report on Demand Side Platforms (“DSPs”) released yesterday provides useful color on differentiating factors between leading providers of this technology. In this note we provide additional commentary on the report and place it in context of some factors related to the evolution of programmatic trading and marketing cloud solutions more generally.

Researcher / consultancy Forrester released its most recent Wave report on Demand Side Platforms yesterday. Reports such as this one are widely relied upon by agencies and marketers alike, especially those who look at bringing work in-house given relative lack of depth of knowledge and


experience that marketers may have for themselves. They are useful for investors, too, in providing some color on differentiating factors between leading providers of a given technology.

DSPs are growing in importance, as tools which manage automated bidding, buying and optimization from varying sources of inventory. This is occurring as programmatic trading becomes a part of an business models for a widening array of companies inside and outside of the conventional digital media space. Consequently, we think that trends related to these technologies are important to monitor, both as they may indicate potential acquisition targets for those larger players without dominant positions in this space and as they may indicate competitive positioning for those who have already made investments.

In its new DSP report, Forrester has placed DataXu in its highest “upper right” position followed by The Trade Desk, AOL (AOL, N/R), Turn and AppNexus as “Leaders” and Rocket Fuel (FUEL, N/R), MediaMath, Google (GOOGL, Buy) and AudienceScience as “Strong Performers”. Forrester noted these nine were included out of 22 vendors, screened to include those which support “at least 10 programmatic channels and devices,” ability to “support a maximum queries per second greater than 999,999” and have “more than 300 active clients” as of Q3 2014.

Companies with DSPs not included in the Forrester report include entities who have historically specialized in ad inventory other than display (i.e. TubeMogul (TUBE, N/R)) others whose efforts in this space are relatively new (Yahoo) and others whose offerings haven’t yet found much market traction on a stand-alone basis (Adobe (ADBE, Buy)) or in context of a “marketing cloud” suite. Many other companies with DSPs aren’t even included here as they have chosen to approach the market with a full service offering. On the point regarding marketing clouds, we note that Gartner’s December 2014 “Magic Quadrant” report on what they describe as Digital Marketing Hubs ranked Adobe at the upper right position, followed by Oracle (ORCL, N/R) and Salesforce.com (CRM, Buy) as Leaders, and then by IgnitionOne, Rocket Fuel, Turn and IBM (IBM, N/R) among others. (In the context of the Gartner report, MediaMath and DataXu were classed as “Niche Players,” incidentally.)

Investors trying to better understand ad tech should be mindful of several key points from the positioning of different companies in these reports:

• The bulk of the market today lies in point solutions. In that sense, observations from Forrester regarding which DSPs are strongest are a much better illustration of who has traction in this space today. While we see the inevitability of suites, and thus think that the Gartner report is more reflective of where the market is going over time, we would not be surprised to see Oracle, Salesforce.com or Adobe acquire one of the leading independent DSPs to gain scale faster

• The market also seems to be separated by media type. Because of advantages associated with specialization today, mobile and video specialists should be able to continue growing given the factors which cause media to differ for targeting and bidding tools and which cause specialist DSPs to do what they do best (for example, viewability solutions will be far more important for video-focused DSPs, while optimization around clicks or cookies might be more important for legacy display-focused DSPs; mobile-focused DSPs will want to differentiate themselves on cross-device audience identification). We think that converged solutions should emerge eventually, but this may simply mean a more fragmented market in the mid-term as everyone aims to provide broadly similar solutions

• It’s unclear to what degree a DSP will have a stronger market position if it is integrated with supply side solutions, and vice versa. Some companies, such as Google, AOL, Rubicon (RUBI, N/R) and AppNexus have made reasonably clear that they will have supply side and demand side


solutions, which may present some perceived conflicts of interest to the different sides of a transaction while potentially providing superior outcomes for everyone. Others such as TubeMogul or The Trade Desk (on the demand side) and Pubmatic (on the sell side) have made clear that they are focused on only one side of a transaction. Presumably they might argue they can produce superior results, too.

• Product strategy remains a critical factor supporting a company’s ability to grow sustainably. The choice to go to market with an integrated suite vs. a strong point solution – or attempt to do both well, if it is possible – ultimately makes a big difference in success or failure in ad tech. The balance between self-service and full service is another continuum to be mindful of too. Ostensibly self-service products still require a service layer for success and ostensibly full service products allow for a high degree of automation and self-service. And all of these factors have to evolve over time to meet what will be changing needs on the parts of customers, who themselves may change on the margins as different marketers will be involved to differing degrees in deciding on the use of these tools.

Marketing Tech Stack Illustrations Highlight Wide Range of Approaches

Brian Wieser <[email protected]>

BOTTOM LINE: A leading blog focused on marketing technology has published 21 different marketing technology “stacks.” As we review in this note, beyond illustrating the actual functions that marketing departments may have responsibility for, these presentations help illustrate to us that marketers will not necessarily rely on single providers of marketing technology and that no single flavor of marketing technology stack necessarily dominates the future. Still, none of this takes away from the tremendous growth that we expect to continue seeing in this sector, benefitting the software companies and providers of related services involved with selecting, implementing, integrating, operating and benchmarking that software in the future. We continue to hold particularly positive views on the two marketing technology software companies we cover in this sector, including Salesforce.com (CRM, Buy) and Adobe (ADBE, Buy) largely as a result.

Chiefmartec.com, a leading blog focused on all things marketing technology has published a presentation of 21 different marketing technology “stacks,” as part of an effort the site has led to illustrate different ways that companies organize their technology choices. The article and accompanying presentation is located here: http://chiefmartec.com/2015/06/21-marketing-technology-stacks-shared-stackies-awards/

We thought the most notable presentations are those from marketers whose businesses lie outside of the software industry, primarily because they might be more representative of “typical” companies (although we recognize the selection bias here, as only a company who thought its marketing technology choices were sophisticated might have chosen to submit its marketing stack to the blog). Specifically, we highlight two presentations here (Marketing Stack), one which can be identified as the marketing tech stack for a Canadian law firm (likely Fasken Martineau DuMoulin, a firm with 770 lawyers and 1,354 employees per LinkedIn) and another for John Wiley, the book publisher (which has ~$1.8bn in annual revenue and 5,100 employees as of its last fiscal year)

Beyond illustrating the actual functions that marketing departments may have responsibility for (relevant to anyone trying to understand the broader advertising and marketing services industry) we thought that all of these presentations help illustrate at least important considerations for investors in the likes of Adobe, Salesforce.com, Oracle (ORCL, N/R) and others.


Perhaps unsurprisingly, marketers will not necessarily (and in fact are probably unlikely to) depend on a single company for their marketing technology needs. It seems that the more sophisticated the marketer, the more it may be likely that best-in-class point solutions will be integrated into a company’s stack (we note that this is offset by a preference we hear from large marketers that they would prefer to have fewer vendors and tighter integration off-the-shelf; it is also offset by the notion that quality gaps between best-in-class point solutions and suites undoubtedly narrow over time)

Put differently, the range of approaches displayed reinforces our view that there probably won’t ever be a one-size-fits-all collection of marketing technology software. Further fragmenting optimal choices, as Chiefmartec notes, some organize by marketing function, others by a buyer’s journey and others with a “layer cake” concept of platforms and applications. This reflects a view we hold that over the long-run marketing technology providers may evolve in some ways which look similar to the manner in which advertising agencies evolved. Historically, agencies needed to mirror what they were selling to reflect that their workflows have to complement the workflows of their customers, which are rarely identical, if similar enough to provide identical services to only among narrow groupings of marketers. We can see how a dozen-or-so creative agencies and a half dozen media agency holding companies probably capture half of the world’s advertising activities, but many thousands of others service the remainder of the industry

Still, none of this takes away from the tremendous growth that we expect to continue seeing in this sector, benefitting the software companies and providers of related services involved with selecting, implementing, integrating, operating and benchmarking that software in the future. We continue to hold particularly positive views on the two marketing technology software companies we cover in this sector, including Salesforce.com (CRM, Buy) and Adobe (ADBE, Buy) largely as a result.

Uncommon sense: the appification of tv

By Chris Louie, VP Product Leadership 11-24-2014

For over 50 years, there was only a single "app" for TV viewers. It was an entertainment app whose sole function was to stream premium video content. Over the years, new versions of the app were released, including more channels, an interactive programming guide, higher definition displays, and the ability to record and playback programs. Viewers could customize their version of the app to some extent by negotiating with their app developer – that is, their cable or satellite company.

But regardless, the app still basically did the same thing. And it was available on just one screen: the TV set. Given that the broadcast and cable networks could not differentiate on the user experience, they focused on their one point of differentiation: the content they offered.

Every one of these facts of TV viewing no longer holds. There are now many TV viewing apps available. They can be viewed on many screens. And UX (user experience) is now an important source of differentiation in attracting viewers and capturing their attention and time. Behind these changes are a number of factors:

• The proliferation of broadband suitable for delivering premium video content

• The broad adoption of devices capable of displaying premium video content

• The connected nature of these devices, including TV sets themselves, enabling on-demand viewing


• The emergence of multi-channel video programming distributors (MVPDs) beyond the big cable companies (e.g., Hulu, Netflix, Amazon)

• A boom in high-quality video content, which can be produced with relatively cheap A/V equipment and editing tools

All of this is contributing to a wide range of TV experiences. Given that these experiences are being delivered via connected devices powered by distinct operating systems, I think it's helpful to characterize these developments as "the appification of TV."

WHAT ARE THE MAIN ELEMENTS IN THE APPIFICATION OF TV?

What the appification of TV looks like can be seen in the experiences being offered by both long-established networks and newer players.

Consider the most obvious of the newer players, Netflix. Netflix does many different things to get the watcher watching, and keep them watching. A low monthly subscription automatically billed to a credit card separates payment from viewing, and makes everything seem free. The company keeps filling up your streaming or DVD-receiving queue through its quirky but powerful recommendation engine and a push for recommendations using social media, and encourages binge-watching by immediately queuing up the next episode of a show – a phenomenon it extends across devices by tracking video viewing progress in the cloud so you can pick up anywhere.

There are also several interesting cases in which traditional networks are taking advantage of today’s technology to innovate.

The HBO GO app includes rich extra content for current series; for example, for every episode of Game of Thrones, there is a "making of" video, actor interviews, interactive maps and character bios. Effectively, the digital HBO GO experience is making available online the extras that come with DVDs. HBO GO also has HBO's entire library of original series, specials, and documentaries and allows for subscriptions and queuing, making it in some ways similar to the Netflix experience. HBO’s announcement of standalone subscriptions to HBO GO in 2015 is a further testament to the importance with which they regard the offering.

Disney's "Watch" apps make simulcast as easy and accessible as possible. The magic of the WatchABC and WatchESPN apps is that they "just work" once you have authenticated with your multiple-system operator (MSO), providing you instant live streaming of whatever is on air on these networks. The World Cup was an important proving ground for the value this provides – instead of running to a crowded bar to catch a glimpse of the U.S. Men’s National Team, you could fire up the WatchESPN app on your device of choice. Several other networks have similar offerings, including CBS’ recent launch of the CBS All Access app (also available as a stand-alone subscription).

In the wake of FXX's big deal to license the full library of The Simpsons back episodes, it announced two parallel efforts that gave a nod to both traditional and app-based means of consuming video content. FXX grabbed headlines (and its best ratings ever) with an ultra-marathon of Simpsons episodes, stacking all 552 episodes back-to-back over a 12-day period. This was an event in and of itself, but it was also a launching pad for a new app, "Simpsons World," which allows the viewer to see any episode on demand, read original scripts, and view content aggregated by character and theme (e.g., "all the times Sideshow Bob tried to murder Bart").

WHAT ARE THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE APPIFICATION OF TV?


This appification process will continue to evolve. As it does so, six things jump out as particularly important.

First, streaming rights will remain front-and-center. Those that have developed them have made clear to all players the value of having one’s own apps. MSOs will want to maximize viewing time within their own apps both on the big screen in the living room and on people’s more personal connected devices. Expect this to be a point of significant debate and negotiation for some time.

Second, UX matters. With multiple outlets for viewing the same content (current season and back library through network, MSO, and other MVPD apps), whoever can offer that content in the most compelling way possible will win the viewers. This means creating the best overall viewing experience.

Third, UX matters, but content is still king. Content remains fundamental to creating the interactive, immersive experiences that are proving very compelling to users. An elegant and intuitive user interface must be accompanied by the kind of content that can differentiate one app from another – supplemental, exclusive additional content in the form of stories and information.

Fourth, new revenue streams will become important. We are only at the beginning of this app-driven evolution. Going beyond the traditional TV viewing experience (the first "app" referred to above) to a truly app-centric model will unlock the ability to offer up such things as long-discussed interactive TV services. Whether these will or will not catch on remains to be seen. But the success of other developments, such as in-app purchases in games apps, will undoubtedly embolden providers to make in-program purchases (memorabilia, sponsored products) available.

Fifth, technology and data will of course be big enablers. More degrees of freedom to create mean more options and more choices. That's exciting (more opportunities!), but it's also scary (more ways to screw up or fall behind or both!). The pressure will be on media companies to invest in the technology to enable those next-gen viewing experiences (and the revenue models that power them- from content delivery to ad tech), and to harness the incredible amount of data available to them to make the right choices and prioritize the right initiatives.

Sixth, and perhaps most importantly, it will be viewers who ultimately decide how the experience evolves. All of the big questions about the future of TV (Will the big screen in the living room become an app-centric environment, too? Will viewing gravitate toward one MVPD app or be un-bundled into multiple network apps? How much do interactivity and social matter? will eventually get answered as viewers continue to do what they've always done – vote with their time and dollars. The good news for them is that the appification of TV is providing them with a broader range of choices and experiences than they've ever had available to them before.

Mobile Payment System Rumble: Apple Pay Vs. Samsung Pay Vs. Android Pay

By Nicole Arce, Tech Times | March 6, 11:50 PM


Apple Pay may be the system that brought mobile payments to mainstream consumers, but Samsung also has Samsung Pay and Google has Android Pay for developers and Google Wallet for customers, and there are plenty of other digital payment solutions available for consumers.

(Photo : Apple)

There has never been a more exciting time for mobile payments than now. Barely eking out transactions in 2013, mobile payments have boomed to a $50 billion market and is expected to grow to $142 billion in four years.

Thanks to Apple Pay, paying with smartphones is quickly becoming commonplace. However, Apple Pay is not the only mobile payments system available and it has its limitations, the most obvious being that only iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users can use it.

Longtime Apple rival Samsung, for one, has recently announced Samsung Pay, its own mobile payments solution unveiled during this year's Mobile World Congress. Samsung's announcement comes hot on the heels of Google revealing Android Pay and announcing that it purchased assets of Softcard, another mobile payments system initially established to rival Google Wallet. The latter came before Apple Pay but was never able to draw the popular response Apple has successfully elicited from its loyal base of customers.

Apple Pay and Samsung Pay are similar services targeted at consumers. Like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay supports NFC-enabled payments and is right now limited to the Samsung Galaxy S6. Samsung has not yet revealed all the details about its upcoming system, but it seems that Samsung Pay will use hardware-based security mechanisms similar to Apple's secure element to close off the user's credit card information from would-be hackers and spies. Users will also be able to authorize transactions using the fingerprint sensor on the Galaxy S6, but it appears the Samsung Pay process will include a couple more steps than Apple Pay, which simply requires customers to tap their iPhone on the terminal and touch their finger to the TouchID sensor.

The biggest difference between the two systems is that Samsung also supports point-of-sale terminals used for older magnetic strip credit cards by using a technology called magnetic secure transmission (MST), which generates magnetic fields to mimic credit card swipes. In the U.S., this probably won't make much difference as retailers hurry to comply with existing rules to change their PoS terminals to accommodate more secure chip-and-PIN credit cards. These new terminals will also support NFC, which means all retailers will have the required machinery needed to support Apple Pay before the year's end.


However, the story is different in developing countries, which has always been an advantage for Samsung. While developed nations are moving to chip-and-PIN technology, retailers in emerging markets are not likely to upgrade to NFC terminals since consumers still widely use the magnetic strip cards. While Apple Pay is supported by only 200,000 merchants in the U.S., Samsung claims that 30 million merchants will be able to accept Samsung Pay payments at launch. That is, of course, if their customers have a spanking new Samsung Galaxy S6 to pay for their purchases.

Samsung is banking on the success of its flagship smartphone for Samsung Pay to replicate the overnight success of Apple Pay. Just a few months after the launch of Apple Pay, Apple CEO Tim Cook says the system already accounts for two out of every three dollars made in contactless payments on American Express, Visa and MasterCard. That is largely due to the millions of customers who purchased the Apple Pay-enabled iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which contributed to Apple's record-breaking profits posted during the latest quarter.

Samsung, on the other hand, had a bummer for its latest quarter, during which it saw its global market share dip by 5 percent, hounded by serious competition from Apple on the high end and Asian manufacturers such as Xiaomi, Lenovo, Huawei, and LG on the low end. A lot rides on Samsung's ability to sell its newest smartphone well for Samsung Pay to become an accepted Android mobile payments system.

However, Samsung Pay is not the only solution for Android. Google has been in the market for a long time, far longer than Apple. Recently, Google announced Android Pay, an application programming interface that allows developers to create a payment platform for their apps. Android Pay is not a direct competitor to Samsung Pay and Apple Pay, but discussing Android Pay is not complete without mentioning Google Wallet.

Google Wallet is Google's mobile payments solution for consumers and uses NFC to allow customers to pay for goods online and at stores. Part of the reason it never gained traction prior to Apple Pay is the reluctance of mobile carriers to allow Google Wallet on the smartphones they sell because they have their own mobile payments system, originally given the unfortunate name of Isis before it was renamed Softcard.

Softcard, however, was never adopted enough to become a contender and, ironically, recently sold its assets to Google, which will be incorporating these technologies in Google Wallet. Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile will also be pre-installing the Google Wallet app in their smartphones as part of the partnership, meaning Samsung Pay has some serious competition when it comes which Android mobile payments system will dominate.

Meanwhile, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Android Pay and Google Wallet are not the only mobile payments system available. Retailers themselves are developing their own brands of mobile payment apps following the success of the Starbucks app, which has 12 million users to date. It's a market that PayPal, as can be seen from its purchase of Paydiant, is going after by providing retailers a platform to create a digital payments solution customized to its own business model and customers. There are also plenty of other solutions that are not dependent on smartphones, such as Alipay, Amazon and Visa Checkout, which means the three handset-specific solutions are not the only options available for consumers.

Programmatic, changing consumers and viewability: Future challenges for media planners and media agencies

Joseph Clift


Overall adspend in the UK is set to increase at a rate of +5.5% this year, according to Warc's own data. And, within that total, internet spending will be the fastest-growing segment.

But media agencies, who are responsible for buying much of that advertising, are facing significant questions over their role in this fast-growth sector. The rise of programmatic media buying has been disruptive, leading to questions over the role of the media planner. And the associated issues of viewability and the ability of brands to buy media space that effectively reaches the rapidly-changing consumer marketplace are also increasingly pressing.

These questions were all addressed – if not answered – at a panel session at The Future of Media Research, a conference organised by Mediatel, the online media industry information source, and held in London in March 2015.

Planning vs programmatic?

With around 50% of display ads already being bought programmatically in the UK, the media planner could be forgiven for seeing him or herself as an endangered species. But the agency-side planners on the panel strongly argued for their continued relevance in the buying process.

Rian Shah, a managing partner at OMD UK, one of the nation's largest media agencies, said: "If you came to OMD a couple of years ago, we did all of our programmatic buying externally. It's not the same now. We found that, for programmatic, you need a planner there – someone who knows how people move across channels – if you're going to execute properly."

The human touch is also needed for research. "You can get the whats but you need the whys, too," Denise Turner, chief insight officer at Havas Media, added. "Don't just rely on digital data – get out there and talk to people – could be by Skype, could be in person. That's the real job of the planner. You need to look at three or four sources of information to give you the whole story. It's not just about looking at one thing."

While the technology offers greater pricing efficiency, there are, of course, big drawbacks to taking a solely programmatic approach. First among these is an over-reliance on direct response metrics rather than a recognition of the potential for long-term brand building. This could, according to Paul Goode, a senior vice president for marketing at digital research firm comScore, lead display down a cul-de-sac of ever-more-obvious direct response calls to action, a neglect of brand-building and a long-term decline in CPMs.

"There's the question of where the data sits alongside the insights of the planning department," he said. "There's a limit here. You need to bring branding in. You need to understand performance indicators that are not instant, and that can't assist machine learning."

Turner also referred to New Models of Marketing Effectiveness, work she had done with colleagues at Havas Media to show the various effects of integrated marketing. In this study, which analysed case studies from the IPA, the UK ad agency trade body, she identified three types of integration – and found that 82% of the cases used one of these integration techniques. The study also argued that "orchestrating" channel choice around a "brand idea" was a particularly potent form of integration.


Source: Applying the models across sectors, budgets and objectives: New models of marketing effectiveness, New Models of Marketing Effectiveness – From Integration to Orchestration, 2011

"It's all about conducting the orchestra well," she added. "And that's the role of the media planner."

Planners also need to recognise display's role in the overall channel mix. Turner agreed with Goode that it should not be used as just a direct response channel, but also for long-term branding. "Display has an upfront role in the consumer journey – and it has the potential to affect how the consumer responds to ads in other channels. We need to be cleverer with our statistical techniques in order to get a truer picture of the role of individual channels."

The role of the media agency

The rise of programmatic also results in a training challenge at agencies used to the traditional way of buying space – through human sales teams. New skills are needed. "The biggest issue on this programmatic tech is that we're trying to run before we can walk," Turner said. "Programmatic saves time and improves efficiency, but can we get the right insights from it? There are huge insights there – if you can get hold of them. At Havas, we've had to learn new skills and processes to try to do this."

Shah agreed, adding: "Planners at agencies are like sponges. If there's a new source of information, we welcome it. But it takes time to get good insights out of a new source. I agree that we go too fast Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

on pursuing the new thing and use the insights from it tactically. But we're desperate to get the skills necessary to unlock good insights out of the new sources."

Large media shops have over recent years in-housed many of their programmatic media buying capabilities, where they were previously relying on third-party providers. Shah defended this practice against charges of conflict of interest – that the agency did not necessarily have its client interests in mind in finding the lowest possible prices when buying programmatically. "It's unfortunate there's a conversation about trading desk transparency," he added. "It should never have got to that situation in the first place."

Goode added: "The nature of auditing here is key. The challenge is in the rates we're seeing for low-quality inventory. Right now, auditors don't audit digital enough. And there's a pressure on agencies to make short-term returns that are not in the interests of clients."

Viewability and fraud

Another controversial topic around media buying lately is the question of how many people are seeing digital ads at all.

Goode cited statistics suggesting that 38% of display ad impressions in the UK hit their intended target audience, while just 37% of these are viewable. To address the problem, he suggested, clients and agencies need to be more realistic in their measurement – and not simply rely on gross impressions. "Put better data in your model to get better results," he added.

"There seems to be too much interest in the biggest possible number of impressions. We need more rigorous standardisation, but at the same time, especially in Europe, we are not used to the dull work of standards-setting and attention to detail. You can't just measure fraud by tech alone – you need to add in massive census networks and panels as well as tags."

By contrast, the US is well ahead, having recently launched 3MS, a cross-industry initiative that aims to make digital media more hospitable to brands by changing how the value of interactive advertising is measured.

While publishers might be assumed to be hostile to such a change – which would reduce the number of impressions measured – Goode argued that there was actually pressure from sellers of premium inventory in the UK to introduce a 3MS-style scheme on this side of the Atlantic. "By bringing something like this in, we introduce more scarcity. So those selling dodgy inventory at a mark-up – those who have been making hay these last couple of years – are going to have a problem."

Agencies also have a role in this process by being more picky in who they work with, Shah added. As a New York-headquartered company, OMD has already introduced more stringent controls. "We vet the people we work with," he said. "We follow the US approach."

Changing consumers

Another major headache for planners is the ever-changing consumer environment, with media usage patterns, and demographics, shifting all the time. A presentation from John Bremer, global chief research and strategy officer at surveys firm Toluna, laid bare the scale of the challenge.

Research from Toluna shows, unsurprisingly, that younger consumers are moving away from traditional media. On average 18-34-year-olds in the UK watch TV for 1.89 hours per day, while over-35s watch for 3.15 hours. More worryingly, 18-34 year olds only recognise 76% of the TV ad content


their over-35 peers recognise. For online ads, the ratio is 81%. "They just don't see the ads to the same extent," Bremer said

Source: Real-Time Marketing Meets Real-Time Research, Toluna, 2015

Moreover, 29.3% of younger consumers are potentially "psychologically addicted" to tech devices, which falls to 14.5% of over-35s. "There's a generational difference in how people are interacting with these devices," Bremer added. "They're simply engaging at a different level."

But some media agencies are making a concerted effort to recognise and reflect the changing consumer marketplace. Shah pointed to OMD research on the future of Britain, tracked in terms of household media habits.

"It wasn't just media research, it was looking at what media did to family dynamics," he said. "The research revealed different 'shapes' of households than what we were expecting. Single-person and ethnic households, in particular, were using media in different ways."

As an example, Shah pointed to South Asian families' seamless switching between India and UK-based TV channels each day. "Brands are now only just starting to find a tasteful way of conveying brand messages in new cultural contexts such as Eid and Diwali," Shah added.

"Do you really have the right layers of communications strategy to reach your audience? Society is fluid and it's changing. The 2.4 kid family is long gone."


Source: The Future of Families, OMD UK and Time Inc. UK, 2014

Indeed, the OMD research shows that White British, Indian and Pakistani households show an average of 2.1, 3.3, and 4.1 members respectively – very different household sizes for different ethnic groups.

Turner added: "I'm conscious that my family life is very different to the lives of others. Just don't assume, as a planner, that everyone else is like you. They're not."

Joseph Clift is a Product Manager for Warc.

Data Breaches and Brand Management: How to Preserve Your Brand Value

McNeal Maddox | March 13, 2015 | 0 Comments

With the recent data security breaches at several powerhouses, brands need to find new brand management strategies to maintain their value.

I spent the last few weeks waiting for a letter that I hoped would never come. I was waiting for a letter from Anthem Health Insurance telling me that my personal information was compromised in their recent data security breach. I signed up for the Anthem health plan through my employer, but just like the other 80 million plan participants estimated to be affected by the recent hack, I never signed up for this.

Every day, consumers are becoming more aware of the threat of cybercrime and its potential effects on their lives. Unfortunately, brands consumers trust are often unwitting accomplices. Target. Home


Depot. Zappos. Sony. Anthem. Regardless of industry or size, no brand is immune to hacking. Even companies expected to be highly vigilant in guarding against cybercrime such as JP Morgan Chase have beencompromised.

"We've spent over 12 years building our reputation, brand, and trust with our customers. It's painful to see us take so many steps back due to a single incident." Those aren't the words of Anthem's chief executive (CEO), but instead Zappos' CEO Tony Hsieh, following the 2012 data security breach that compromised 24 million customers' names, addresses and passwords. Aside from the costs of damage control after a breach has been discovered, the stigma attached to the loss of customers' personal information can have a negative impact on their willingness to choose a brand in the future. This calls for a new type of brand management. As more brands depend on customers maintaining online accounts — full of personally identifying information — to generate revenue and remain competitive, brands need to ensure their value propositions around online safety are more than window dressing.

Consider three numbers: 40. 61. 46 percent. Out of context, they're meaningless. Put into context, they show the importance of protecting the people who keep brands in business — especially in the ultra-competitive retail industry. Forty million is the amount of credit card numbers compromised in the Target Thanksgiving hack of 2013. The company spent $61 million in two months to cover damages from the breach. The biggest impact was the ripple effect on corporate profits for the holiday season, as Target suffered a 46 percent loss in profit from same-quarter sales year-over-year. The most mind-boggling aspect of the whole incident was that Target had spent more than $1 million to implement preventative cyber security and measures six months before it even happened.

Another cautionary tale is Sony Corp. The highly publicized breach at Sony Pictures earlier this year revealed once again that the billion-dollar, multi-national entertainment brand was lax in protecting its digital assets — similar to the incident that occurred with its PlayStation division in 2011. The issues with protecting customer data and their own employees' information raise serious concerns about entrusting sensitive personal information to any network that Sony operates. As Sony plans to launch its Vue premium cable-over-the-Internet service in 2015, the company's poor track record of protecting customers' personal information could impact its ability to attract new subscribers. With so many banking, retail, and entertainment options for consumers to choose from, and practically zero switching cost, security and privacy become more than just table stakes. They can provide a competitive advantage for brands.

Craig Spiezle, executive director and founder of the Online Trust Alliance, emphasizes brands' new role in protecting customers' personal information: "Privacy and security are important brand differentiators and companies need to move from a mindset of meeting compliance requirements to becoming a steward of consumer data." Nuala O'Connor, current president and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology and previous global privacy leader at General Electric, acknowledges that privacy and security have to be a cross-functional priority for companies, enhancing the marketing strategy with input from privacy and security experts: "Privacy professionals need to be engaged with teams across the organization, not just IT, legal, and compliance departments. They should participate in early stage product design processes, meet with the engineers and customer services representatives and take part in marketing and sales efforts."

No one wants to receive the dreaded "We regret to inform you..." letter or email from a trusted brand notifying them that their personal information has been compromised. The resulting potential for lost revenue and customer loyalty is even more worrisome to brands that allow customers' sensitive personal information to be exposed. With so much at stake, it's important for brands to ensure that claims of safety and privacy aren't just marketing fluff and that it is actually part of an overarching


brand management strategy, but backed by solid systems and policies designed to protect customer data. Because most customers don't send letters or emails to notify companies about steps they're taking to resolve a situation after their personal data is exposed. Most customers just disappear as suddenly and silently as their data did.

Programmatic 'still needs planners'

13 March 2015

LONDON: The rise of programmatic media buying does not negate the role of media planners, who still need to use a variety of data sources to formulate the best strategies.

Speaking at The Future of Media Research, a conference organised by Mediatel, both OMD UK partner Rian Shah and Denise Turner, head of insight at Havas Media, argued against the idea that programmatic was in any way replacing planning. Warc subscribers can read the full report from the event here.

The proportion of programmatic ad spending against total display in the UK is approaching 50%. Data from Standard Media Index released late in 2014 suggests programmatic adspend is expanding at a rate of around 60% per year.

But Shah argued that media agencies were seeing this fast-growth segment as complementary to, rather than replacing, the traditional way of doing things. "We found that, for programmatic, you need a planner there – someone who knows how people move across channels – if you're going to execute properly," he said.

"Planners at agencies are like sponges. If there's a new source of information, we welcome it. But it takes time to get good insights out of a new source."

Turner added: "You can get the whats but you need the whys, too. Don't just rely on digital data – get out there and talk to people. That's the real job of the planner. You need to look at three or four sources of information to give you the whole story. It's not just about looking at one thing."

Another major theme at the Mediatel event was the question of display ad viewability and fraud. Paul Goode, svp/marketing at comScore cited statistics suggesting that 38% of display ad impressions in the UK hit their intended target audience, while just 37% of these are viewable. To address the problem, he suggested, clients and agencies need to be more realistic in their measurement – and not simply rely on gross impressions.

By contrast, the US is well ahead on cutting out fraud, having recently launched 3MS, a cross-industry initiative that aims to make digital media more hospitable to brands by changing how the value of interactive advertising is measured.

While publishers might be assumed to be hostile to such a change – which would reduce the number of impressions measured – Goode argued that there was actually pressure from sellers of premium inventory in the UK to introduce a 3MS-style scheme on this side of the Atlantic.

"By bringing something like this in, we introduce more scarcity. So those selling dodgy inventory at a mark-up – those who have been making hay these last couple of years – are going to have a problem."


Mondelez Makes New Call to Startups for Retail Tech

'Shopper Futures' Will Cover Mobile Payments, Check-out Systems And More

By E.J. Schultz. Published on June 03, 2015.

Picture yourself standing in line at a supermarket. Now imagine that you are at home, ordering groceries online, and then picking them up curbside a few hours later. In which scenario would you find yourself buying a pack of gum or candy bar at the last minute?

Chances are that shoppers will make fewer impulse buys when using modern shopping methods like curbside pickup, at-home delivery and speedy self-checkout. And that's a problem for gum and candy brands that have long enticed shoppers with check-out aisle displays.

"The biggest battle we are fighting right now is one for attention," said Laura Henderson, head of U.S. media and communications for Mondelez International, whose brands include Trident, Oreo and Cadbury. Whether it's fewer people entering checkout lines, or shoppers burying their heads in their smartphones while there, "it's clear that we need to be really disruptive to gain and hold attention."

But while new technology has created this issue, it might also solve it. At least that is one of the goals for a new Mondelez program that will pair its brands with startups in the hopes of creating new technologies that address the marketer's retail challenges.

The effort, called "Shopper Futures," will cover the check-out experience, mobile payments, loyalty programs, shopper analytics, inventory optimization, interactive displays and more. In early August, Mondelez will host a pitch day for startups at its office in East Hanover, N.J. The nine startups with the best ideas will be paired with Mondelez marketers and a retailer to work on U.S. and Canadian brands including Trident, Dentyne, Oreo, Halls, Ritz and Cadbury. The teams will get 90 days to design a market-ready pilot. So far, two retailers have signed on: Albertson's and QuickChek.

The program follows a similar effort called "Mobile Futures" that was launched in 2012 and was aimed at mobile marketing solutions. The output included one venture called Betabox that adapted traditional sampling to the digital age by linking brands with ecommerce partners. In February, Mondelez sold Betabox to digital agency VaynerMedia for an undisclosed sum.

But the goal of the two "futures" programs is not necessarily about making money by creating and selling startup ventures. It is more about fostering a startup mentality within the walls of Mondelez, which is among the world's largest food companies.

Rather than slogging through a lengthy request-for-proposal process, Mondelez marketers participating in Shopper Futures must move quickly, while working in tandem with developers of cutting-edge tech. "It allows us to be really focused and get exposed to smaller, earlier-stage startups that we may not have previously been exposed to," Ms. Henderson said.

Mondelez has already been tackling modern snack marketing challenges by boosting its ecommerce capabilities and hiking its mobile marketing spending. The company is nearing its goal of dedicating half of its North America media spending to digital by 2016, Ms. Henderson said.

Ecommerce efforts include adding "Buy Now" buttons on owned, earned and paid media platforms in 25 markets that link to more than 130 retailers' websites. In stores, Mondelez has experimented with wifi-enabled beacon technology that can ping apps if a shopper is approaching a Mondelez brand.For


instance, if someone is nearing the cracker aisle, they might be delivered a notification to alert them to a mobile coupon offer for Ritz.

This year, Mondelez created what it says is the largest CPG-owned beacon network and tested it with its Ritz brand and two partner apps. Shoppers who had the apps installed and received in-store notifications bought three times more Ritz than those who did not, according to Mondelez. "We know there is certainly a rich opportunity in reaching the right people in store with the right offer," Ms. Henderson said. "The possibilities are endless."

Pernod targets 'consumption moments'

4 June 2015

PARIS: Drinks giant Pernod Ricard is restructuring its marketing teams to focus on "consumption moments" rather than individual brands in order to better connect with consumers.

People are "no longer specifically loyal to one single brand, but to a repertoire of brands linked to a range of drinking occasions", noted CEO Alexandre Ricard at a recent Capital Markets Day as he explained that "a consumer-centric model is the cornerstone of our priorities".

The company has highlighted four occasions in particular: night out, premium socialising/luxury, get together and aperitif/meal occasion.

"All over the world we must place one of our brands at every gathering, at every shared moment where there's a drink," Ricard declared.

Global business development director Conor McQuaid elaborated on the thinking, telling Marketing Week: "There is a logic to it, and I think there's a bit of a 'lightbulb moment' organisationally from an efficiency perspective."

"It can be served market by market in different ways by different brands," he continued. "What we don't want to do is start retrofitting the brand positioning."

McQuaid outlined other ways in which the company was addressing its commitment to consumer-centricity, including the placement of "social responsibility" messages in its top 14 brands by the end of the next financial year.

"What we're keen on ensuring is that this is seen as credible to the brand," he said. "It needs to form part of what the communication strategy is – you'll get called out from the consumer if not."

He pointed to the work the company had already done in this regard with its Chivas Regal and Jameson whiskey brands, the former creating a $1m entrepreneurial fund, the latter offering new filmmakers the chance to have actor Kevin Spacey star in a short film.

"In terms of millennial consumers, there's a real opportunity for us there to speak a bit more strongly to some of the work that's ongoing," McQuaid added.

Data sourced from Marketing Week; additional content by Warc staff


Google entra na briga para substituir cartões por celular

JORNAL DO COMÉRCIO - 02/06/2015

Empresa lançará Android Pay, que usa NFC para transmissão de dados

Em uma tentativa de substituir os cartões de crédito e débito físicos, o Google apresentou um sistema de pagamentos que permitirá o uso de celulares com Android para pagamento de compras em 700 mil lojas nos EUA.

Essa é a segunda incursão do Google nas finanças pessoais: o Wallet, que ameaçava pôr em xeque os negócios de outros intermediadores digitais, como o PayPal, nunca decolou. E iniciativas parecidas, como da Square, sofrem para se massificar. A história pode ser diferente agora, dada a força da empresa entre smartphones - em 2014, foram vendidos 1 bilhão de aparelhos com seu sistema operacional.

O Android Pay, como foi intitulada a tecnologia, usa a tecnologia NFC (para transmissão de dados entre aparelhos próximos), com a qual grande parte dos smartphones atuais vem equipada. O sistema também é usado no Apple Pay - análogo da rival que foi introduzido no mercado americano antes, no fim do ano passado.

Para fazer um pagamento, o usuário deve ter as informações do cartão cadastradas na conta do Google. Depois, é preciso aproximar o smartphone do sensor, localizado no caixa de um supermercado, por exemplo, econfirmar a compra - por meio de uma senha ou da leitura de impressão digital nos aparelhos compatíveis.

O executivo responsável pela coordenação do projeto na companhia, Prakash Hariramani, disse que o padrão não deve tardar para ser levado a outros países, incluindo o Brasil. Mas a implantação deve começar por Canadá e mercados na Europa ocidental, como o Reino Unido.

No Brasil, as operadoras de pagamentos Cielo e Rede oferecem máquinas equipadas com a tecnologia NFC.

O diretor de inovação da Cielo, Luiz Henrique Didier, diz que o Brasil está pronto para a entrada das empresas de tecnologia no mercado: a maior parte das máquinas da empresa tem NFC (1,4 milhão do total de 2 milhões). Em até dois anos, todas terão sido atualizadas. "Com um cartão americano, várias pessoas já fizeram pagamento no Brasil por meio do Apple Pay", conta. "O vendedor está pronto. O que falta é a Apple e o Google falarem com os bancos", diz.

Para funcionar, os mecanismos dependem da participação das instituições emissoras dos cartões, já que são eles que, no fim das contas, autorizam o pagamento.

Bradesco e Itaú oferecem seus próprios sistemas de pagamento com o celular, por meio de aplicativos, mas em parceria com operadoras.

Nesse segmento, o Google tem como concorrente justamente a sua maior parceira: a Samsung, que está se preparando para lançar o Samsung Pay ainda neste ano.

Uma das vantagens do sistema é que ele funciona também com máquinas de cartão convencionais.


O mecanismo só opera inicialmente nos smartphones top do fabricante - o mais barato, Galaxy S6, custa pelo menos R$ 3.299 no Brasil. O Android Pay estará disponível para celulares com sistema nas versões a partir da 4.4 (chamada KitKat).

There Is No More Social Media -- Just Advertising

Five Strategies for Brands in the Era of #NotReally Social Media Marketing

By Mike Proulx. Published on April 02, 2015.

Fifteen years ago, the provocative musings of Levine, Locke, Searls and Weinberger set the stage for a grand era of social media marketing with the publication of "The Cluetrain Manifesto" and their vigorous declaration of "the end of business as usual."

For a while, it really felt like brands were beginning to embrace online communities as a way to directly connect with people as human beings. But over the years, that idealistic vision of genuine two-way exchange eroded. Brands got lazy by posting irrelevant content and social networks needed to make money.

Let's call it what it is: Social media marketing is now advertising. It's largely a media planning and buying exercise -- emphasizing viewed impressions. Brands must pay if they really want their message to be seen. It's the opposite of connecting or listening -- it's once again broadcasting.

Twitter's Dick Costolo recently said that ads will "make up about one in 20 tweets." It's also no secret that Facebook's organic reach is on life support, at best. And when Snapchat launched Discover, it was quick to point out that "This is not social media."

The idealistic end to business as usual, as "The Cluetrain Manifesto" envisioned, never happened. We didn't reach the finish line. We didn't even come close. After a promising start -- a glimmer of hope -- we're back to business as usual. Sure, there have been powerful advances in ad tech. Media is more automated, targeted, instant, shareable and optimized than ever before. But is there anything really social about it? Not below its superficial layer.

Once you come to terms with this reality, there are a number of things that you can do as marketers to make the most of this era of #NotReally social media marketing. Here are five:

1. Open your wallet. Remember when social media used to be called unpaid media? Those days are over. Marketing on social networks today requires a shift in mindset -- one that considers social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, as any other ad-supported media properties. They have targetable mass audiences that you can reach if you're willing to allocate a chunk of your media budget. Fact: You will need to spend more money in social media than you have in the past.

2. Play blackjack. Unlike other media properties, social platforms have a built-in instant feedback loop in the form of likes, comments, favorites, retweets, etc. Start by allocating a small amount of money equally across promoted posts. Then use the platforms' inherent social signals to help determine on which content to increase your bets. Continue to "double-down" on top performers by increasing paid media dollars. Think of it as crowd-sourced media planning. The most popular posts are a sure bet to amplify to a more mass audience.

3. Show restraint. Don't get caught up in posting (and promoting) innocuous content because it's earning what feels like a lot of social currency. The art of creativity and the science of brand strategy


shouldn't be tossed out the window just because you can now instantly publish. Stay true to your brand and only post when you have something relevant, useful, and/or valuable to share.

4. Measure what matters. While engagement metrics are helpful in surfacing popular content, your paid media success should be measured against specific marketing goals (Hint: "Increase likes and followers" is not a business objective.) To really measure business impact requires a more thorough analytics approach beyond what social platforms natively offer, including attribution modeling and experimental design.

5. Connect the dots. Finally, social media doesn't exist in a silo. Consumers' media habits have become a mashup of devices, platforms and content. Use this as an advantage to plan and execute programs that work across channels. Your promoted posts should complement, connect and amplify as part of your larger marketing strategy. And the content you create? It should be customized to the unique strengths and nuances of each social platform in your mix.

All media today is essentially social media and the deep dark secret is that it's not very social after all. Social networks are now mass-media properties. Brands must pay to play in order to get reach. But for those, like me, who have been guided by the principles laid out in "The Cluetrain Manifesto," here's the good news: Marketing is so much more than promotion (remember the four Ps?). While a social advertising strategy is the new normal, brands must not neglect their social business strategy -- which is really what Levine, Locke, Searls and Weinberger were saying all along.

It's time to act human again. Our social networks are still a goldmine of untapped consumer insight and opportunity. There's no reason why brands can't use social media as a way to transform their businesses -- to end business as usual -- while still advertising in it, too.

The One Slide From Mary Meeker That (Still) Makes No Sense At All

by Maarten Albarda, 53 minutes ago

Last week, somewhat lost in the FIFA farce, KPCB’s oracle spoke: Mary Meeker presented her annual “Internet Trends” report. This report is highly anticipated each year, and is perhaps the digital equivalent of the State of the Union — or, perhaps more appropriately (for my British readers), the Queen’s speech (also last week).

This year’s edition is no fewer than 196 pages long, and is a treasure trove of data, facts and trends. If you want to download it (it’s free), go here.

In December 2013, I wrote my second Online Spin contribution ever under the headline “Mary Meeker Is Right/Mary Meeker Is Wrong.” In it, I took issue with the fact that she always includes a chart that compares time spent by consumers on various media and ad budgets allocated to these media. This year’s edition is no exception. You can find that info on page 16.

This slide always seems to resonate with the digital industry. The sentiment seems to be: “Advertisers are stupid, they are still not getting it. The consumer has moved to digital and advertisers should follow.”

But the amount of time spent vs. advertising budget allocated is a truly pointless comparison, for two reasons.

Here is reason number one.


People like porn, and they are consuming ever-larger amounts of it online. Says Covenant Eyes, an Internet Accountability and Filtering service that allows parents to protect their children (or perhaps the whole family) from accessing unsavory content: “By 2017, a quarter of a billion people are expected to be accessing mobile adult content from their phones or tablets, an increase of more than 30% from 2013. Mobile adult video chat alone will have a compound annual growth rate of 25%.”

That is a lot of porn. So the amount of time spent is very high. Yet marketers have not really embraced this opportunity with an equal share of ad spend. You could also make the same argument for violent video games.

Here is reason number two.

The Super Bowl is relevant for certain brands and messages because it reaches potential consumers in very large numbers. Vine reaches large groups of people, too (if you are targeting my teenage son, you’ll certainly hit him). According to Vine’s head of user experience Jason Mante, one hundred million people watch Vine videos on mobile and on the Web every month.

But the costs to develop and buy a commercial for the Super Bowl versus Vine are miles apart. For a 60-second Super Bowl spot, think several millions of dollars (celebrity inclusion alone can set you back vast amounts of money). The Super Bowl lasts one evening. Now let’s compare that to producing and placing a six-second Vine with a famous internet celebrity. The cost here is much (much!) lower than the Super Bowl commercial, and so is the media cost -- it will perhaps set you back a few $100,000 in total.

Don’t get me wrong: The amount of time spent by consumers on any medium is an important statistic for marketers, because it indicates a chance to connect around a certain passion point. But let’s agree once and for all that the share of time spent by consumers on a certain touch point does not set a benchmark for how much advertising money should be spent on that touch point. OK?

We Overlook Humans And Creative When Talking Programmatic, Says InSkin Media’s GM

Even with the industry frothing over programmatic, it’s paramount creativity isn’t put to the wayside.

Posted byEMMA MACKENZIE1 JUNE, 2015

As Kurt Burnette, chief revenue officer at Network Seven told B&T in the April/May issue of B&T about programmatic coming to TV: “If you start getting sent ads that are relevant, that’s going to be great, but if they’re crap ads it doesn’t matter how relevant it is, you’re just going to ignore them”.

And echoing Burnette’s sentiment, Matt Newcomb, general manager of online and video advertising company InSkin Media, said the company has yet to focus on programmatic because it’s hammering into how crucial creativity is.

“We are particularly fixated on creative, producing high quality, high impact, great creative via HTML5, which lots of people can’t do very well, in order to deliver the right kind of outcome for advertisers,” Newcomb told B&T.

When questioned whether the industry’s quest for automation and efficiency has been at the detriment of creativity, Newcomb said: “It’s hard to build amazing creative without human beings, I


think,” and referencing one of the major Aussie publishers, Newcomb outlined how the native product was great, but it was very simple and functional at the moment, it was text, image and headline.

“That is great for what they’re trying to achieve,” he said. “But to turn that into something really creative without human beings is impossible.

“So you really do need human beings to build amazing creative. Human beings have great ideas. And that is so fundamental to how effective advertising is, and too easy to overlook when everyone just wants to talk about programmatic.

“But not matter how well something gets done with its delivery, if the creative is terrible, it’s terrible. Amazing creative and the right delivery is the result.”

While not pushing aside the possibility the company may focus on programmatic in the future, Newcomb believes not everyone needs to focus on programmatic right now.

“There’s definitely room for some people to not be programmatic, but never say never,” he said.

“The thing that’s changing at the moment, if you want to build high impact, amazing creative, it’s quite difficult to do that without human beings being involved. That’s the reality. And that’s the space that we’re in.

“Part of what we’re about is that kind of high end of advertising where design is really important. It’s not a question of necessarily one or the other, it’s this particular space and what we do, it’s quite hard to do programmatic.”

Since programmatic came onto the scene there has been wide discussion around whether it will help or hinder the creativity. Marketing Land’s Melody Gambino says programmatic doesn’t have to crush creativity. “While reactionaries are calling programmatic the ‘death of creativity,’ on the contrary, it offers great, new opportunities to move beyond the status quo,” she writes.

Similarly, publication eMarketer has suggested that while programmatic has helped speed and efficiency in advertising, creativity is following suit.

“The creative process of the past isn’t sufficient to keep up with the needs of the programmatic era. But a significant amount of infrastructure change and mindset change will need to happen before the new rules of creative development emerge,” said eMarketer.

Brands and agencies can look to a number of existing practices to help the age of creativity in this programmatic era.

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The key difference is the access to data that programmatic provides, said Luke Kintigh, global media and content strategist at Intel in the article. “We’re used to it on the social side. But programmatic takes it to a whole other level with personalization, because of the proliferation of DMPs [data management platforms] and all of this data.”

Programmatic TV to hit $10bn

29 May 2015


NEW YORK: Programmatic TV buying in the US will grow fourfold between 2015 and 2019, by when it will be worth some $10bn according to a new report from Magna Global.

The strategic global media unit of IPG Mediabrands defined programmatic TV as all spending transacted through a technology platform rather than a traditional insertion order and said this currently accounted for between 2% and 3% of TV budgets but would grow to 4%, worth $2.5bn, in 2015, before picking up speed and surging to 17% of expenditure, worth $10bn, in 2019.

"It's nascent and can only grow from here," Vincent Letang, evp/global forecasting at Magna Global, told Advertising Age.

"TV, and other electronic media such as digital out-of-home, can use some of the technologies and data used by digital media formats to develop programmatic/automated trading, audience buying and advanced targeting," he added.

Most programmatic buying currently takes the form of audience buys but the advent of "household addressable" buys is set to significantly increase spending on ads served through set-top boxes.

Letang observed that household addressability was about to take off: "more MSOs will activate set-top-box-based software to be able to target a larger sample of their subscribers with live linear substitution commercial," he explained.

"All major MSOs have plans to make that happen in the next two years and once the solution is available through most MSOs it will generate more interest from more advertisers, national or local."

Magna Global has previously stated its intention to automate half its buyingin 2015 and earlier this year 15 smaller cable networks came together to create a consortium to help it reach specific audiences such as Hispanics, African-Americans and young people.

More generally, the company noted that "an influx of higher quality inventory" across all platforms was helping boost programmatic ad rates. And spending on programmatic video had risen to almost one third of total digital video spending, a proportion expected to rise to more than two thirds by 2019.

Data sourced from Advertising Age; additional content by Warc staff

Digital markets mature

29 May 2015

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, CA: Annual growth in the number of internet users and smartphone owners is slowing and the digital focus is rapidly shifting to mobile and video according to the latest Internet Trends report from Mary Meeker.

Now a partner at venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Meeker delivered her 2015 report at the Code Conference, organised by tech news site Re/code, where she described internet user growth as "solid but slowing" – at 8% in 2014, compared to 10% in 2013 and 11% in 2012.

The performance of smartphones was "strong but slowing", as the 65% rate seen in 2012 fell to 27% in 2013 and 23% in 2014.


The fastest growth in new smartphone subscriptions was in Asia, especially in India (+55%) and China (+21%), while Brazil (+28%) also saw a significant increase, as people began to upgrade from feature phones.

Meeker also observed global data traffic continuing to shift decisively towards mobile and video.

Internet video accounted for 64% of all consumer internet traffic in 2014, up from 62% in 2013 and 57% in 2012. And mobile video accounted for 55% of all mobile data traffic, up from 52% in 2013 and 50% in 2012.

In this context, the Washington Post said that the internet is essentially going to become "a big video pipe", as it reported predictions from IT firm Cisco that in the next five years online video will make up 80% of all internet traffic globally, and 85% in the US.

For Video Ad Viewability, Size Matters

MAY 20, 2015

Larger player sizes drive higher viewability rates Marketers remain concerned about paying for video ads that aren’t seen. According to April 2015 research by Google, shelling out for larger ad sizes could help boost viewability.The study looked at video ads served by DoubleClick and Google. Display Network worldwide and found that among the most common ad sizes across the web, larger players were the most viewable. For example, 848x477 units ranked second for volume behind 300x250 placements, but the former hammered the latter when it came to viewability, with respective rates of 88.6% and 19.8%—the highest and lowest out of all sizes studied. Placements sizes 640x390, 1280x720 and 854x510 each hovered above 85%, while 300x225 and 610x290 units made up the rest of the bottom three. Data released in March 2015 by Innovid found similar results. Among interactive online pre-roll video ads served worldwide in 2014, broadcast publishers such as ABC, CBS and NBC crushed portals and publishers (AOL, CondÃ© Nast, Mashable, Yahoo and so forth) as well as platforms and aggregators (any demand-side platform’s network exchanges and trading desks) for viewability rate, at 77% vs. 49% and 38%.cBroken down by size, online pre-roll video viewability for broadcast publishers was 80% on large players, compared with 19% for medium and 0% for small units. Results were slightly different for the other two publisher types, which each saw highest viewability for medium players; still, the lowest rates were for small ones. Beyond size, Google looked at another factor of video viewability— location—and found that ads with the highest rates were located on the top and in the center of the page. eMarketer estimates that digital video ad spending will reach $7.77 billion this year, up 33.8% from 2014. For video advertisers to get the most for their money, they should keep in mind that bigger is better and focus on front-and-center placements that grab eyeballs before users scroll away. ©2015 eMarketer Inc. All rights reserved. www.emarketer.com

Why Your Agency Needs Fewer Project Managers and More Producers

Is it better to police a creative team or be part of one?By Michelle Kinsman

May 19, 2015,

Are you wondering why your agency's workflow process is broken, or why it's so hard to get great work out the door? Maybe it's time to stop hiring project managers and hire producers instead.


Most agencies use these job titles interchangeably, but understanding the distinction is imperative to improving agency workflow. It's more than vernacular—it's about mindset. It's about being part of the work, versus merely managing work effort.

The first step to recasting your project managers with producers is recognizing the main differences between the two:

1. Measures of Success

Understanding how your production lead values his or her contributions to the team is key to understanding their mindset.

Project managers manage action items and resources. They see themselves as the owners of the master plan and project documentation. They serve as team coordinators, checking to-dos off a list. Project managers consider "on time" and "on budget" as their ultimate success metrics.

In contrast, producers love the creative work just as much as the creative team. Producers consider themselves members of the creative team and the center that helps empower the rest of the team to do brilliant work. They are heavily invested in the project and are equally proud to see the campaign go live. Producers measure their own success by the quality of the end deliverable.

2. Response to Change

Change is inevitable in the world of marketing and advertising. Observing how your production leads cope with it is another opportunity to understand how they are wired.

Producers know that change is part of their everyday reality, whereas project managers see change as a risk to be mitigated and monitored.

Crucially, producers make it a point to fully understand proper production process, so they can appreciate trade-offs when the rulebook must be tossed aside. Rather than use process as an obstacle, producers know how to keep their team safe in uncharted territory.

3. Holistic Vs. Specialized Approach

How big of a sandbox is your production lead willing to play in?

Producers strive to be channel agnostic. They're game for playing in the digital, traditional and yet-to-be-invented spaces. They'll seek out answers to the hard questions and are energized by new challenges. But project managers crave skill specialization, which is often reflected by the pursuit of certifications proudly emblazoned on their resumes and LinkedIn profiles.

4. Managing Finances

Observe how tightly your production leads hold on to baseline project estimates. Can they adapt these numbers to evolve with the project, or do they police their original figures?

Producers serve as guardians of budget and scope. If they are doing it well, it should feel to their team like they're creating a padded guardrail, not handcuffs. They prefer to make financial realities part of an everyday transparent dialogue with clients.

Project managers can get lost in the comfort of managing Excel spreadsheets. They live by their CYA file and reluctantly take on the bad cop role, showing up for "the talk" when budgets run in the red.Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

5. Emotional Intelligence

A production lead's ability to adapt his or her approach and communication style for different audiences is an essential differentiator between project managers and producers.

Producers have high emotional intelligence and strive to understand what makes a team member successful. They'll wear whatever hat is required, be it that of cheerleader, warden, psychiatrist, drill sergeant, nudge or best friend.

Project managers don't understand why people don't just do their jobs, and can be heard remarking in an exasperated tone, "I'm not a babysitter!"

Maybe your agency's "workflow" problems aren't process issues at all. Ask yourself one simple question: Have I hired project managers or producers?

The road to recovery begins with an honest answer.

Michelle Kinsman is svp, executive director of production and operations at Digitas Health. Follow her on Twitter at @callmekinsman.

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/why-your-agency-needs-fewer-project-managers-and-more-producers-164859?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=AWK_AdBrand&utm_campaign=Adweek_Newsletter_2015151915

TV strategy: The optimal TV ad length

Daren Poole Millward Brown

Short ads are efficient in simple message communication and in stimulating memories, but longer ads engage more and create emotional association with the brand.

TV strategy

This article is part of a collection of pieces on perfecting TV advertising strategy. Read more.

As video explodes across platforms and devices, brands are increasingly exploring the extremes of ad length on TV. Millward Brown is testing significantly fewer 30-second TV ads and many more 15-second TV ads than it was in the 1990s. Thirty-second ads may still make up the bulk of the spots we see, but more clients are now investing in epic 60-second event spots and shorter 15-second messages.

This offers brands new opportunities: longer ads offer a greater creative canvas and the chance to tell more engaging stories, while shorter ads can offer a cost-effective way to reach consumers, albeit at the expense of complex messaging.

But when should each be used and what does each time-length actually deliver? And how do they sit alongside what is still the most popular time-length, the 30-second spot?

Our analysis of more than 132,000 TV copy test results reveals that, in general terms, all ad lengths can be equally efficient at generating brand-linked memorability and delivering primary messages.


Shorter ads may offer some cost efficiencies in terms of persuasion, since the same money will generate more exposures. However, shorter ads are also likely to be less effective against complex advertising objectives.

Ultimately, what works best for your brand depends on what you are trying to achieve. Most of the ad performance measures we gather show little difference across ad lengths. Impact, enjoyment, emotional response and persuasion are accomplished equally well by long and short ads.

Millward Brown measures an ad's impact – also known as branded memorability – using the Awareness Index. We observe a wide range of Awareness Indices for all different ad lengths, so if your key objective is to generate impact, there is no automatic reason to choose a particular ad length.

On average, however, longer ads tend to have greater impact than shorter ads; the downside is that they also cost more to air. Using 30-second equivalent GRPs allows us to factor the spend implications and, once this is done, there is no real difference in the impact of ads across different ad lengths.

When it comes to persuasion, all time lengths are comparable in terms of their persuasive power per exposure. This means that if a 15-second ad is as persuasive as a longer ad, it is likely to be more effective in the market because it will get a higher number of exposures and achieve greater reach in the same amount of airtime.

So, it may be advantageous to use shorter ads if the objective is persuasion and you can condense the creative message into a shorter time length.

Our measures for enjoyment show a wide range of enjoyment scores for all ad lengths. The average is similar across all lengths, except among the very shortest ads, which achieve a slightly lower enjoyment.


Coca-Cola: Analysis of its campaigns found that longer-form messages provide a powerful platform that develop and enhance emotional associations

There is also very little difference in overall positive or negative emotion with regard to ad length, although, as with the other measures, there is a wide range of performance.

Brand objectives

If all that sounds like it doesn't matter what ad length you use – and shorter ads are, of course, cheaper to run – then don't be fooled, because brand objectives give a much clearer idea of what longer lengths bring.

There are two key areas where short ads may be at a disadvantage in relation to long ads, and these are message communication and involvement.

Primary message communication is as strong among short ads as among longer ones. Variation on this measure is due to an ad's creative power, not its length. So, for putting across a single message, a short ad may work well. However, a 15-second ad can't support the same number of additional messages as a 30-second ad and particularly not the number of messages you can include in a 60-second ad.

The bottom line: a short ad is not as well-suited as a longer one when the communication objectives are complex.

The second area where longer ads deliver better is involvement. This is harder to achieve in shorter ads. On average, 15-second ads are slightly less involving than longer ads, reflecting the fact that the ad holds the viewer's attention for less time, and has less time in which to engage the viewer's interest.


Longer ads are more likely to be described as interesting, involving, unique, or distinctive. However, there is a wide range of involvement scores for all ad lengths, so it is possible for a great shorter ad to get a good score.

Bringing cut-downs into the mix

Even where brands decide that it is appropriate to run a longer ad, they won't use the longer length in every slot, so cut-downs are a critical element of every media plan. An analysis of examples where both full-length and cut-down versions of an ad have been aired shows that cut-down ads receive similar endorsements to their full-length versions, despite costing less to air.

Cut-downs can be a highly effective means of improving the efficiency of a campaign. Using the example of a UK food brand, we can demonstrate how cut-downs can help deliver efficiency savings.

The original 30-second ad aired in two bursts, achieving an Awareness Index of 6, slightly above average. The following season, a 10-second cut-down was introduced into the mix, and the Awareness Index rose to 11, almost doubling the efficiency of the campaign, while communication stayed strong.

At their most effective, cut-downs work by stimulating memories of the full-length ad, which, effectively, means the advertiser gets the benefit of the full ad at a fraction of the cost. In one example for a skincare brand, the 30-second ad was replaced by a 15-second cut-down, and the Awareness Index doubled.

Very significantly, when respondents were asked to describe the 15-second ad, many described elements from the 30-second ad that were not included in the cut-down. Clearly, the cut-down was triggering memories of the full ad.

In this scenario, it's essential that the most effective cut-downs use the most memorable scenes of the original ad. For example, a 90-second TV ad made up of a series of vignettes was used to launch a broadband service in the UK. The ad was one of the most involving ads we have tested. After an initial burst of the 90-second ad, two cut-downs were used to continue the campaign. These performed less well because they didn't feature the most memorable parts of the original ad – and, as a result, both enjoyment and cut-through were weaker.

Similarly, in the US, a deodorant ad achieved an Awareness Index of 5; however, the cut-down, which did not use the most involving scenes, scored an AI of only 1. But creating a strong cut-down isn't that simple. An ad for a cleaning product in the same market was researched as a 30-second ad, and performed well. The Awareness Index was around average, communication was strong, and persuasion was high. But when the brand considered running a 15-second cut-down, research showed that enjoyment and persuasion were both considerably lower.

So what went wrong? In the original, the most involving and memorable scene showed someone knocking over a glass of wine on a tablecloth. This scene was also present in the cut-down. But in the original there was a twist: the first half of the ad featured a wildly gesticulating man almost knocking over the wine glass, building tension. This was resolved entertainingly, when it turned out to be someone else who actually spilt the wine – and it was this tension that was missing from the cut-down.

You can't create effective cut-downs mechanically by simply using the most memorable elements: you need to give careful consideration to the structure of the full-length ad.


Digital advertising extremes

With the development of digital video advertising, the range of lengths of commercial video messages has expanded even further, from six-second Vines to epic, multi-minute dramas.

Our analysis of campaigns from brands such as Oreo, Dove, Samsung and Coke found that longer-form messages provide a powerful platform that has the potential to build equity and engagement by developing and enhancing emotional associations that can frame future brand experiences and decisions positively.

The most popular ads on YouTube average two minutes and one in eight are more than five minutes long; but clearly their effectiveness depends on the quality of the creative. Freed from TV's cost-per-second, advertisers no longer need to think of time as a ticking taxi meter. The question is no longer 'How much can we afford?' but rather 'How much time do we need?'

But just because you can doesn't mean you necessarily should. It's tough to retain attention for long periods of time. Our analysis suggests that, in general, attention starts to drop off after a minute.

We've also found that many of the successful long-form ads we've tested are quite polarising. For some people they were interesting, but others considered them boring and dull.

As with most advertising, one of the key creative challenges is integrating the brand into the interesting and memorable elements of the ad. It doesn't need to be subtle as long as it's relevant. Of the ads we've tested for Google, which make the YouTube Leaderboard, subjective branding ratings are generally strong.

At the other end of the spectrum, Vines offer a way into a social media landscape but have a limited time-length to engage. To make the most of Vine, you should make the most of what's currently unique about the format: its six-second length; the ability to do stop-motion video; and for the consumer to stop and start the Vine.

However, don't expect too much in terms of engagement: keep the content simple but not simplistic, having enough to engage people but not so much that they can't take it in; also make it look authentic, not polished, as slick video will be seen as 'advertising'.

When it comes to branding, involve the brand throughout the Vine and as part of the video, not just the real estate. You can't guarantee that people will look at who has posted the Vine, the caption or the hashtags.

And stick to one explicit message maximum – although it may be possible to reinforce a number of implicit associations.

The golden rules of ad length

The development of overarching videobased media planning, rather than having separate strategies for TV and digital, has resulted in a new length-landscape, with each time-length having the potential to deliver against different objectives, whatever the platform.

Although the detail will always depend on the brand objectives, most video campaigns will benefit from a mix of ad lengths, each used to achieve a slightly different objective.


Short ads are ideal for communicating basic advertising ideas and for reminding consumers of something they've heard before.

Vines may be suitable for one simple explicit message.

A 15-second ad may be appropriate:

• When a brand needs a continuity advertising plan. The lower cost of 15-second spots may be an efficient way to stretch advertising spend, provided that a short ad can deliver communication and branding elements.

• As a cut-down of a longer ad. A 15-second version can be a good reminder of a longer ad once the longer ad has been fully established.

• When communication needs are simple. A 15-second ad may be able to stand on its own and deliver good payback when the offer being communicated is straightforward and compelling.

Generally, longer ads are better than shorter spots at communicating complex messages. This can be particularly helpful:

• When launching a new product or campaign.

• When introducing a new campaign, or after a long advertising hiatus.

• When a brand has complex or multiple messages.

• When introducing or supporting a line extension. Line extensions need to capitalise on the parent brand equity, while at the same time establishing their own point of difference. In such cases, the greater flexibility of a longer ad will almost certainly be of value.

A 60-second ad can be powerful in key circumstances such as:

• For developing a story.

• When a high level of involvement is desired.

• To generate buzz and word of mouth for a brand. We've seen ads as long as two or three minutes that easily justify their cost by virtue of their status as 'events' but here the creativity needs to be outstanding, and the reach may be limited.

While the very best ads can break all these rules, very few brands can consistently deliver to that level.

4G Development in Latin America Is Slow, Uneven

MAY 14, 2015

Brazil leads with 5.3 million 4G LTE connections; Colombia is second with 1.7 million

Latin America’s mobile market is maturing steadily but slowly. In the process, the configuration of the space appears to be in flux as well. On the one hand, nearly every major market has surpassed 100% mobile connection penetration among the population—Mexico being the notable exception, at only 89.5% in 2015, eMarketer estimates. On the other, adoption of the mobile web and particularly Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

4G LTE connections is still scarce. December 2014 research byMobidia and Ovum found that there were 5.3 million 4G mobile connections in Brazil, making it the leading market in Latin America in absolute terms.

Neither Mexico nor Argentina came second in the region. Surprisingly—to some extent—that spot was occupied by Colombia, with 1.7 million 4G connections. It’s important to remember that Brazil’s population is roughly five times that of Colombia, which resulted in a higher 3.4% penetration in the latter, compared with 1.9% in the former.

eMarketer has previously reported that nearly 70% of mobile connections in Colombia will be linked to a smartphone in 2020, up from 26.9% in Q3 2014, and that the South American nation has joined the top three smartphone markets in the region, edging Argentina in absolute smartphone user terms.

Among the markets measured by Mobidia and Ovum, Mexico came dead last, with just 600,000 4G connections. Moreover, penetration stood at 0.6% of the population. Certainly, advanced mobile broadband connections are a niche market in the country.


http://totalaccess.emarketer.com/Chart.aspx?dsNav=Nr:P_ID:167803

Despite recent reforms aimed at leveling the playing field for both carriers and consumers, Mexico’s mobile broadband market remains concentrated and its mobile infrastructure lagging. While Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones (IFT), Mexico’s telecom regulator, found that América Móvil’s Telcel held a 69.0% share of total mobile connections—including basic and advanced mobile devices—in the country in September 2014, it controlled 85.0% of an estimated 53.1 million mobile broadband subscriptions—including prepaid and postpaid plans linked to mobile phones and modems.

Other sources confirm that top-notch mobile networks in Latin America are slim. According to Cisco Systems, there were only 8.9 million 4G connections in Latin America last year, representing 1.2% of all mobile connections in the region. By comparison, infrastructure deployments and consumer adoption of 4G were well on their way in Asia-Pacific and North America, with connections reaching 203.4 million and 169.1 million, respectively.

Latin America should indeed see a significant improvement in the years to come, hitting 211.9 million 4G connections in 2019. That figure, however, means the region will be the smallest long-term evolution (LTE) continental market in a worldwide market expected to reach almost 3 billion connections that year.




As for web-enabled mobile devices, eMarketer estimates there will be 159.1 million smartphone users and 92.3 million tablet users in Latin America in 2015. By 2019, the last year in our forecast period, those audiences will reach 247.1 million and 144.0 million, respectively.

Wearables: The Next Employee Accessory?

MAY 12, 2015

Enterprises view wearable devices as huge data source

There’s been plenty of chatter about what consumers want from wearables and what they’ll use them for, such as mobile payments and health and fitnesstracking. Based on recent research, wearable devices are also set to change the business world.

In a March 2015 study by Salesforce.com, nearly eight in 10 US enterprise wearable adopters agreed that wearables would reshape their companies’ future success. More than three-quarters of users had already seen improvement in their business performance due to wearables, and 86% of adopters intended to increase spending over the next 12 months.

Enterprises were most interested in using wearables to track workplace productivity, but beyond that, improving the customer experience thanks to real-time access to customer data, business analytics and alerts, and customer instruction and coaching were all top use cases.

Salesforce noted that professionals viewed wearables devices as a huge opportunity for data collection—but they’re a long way off from reaping the benefits. About one-quarter of companies using or intending to use wearables said data collection and aggregation was one of the biggest challenges to deploying wearables in the enterprise. Even more, just 8% of adopters were completely ready to act on data gathered. Promising, though, was the fact that nearly six in 10 were very or moderately ready to take action. Still, that leaves more than a third of respondents with lots of room for growth.



While businesses see wearables as a fountain of data, other research indicates that customers may not be so keen on sharing their information. December 2014 polling by TRUSTe found that 87% of US internet users were worried about smart devices, which include wearables, collecting and using their information in ways they were unaware of. About eight in 10 were concerned simply about personal information collection, and just under seven in 10 believed they should own any personal data collected via smart device.

Chances are that consumers will grow more comfortable with data collection as wearables become the norm. However, businesses may also need to prove to them the perks of sharing data by enhancing the customer experience with information they can collect in these early days.

Brand journalism to go mainstream

14 May 2015

LONDON: The continued rise of content marketing means that brand journalism will be a mainstream career choice within the next five years, with creativity and commercial awareness among the essential attributes required.

In Rise of the UK Brand Journalist, a new report from content marketing platform NewsCred, 50 brand journalists, working both client and agency side, and 50 senior marketers from a cross-section of industries were polled for their views on this fast-growing area.

Perhaps their most surprising finding was that only 12% of both marketers and journalists thought writing ability was the most important skill for a brand journalist.

This may be because there is an assumption those people aspiring to this sort of job already has that particular skill.

"It's more difficult to find someone that can look at the content from the brand's perspective while taking into account the general direction of the business, reporting structures and everything else," Marcus Skoll, NewsCred CEO, told Marketing Week.



Consequently, creativity was seen as by far the most vital requirement, cited by 41% of brand journalists and 32% of marketers.

That was followed by commercial awareness, cited by 18% of journalists and 20% of marketers.

Finding people with the right blend of editorial and commercial skills is the main issue when hiring brand journalists. Almost two thirds (63%) of brand journalists NewsCred surveyed found it difficult to hire content team members, with 33% reporting that finding people with the right marketing and commercial skills is the most difficult part.

For one third (32%) of marketers, however, a key struggle was finding journalists who understood the brand well enough.

Notwithstanding these recruitment problems, 42% of marketers intended to put more into hiring brand journalists in the coming year, while 48% of marketers were planning to invest further overall in content marketing.

And their confidence in this strategy was reinforced by their future outlook. Five years down the line, 66% of marketers believed most brands would have in-house content teams, while 84% of marketers agreed that clear standards of measurement for evaluating the ROI of content marketing would be in place.

Shafqat Islam, NewsCred's CEO and co-founder, expected that the brand journalist would come to play "an integral role not just for the marketing department but for businesses as a whole".

"The challenge now is how brand journalists make their mark with editorialand commercial prowess that will see the bar lifted for both professions of marketing and journalism," he added.

Data sourced from NewsCred, Marketing Week; additional content by Warc staff

The connected car report: Forecasts, competing technologies, and leading manufacturers

JOHN GREENOUGH MAY 13, 2015


The connected car is already on the market and generating significant revenue for car makers and tech companies.

By 2020, BI Intelligence estimates that 75% of cars shipped globally will be built with the necessary hardware to allow people to stream music, look up movie times, be alerted of traffic and weather conditions, and even power driving-assistance services such as self-parking.

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we take a deep dive into the connected-car market. We size the market for connected cars, determine the average selling price and how it will decline over time, and assess different manufacturers' approaches.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• The connected-car market is growing at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 45% — 10 times as fast as the overall car market. We expect that 75% of the estimated 92 million cars shipped globally in 2020 will be built with internet-connection hardware.

• But of the 220 million total connected cars on the road globally in 2020, we estimate consumers will activate connected services in only 88 million of these vehicles.

• Connected-car vehicle prices are out of reach for most car buyers, but they will drop significantly in the next few years. The high average selling price of $55,000 is driven by the fact that connected-car shipments tilt toward the luxury category. Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54dbb6a06bb3f7b62380249d-960/connected%20shipments%20forecast.png

• Connected-car technology is now split between approaches that put the internet connection in the car and those relying on a secondary device. Embedded connections don't require a phone's data plan to operate, and consumers and carmakers gain access to a wider variety of features and data.

• Embedded connections will win, in part because they offer two clear advantages to carmakers. They allow auto companies to collect data on cars' performance and send updates and patches to cars remotely, avoiding recalls related to the car's software.

The report contains charts and data that can be downloaded and put to use.

In full, the report:

• Sizes the connected car market and who will benefit the most from consumer adoption

• Determines total revenue from connected car sales between 2015-2020

• Assesses what percentage of connected cars will actually have services that are used by consumers

• Explains the two key competing connected car technologies and determines which one will win out and why

• Examines how car companies will pair with wireless service providers to bring internet service to cars

• Looks at key examples of sales among select connected car manufacturers

To access the full report from BI Intelligence, sign up for a 14-day trial here. Members also gain access to new in-depth reports, hundreds of charts and datasets, as well as daily newsletters on the digital industry.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/connected-car-forecasts-top-manufacturers-leading-car-makers-2015-3#ixzz3a6zCovYV


It's Not Just Cyclical: Industry Change Is Driving Marketing Giants to Review Media Agencies

Clients and Agencies Face New Challenges From Viewability to Programmatic Trading

By Alexandra Bruell. Published on May 12, 2015.

The cyclical nature of the ad business but also routine cost-cutting agendas and a rapidly changing marketplace have created the perfect storm for adland's media shops.

There is an unprecedented number of top-spending marketers prepping and conducting media reviews, with giants like Coca-Cola, Unilever and L'Oréal all rethinking how, and where, to spend their media dollars.

"As the media marketplace reshapes and reinvents itself, we frequently take the opportunity to formally review our media partners all around the world," a Coca-Cola spokeswoman told Ad Age.

Coke is not alone.

"In my conversations with a few of the clients, it seems that part of the motivation is the dramatic changes that have occurred over the past several years, which are now affecting not only media --agencies and owners -- but importantly their business," Carat Global President Doug Ray said. "Clients and agencies are now facing challenges they have never faced before: viewability, ad fraud, programmatic trading, transparency and social media. An agency now must be expert in technology, data and content planning."


"The influence and impact of e-commerce and m-commerce is driving a reset of marketing and sales priorities," added Havas Media U.S. CEO Lori Hiltz. "The collision of content and distribution is forcing mass advertisers to reconsider their go-to-market model."

Saving money is often the end goal in a number of these reviews, but spending wisely is a top concern, especially in TV, according to Mr. Ray. "The impact on TV viewing cannot be overlooked," he said. "Cable ratings are down materially. People have shifted to alternate screens. Real money is on the line."

As the reviews progress over the next few months, many agencies competing to hold on to their business will also be helping clients figure out what to do with that "real money" in the TV upfronts. That the reviews are taking place during upfront season isn't necessarily an attempt by marketers to get their agencies to work harder to save them money. But that's likely what will happen as agencies fight for gold stars.

For some marketers, industry change is prompting a review of business that hasn't been in play for years.

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"Many brands haven't reviewed their business in three to seven years—some 10-plus—and the marketplace is entirely new now," said MediaCom Chief Operating Officer Toby Jenner, citing programmatic buying and the growing importance of data and analytics.

Now Procter & Gamble is rumored to be planning a review of its U.S. buying for the first time in decades. Visa, meanwhile, hasn't reviewed its media business in seven years. For Citibank, it's been more than a decade.

The client assignments have also changed as different types of agencies clamor to drive business strategy, said Meghan McDonnell, senior VP at search consultancy Pile & Company. "Clients need to make sure they have the right partner that can help them stay up to date on data and analytics," she said. "What's different now than 10 to 15 years ago is there are a lot of different agencies that can play that role. It used to be so easy with the creative agency, media agency and digital agency. Now there are so many different agencies who are really driving strategy. There are way more gray areas."

Still, despite all the change in the industry, a number of agency executives and consultants also associated the activity with the cyclical nature of the business.

Ken Robinson, a partner at search consultancy Ark Advisors, is noticing a "significant number" of regional and multinational media consolidations, which serve as a precursor to global consolidation. But it's nothing new, he explained. "Companies that have experienced a time of global media consolidation are now opting for decentralizing their accounts -- either by geography or by channel -- and those that are decentralized are leaning toward consolidation," he said. "Both have their strengths and weaknesses, but companies seeking media nirvana too often think that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence."


Media environment trumps media quality

8 May 2015

LONDON: Media context has a demonstrable effect on how people react to advertising, but even supposedly "poor" media environments can have a significant influence on message takeout, according to a new study.

Patrick Adams, head of strategy at Manning Gottlieb OMD, discussed the agency's recent research in this area in the current issue of Admap, the focus of which is context in advertising.

To discover more about how media placement contributes to people's subconscious perceptions of brands, two online questionnaires captured the explicit and implicit responses of 900-1,500 respondents to brands themselves and then to an existing campaign and one created for the study; three cohorts were shown the same series of ads, across TV, press, OOH and online but in different media environments and contexts, defined as premium, neutral and poor.

Adams reported that in each of the three scenarios most, if not all, of the explicit measures – brand awareness, consideration, perception and purchase intent – had risen between exposure to the brand and product alone and exposure to the advertising message and the amount of uplift differed according to the media context.

And in many cases this was most pronounced between the supposed 'best quality' campaign and the 'poorest quality' campaign – with likelihood to recommend, for example, almost doubling in one instance.

But in some cases the 'poorest quality' campaign achieved greater uplift than the premium.

The most interesting finding of the research, said Adams, was that "the type of editorial or advertising environment was having more of an influence than subjective notions of good or bad placement".

So a campaign with high-quality placements scored well in implicit testing around measures such as 'dynamic' and 'distinctive; poor-quality placements performed best on 'authenticity' and 'fun'.

Adams was unable to offer any hard-and-fast rules about media placement, but he stressed that media context did have an effect and that it was "a subtler and more nuanced picture than simply good vs. bad".

He advised that careful attention be paid to the implicit signals a brand sends out by its choice of media placement, as well as its broader behaviour through every touchpoint.

10 Steps to Make Each Day Exceptionally Productive

No matter what your job, in one way everyone's day is basically the same: We all have the same amount of time at our disposal.

That's why how you use your time makes all the difference -- whether you're bootstrapping a startup or running a billion-dollar company like Jim Whitehurst, the president and CEO of Red Hat, one of the largest and most successful providers of open-source software.

Here are Jim's tips for maximizing your time and improving your personal productivity:


1. Every Sunday night, map out your week. Sunday evenings, I sit down with my list of important objectives for the year and for each month. Those goals inform every week and help keep me on track. While long-range goals may not be urgent, they are definitely important. If you aren't careful, it's easy for "important" to get pushed aside by "urgent." Then I look at my calendar for the week. I know what times are blocked out by meetings, etc. Then I look at what I want to accomplish and slot those tasks onto my to-do list.

The key is to create structure and discipline for your week--otherwise you'll just let things come to you...and urgent will push aside important.

2. Actively block out task time. Everyone schedules meetings and appointments. Go a step further and block out time to complete specific tasks. Slot periods for "Write new proposal," or "Craft presentation," or "Review and approve marketing materials."

If you don't proactively block out that time, those tasks will slip. Or get interrupted. Or you'll lose focus. And important tasks won't actually get done.

3. Follow a realistic to-do list. I used to create to-do lists, but I didn't assign times to each task. What happened? I always had more items on my to-do list than I could accomplish, and that turned it into a wish list, not a to-do list. If you have six hours of meetings scheduled today and eight hours worth of tasks, then those tasks won't get done.

Assigning realistic times forces you to prioritize. (I like Toodledo, but there are plenty of other tools you can use.) Assigning realistic times also helps you stay focused. When you know a task should only take 30 minutes, you'll be more aggressive in weeding out or ignoring distractions.

4. Default to 30-minute meetings. Whoever invented the one-hour default in calendar software wasted millions of people-hours. Most subjects can be handled in 30 minutes. Many can be handled in 15 minutes--especially if everyone who attends knows the meeting is only going to last 15 minutes.

Don't be a slave to calendar tool defaults. Only schedule an hour if you absolutely know you need it.

5. Stop multitasking. During a meeting--especially an hour-long meeting--it's tempting to take care of a few mindless tasks. (Who hasn't cleaned up their inbox during a meeting?) The problem is that such split focus makes those meetings less productive. Even though you're only doing mindless stuff, still--you're distracted. And that makes you less productive.

Multitasking is a personal-productivity killer. Don't try to do two things partly well. Do one thing really well.

6. Obsess over leveraging edge time. My biggest downtimes during the workday come when I drive to work, when I drive home, and when I'm in airports. So I focus really hard on how to use that time. I almost always schedule calls for my drive to work. It's easy: I take the kids to school and drop them off at a specific time; then I can do an 8:00 to 8:30 call. I typically don't schedule calls for the drive home so I can return calls, especially to people on the West Coast.

At the airport, I use Pocket, a browser plug-in that downloads articles. Loading up 10 articles ahead of time ensures I have plenty to read--plenty I want to read--while I'm waiting in the security line.

Look at your day. Identify the downtimes. Then schedule things you can do during that time. Call it edge time--because it really can build a productive edge.


7. Track your time. Once you start tracking your time (I use Toggl), you'll be amazed by how much time you spend doing stuff that isn't productive. You don't have to get hyper-specific. The info you log can be directional, not precise.

Tracking my time is something I just started to do recently. It's been an eye-opening experience--and one that has really helped me focus.

8. Be thoughtful about lunch. Your lunch can take an hour. Or 30 minutes. Or 10 minutes.

Whatever time it takes, be thoughtful about what you do. If you like to eat at your desk and keep chugging, fine. But if you benefit from using the break to recharge, lunch is one time where multitasking can be great: You can network, socialize, and help build your company's culture--but not if you're going out to lunch with the same people every day.

Pick two days a week to go out with people you don't know well. Or take a walk. Or do something personally productive. Say you take an hour for lunch each day; that's five hours a week. Be thoughtful about how you spend that time. You don't have to work, but you should make it work for you.

9. Protect your family time. Like you, I'm a bit of a workaholic. So I'm very thoughtful about my evenings. When I get home from work, it's family time: We have dinner as a family, we help our kids with their homework. I completely shut down. No phone, no email.

Generally speaking, we have two hours before the kids have to get ready for bed. During that time, I'm there. Then I can switch back on. I'm comfortable leaving work at 5 or 5:30 p.m. because at 8 or 9 o'clock, I know I will be able to re-engage with work.

Every family has peak times when they can best interact. If you don't proactively free up that time, you'll slip back into work stuff. Either be working or be home with your family. That means no phones at the table, no texts. Don't just be there, be with your family.

10. Start every day right. I exercise first thing in the morning because exercise is energizing. (Research also shows that moderate aerobic exercise can improve your mood for up to 12 hours, too.)

I get up early and run. Then I cool off while I read the newspaper and am downstairs before my kids so I can eat breakfast with them. Not only will you get an energy boost, efficiency in the morning sets the stage for the rest of your day. Start your day productively and your entire day will be more productive, too.

The Rise Of The SSP For Programmatic TV

by Tyler Loechner @mp_tyler,

In Monday's RTBlog, I wrote about the expanding programmatic TV marketplace, but perhaps I should have waited until Friday, because the industry went through another growth spurt through the course of the week.

The supply side of the budding programmatic TV ad industry received major reinforcements this week. A new player entered the fray, and two companies saw their pockets get deeper.


Clypd, a leader in the space, announced Thursday that it has closed a $19.4 million Series B round of funding led by German broadcaster RTL Group. Clypd has now raised a total of $30 million.

Clypd also gained new competition this week, as Videa, a Cox-backed SSP for TV, announced its plans to launch at the NAB show in Las Vegas next week. Specific financing terms were not released, but Videa’s President, Shereta Williams, told Adweek in a recent interview that Cox invested “north of $10 million” in Videa.

Videa claims to have an impressive group of partners already in place, including Gannett, Raycom, Media General, Graham Media, and Cox on the supply-side as well as Carat/Amplifi and Starcom on the buy-side.

Videa has also partnered with Mediaocean, an ad management platform. The broadcast inventory from Videa's SSP will be made available through Spectra, Mediaocean’s platform. Videa will focus on selling local broadcast media via programmatic, per a release.

It was a big week for the SSPs -- old and new -- of the television world. Competition is healthy for any market, and it gives both buyers and sellers more options. There’s also a fresh $30 million now in play for hirings, expansion and tech advancements.

Corporate Storytelling: Coming To Your Emotional Rescue

by John Miller, Friday, April 10, 2015

Truth: Logic rarely spurs action.

And yet, more and more, we (marketers) are focused on metrics. We rack our brains trying to figure out how to move prospective customers logically through the sales funnel. We create content based on algorithms and probabilities.

And while doing this, we wish and pray that we can have a monstrous breakthrough success, the kind of overnight sensation that Malcolm Gladwell or Jonah Berger might write about some day.

Well, it ain’t gonna happen if your nose is down in a spreadsheet. Because emotion, not numbers, is the gasoline that fuels marketing awesomeness. Yes, it’s true that you can’t ignore the numbers, but you also can’t be a slave to them. There are a lot of marketers out there who are slaves to the numbers. And I think it’s because they’re afraid to trust their emotions; it’s safer to hide behind the numbers.

When I was a kid, one of my heroes was basketball Hall of Famer Julius “Dr. J” Erving. He was Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan, able to jump from the foul line and dunk. He was cool. He had style. You’d think it was always easy for him because of his awesome athletic talent. But Erving once told an interviewer that the key to his success was that he “dared to be great.” Think about it: How do you know if you can dunk from the foul line if you’re afraid to ever try? How do you become great without the courage to risk failure?

And yet, a lot of corporate content is decidedly not courageous. A courageous content strategy needs to focus on developing emotional stories. Yup, it’s story time.

There’s plenty of evidence that emotion-driven stories work, helping brands connect to customers. Our brains are wired for stories; we’ve been telling them to each other for thousands of years. They spark the brain. Really. Researchers have found that stories have the power to fire neurons, get us


excited, and get us to feel emotion. When our emotions are engaged, we’re far more likely to be spurred into action (like buying), and we’re far more likely to remember the story and to retell it.

Of course, to make that happen, you need to be compelling. This is easy if you’re talking about energy drinks, less so if you’re selling ERP software. But it’s not impossible. The key is to find the emotion.

Hint: It’s not on your spreadsheets, and it’s not on those text-filled, bullet-point-riddled PowerPoints. Even with something as dry as ERP software, there is a human element to be found: Was the warehouse still able to deliver the product because the cloud-based ERP kept business flowing smoothly despite the massive power outage? Did the fact that it was up and running enable heroic action on the part of the warehouse workers? Now you’re telling a story people will remember. Now you’re firing their emotions.

Utilizing a story structure enables you to embed facts within the narrative, which makes those facts much stickier. The story gets the neurons firing, and the facts become memorable because they’re attached to a great story.

Creating a great story isn’t easy. Stories, even corporate stories, require drama. And most executives don’t like drama. They prefer a nice, smooth ride -- a rosy picture that doesn’t provide any ammunition for naysayers and competitors. That makes a certain amount of sense. It’s safe. But it’s boring, and ultimately it limits your success.

To create great content, you need to dare to be great.

That’s how you win.

How People Will Use the Apple Watch

Developers and designers debate whether the Apple Watch will find its purpose.

By John Pavlus on February 17, 2015

WHY IT MATTERS

Wearable technology could make information more accessible and communication easier.


When Apple unveiled the first iPad in 2010, many pundits scoffed. Among the gripes: tablet computers had been tried before without success; most people already had laptops; and wasn’t it just a giant iPod Touch?+

The market, as we know, reacted differently. Tablet computers are now a hit—thanks in no small part to Apple’s savvy design, which offered people something that was instantly comprehensible and easy to use, but also flexible enough to suggest thousands of new applications.+

With the upcoming release of the Apple Watch, the company seems poised to repeat the trick. Despite a raft of existing smart watches from companies including Samsung, Motorola, and Pebble, wearable technology has resisted mainstream appeal, partly because the devices don’t feel particularly useful (see “So Far, Smart Watches Are Pretty Dumb”).+

The advance marketing for the Apple Watch has done little to explain why this product will fare better, but the tools (WatchKit) and documentation (Human Interface Guidelines) released for app developers provides some clues. They suggest a simple, intuitive mode of interaction centered on streamlined alerts. If the market influence of the iPhone and iPad are any indication, the user experience patterns that Apple establishes may come to define what all smart watches are “for” in eyes of their users.1

The Apple Watch might seem like a computer that resides on your wrist, but technically that isn’t the case. Apps that run on it are actually just extensions of iOS apps that run on an iPhone; they use the watch as an auxiliary display. This encourages developers to exploit the device as a kind of remote control for their existing iOS apps, and imagine the UX accordingly.2

“You’re not allowed to run code on the watch at all,” says William Van Hecke, user experience lead at the Omni Group, a productivity software vendor that’s developing apps for the Apple Watch.+

Nik Fletcher, product manager at Realmac Software, says his team “carefully reduced the core essence” of the company’s to-do list app, called Clear, in order to adapt it for the Apple Watch. Whereas the full iOS app lets users reorder tasks or mark off entire lists in one stroke, and includes animations and sound effects, the new version focuses on what Fletcher terms “recall and completion.” Upcoming reminders can be viewed using the watch’s (noninteractive) Glance view, and


individual items can be crossed off. New entries must be input via the iPhone or Mac version of the software.+

According to Van Hecke, any app that already emphasizes this kind of “one-bit interaction”—that is, a simple choice to confirm or dismiss information—will translate easily to the Apple Watch. “Nobody will ever expect the [watch] app to reproduce the [iPhone app’s] whole functionality, which is liberating,” he says. Many of the new device’s first-wave apps will most likely exploit what Van Hecke calls the “window on your wrist” by delivering notifications and offering simple interactions.1

This, of course, raises the specter of a glut of competing interruptions. The need to sort out which notifications and functions are “allowed to tap you on the wrist” could even stimulate a new breed of meta-apps, says Laura Seargeant Richardson, a user experience expert atArgodesign, a consultancy based in Austin, Texas. “I could see an entire app dedicated to helping people think through those questions,” she says. The Apple Watch’s built-in heartbeat sensor could conceivably be used to prioritize potential interactions based on users’ stress levels.1

Like existing smart watches, the Apple Watch assumes that the primary surface for interacting with apps will be an outward-facing touch screen. But the dial-like “digital crown” on the side of the device will make it easier to navigate content on a tiny display. Twisting the dial lets the user zoom in to images or scroll through lists, while clicking it brings up the home screen.+

The unique promise of wearable technology lies in its intimate proximity to our bodies, which makes Apple’s inward-facing “taptic engine” particularly interesting. This lets the device deliver pulses of vibration, or haptic feedback, to the wearer’s wrist, and it is unavailable to third-party developers for now. If Apple removes that barrier, the watch’s true power as a new kind of personal communicator will be unleashed, says Richardson. “A watch is a very covert object,” she says. “I could see a new kind of private language or low-level communication emerging from this kind of wearable, using pulses or squeezes.”

From F8: What’s New with Facebook Video


Stephanie Nordstrom, Social Manager, BBDO New York

If you are finding it difficult to keep track of all things social media video lately, you are likely not alone. A lot has happened in recent weeks: the launch of two Twitter livestream services, Meerkat and the platform’s proprietary offering Periscope, and YouTube’s new 360-degree video support, which make clips more viewing-friendly for virtual reality headsets. Add into the mix updates from Facebook on its video offering, announced last week at its F8 Developer conference.

The good news is the changes the Facebook shared are straightforward. The platform added the following capabilities to make the video API more full-featured:

1.) Increased Length. The file size allowed for video is now 1.5GB, or about a 45 minute video.

2.) Control as to where, and by whom, video is seen. Pages will now be able to select audience preferences by geographical location, age and gender without paid support. Proxy to this is the ability to upload subtitles for multiple locales.

3.) Introducing Video Library. Pages can publish directly to Video tab, giving the ability to upload one or many videos at the same time. This makes it possible to build a library and subsequently make posts about individual videos. Think YouTube channel.

4.) Analyze the performance. Track engagement metrics like average time watched and audience retention with more robust data output.

5.) Embedded video player. Facebook Video can now host videos to be distributed throughout the rest of the internet with embeddable code. The benefit; external views are added to the visible view counter.

The nature of these updates also points to a straightforward vision from the platform: challenging YouTube’s stake as the definitive video sharing platform. Facebook has been continuously investing in the way they serve up video, natively. Autoplay, public view counters, specific calls to action, are just a few of the optimizations. And this latest batch of updates continues to go straight for what draws people, specifically brands, to YouTube.

This evolution has its benefits for brands. Being able to target branded videos to the channel’s vast user base is appealing. Plus, keeping the content within the channel instead of linking out to YouTube offers a more seamless user integration, presumably maximizing the opportunity for engagement.

Social video is moving fast and is showing no signs of slowing down. This talk culminated with the Facebook video team admitting they have their minds on livestreaming, while other sessions demonstrated the platform’s interest in virtual reality. For brands, this means evolving the content they are sharing to keep up with the way users will be experiencing it today, tomorrow and a year from now. Hint: repurposing your broadcast ads isn’t the answer.

Facebook video challenges YouTube

9 April 2015

SEATTLE: Facebook could overtake YouTube as a channel for brands to run video advertising and promotional content in 2015, according to a new study.


Mixpo, the video-advertising company, polled approximately 125 executives from digital, media and creative agencies, as well as from the client-side.

It reported that 77.8% of participants ran video advertising or promotional content on YouTube last year, a figure standing at 63% for Facebook.

When discussing current plans, however, fully 87% of interviewees statedthey would use Facebook for such purposes this year, versus the total of 81.5% registered by YouTube on the same metric.

"Facebook taking over as the top property on which advertisers are intending to run video ads is a significant development," Mixpo's report asserted.

Looking at the broader online ecosystem, its analysis revealed that a majority of respondents would leverage Twitter for video ads or promotional material in 2015.

Instagram posted a reading of just under 40% here, while LinkedIn, Tumblr and Vine all came in at over the 20% mark.

Roughly one-in-ten featured organisations made no use of online video as a marketing medium in 2014, but this number has now dwindled to the low single digits.

"The advertisers we talk to are all generally interested in running video ads in social," Justin Kistner, Mixpo's vp/marketing, said in a statement. "What we see holding them back is a lack of experience."

When running video ads on social sites, the most important metric was "engagement with interactive elements" on 47%.

Next in the rankings came shares (43%), narrowly ahead of conversions (40%), total viewing time (38%), views (34%) and the click-through rate (30%).

Data sourced from Mixpo; additional content by Warc staff

Copy for faster ad strategy

7 April 2015

LONDON: There are few if any unique brand challenges and marketers would do better to spend their time learning from others who have faced similar challenges rather than behave as though they are the first to encounter such problems.

Writing in the current issue of Admap, former planner Mark Earls argues that "strategists' singularity default setting, all the digging deeper and searching for the hidden truth or insight in the consumer or the product, isn't actually that helpful".

Indeed, such activity can even result in a surfeit of 'the planning of planning' rather than the 'doing of planning'.

Or, in a version of Parkinson's Law, "strategy work expands to fill the space allocated for it".

A genuinely new idea is a rare event, argues Earls, the truth being that most innovation involves borrowing and repurposing ideas and strategies from elsewhere.


Thus, James Watt did not invent the steam engine, as so many people learn at school, but he fixed a weakness in a 50-year-old design and markedly improved its efficiency.

While he advocates copying as a strategy, Earls is at pains to point out that there are limits to this approach. Copying too closely, for instance, is unlikely to create value for anyone, while copying from within one's category should, in general, be avoided. Copy loosely and copy from afar, he advises.

And rather than going back to tried and tested strategies or studying the brand leader, "ask yourself a different kind of question about the problem you're wrestling with" – the 'what kind of' question.

"Start thinking of individual problems as instances of 'kinds of' problems, rather than novel and never-seen-before singular phenomena." What kind of behaviour or choice are you seeking to influence? What are your default assumptions about that behaviour? How are things really chosen by consumers?

A striking example of how this approach can work comes from an unrelated field: a team of cardiac surgeons reached out to the world of Formula One racing, on the basis that it faced the same kind of problem – handing over control from one set of experts to another and in which the slightest human error in the team (misconnected tube or mistimed signals) could result in fatalities.

This way of operating, Earls suggests, can quickly surface hidden assumptions and force them to be tested against reality.

Data sourced from Admap


Você quer mesmo deixar o Brasil? Tem certeza?

Tania Menai - 6 de abril de 2015

Tania Menai, jornalista brasileira, vivendo há 20 anos em Nova York, fala sobre as alegrias e os desafios da expatriação. (Spoiler: morar em outro país não é para todo mundo.)

Por Tania Menai

Ontem recebi um email dando boas-vindas a um novo estudante na turma de pré-jardim de infância da minha filha, de quatro anos. Muitos pais responderam o email com mensagens acolhedoras e animadas – então o pai do novo menino escreveu de volta, agradecendo o carinho e enviando uma foto da família. Mas avisou: “sou o mais alto.” Ali estava uma família de dois homens negros e um lindo menino. Mostrei a foto para minha filha e disse: “este é o seu novo amiguinho da escola!” Ela sorriu, disse que ele parecia com um outro coleguinha, e voltou a brincar. Nós somos brancas – e judias. Nossa escola é pública.

A combinação de três aspectos desse episódio provavelmente, e infelizmente, seria improvável no Brasil, ou pelo menos na Zona Sul carioca, onde fui criada: (1) escola pública, (2) um casal de dois homens negros, pais de um menino e (3) minha filha na mesma turma que ele. No entanto, moramos no Brooklyn, em Nova York. E a vida aqui é assim. Bem-vindo ao avesso do que você conhece.

Há quase 20 anos cheguei em Manhattan para ficar três meses. Desde então, nunca fui abordada por tantos brasileiros de classe média (e de classe média alta) querendo deixar o Brasil, como nos últimos cinco meses. O que mais me choca? Não são os cidadãos mais humildes, aqueles dos quais já esperamos uma insatisfação concreta e uma busca por uma vida melhor, a qualquer preço. Tenho falado com pessoas na faixa dos 40 anos, com apartamentos (e que apartamentos!) próprios, carreira sólida, filhos na escola, carros na garagem. Pensam em largar tudo e trocar de país, para dar um futuro melhor para os filhos.

A jornada de expatriação deles seria diferente da minha: cheguei com uma mala pequena, fiz um curso, que acabou em estágio, seguido de emprego, uma carreira como correspondente para a mídia brasileira, alguns livros, um Green Card, um casamento, uma filha. Nada foi planejado: vim jovem, sem nada a perder, tendo uma família sólida no Brasil, para onde sempre poderia voltar. Então decidi por essa cidade fértil, ao mesmo tempo difícil, onde todo dia você começa o dia comendo desafios no café da manhã.

Nova York é tão internacional que só me senti mergulhando na cultura americana quando minha filha entrou para a escola e passei a conviver com outras mães: é tudo do avesso e de cabeça para baixo. Se por um lado amo não ter babá, por outro me arrepio com o mundo da pizza de um dólar no almoço, e entro em parafuso quando escuto que “beijos espalham germes”.

Se você tem porteiro, empregada, motorista, babá , folguista e despachante, pense antes de fazer as malas e tirar os filhos da escola, rumo ao exterior. Para sair o Brasil, você precisará rever alguns valores.

Sair da zona de conforto é sempre bom. Viver no país da meritocracia é uma delícia. E mostrar um outro lado da vida para os filhos (e eu não estou falando da Disney, senhoras e senhores) é um privilégio. Um dos grandes aprendizados que meus pais me proporcionaram foi viver (sem eles) por dois meses em um kibutz em Israel, aos 17 anos. Eu trabalhava em uma fábrica de alimentos de soja (na época, o mundo desconhecia a soja; hoje, esse grão vale milhões): levantava às quatro da Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

manhã, no inverno, e fazia de tudo. Um dia, um gerente me deu um balde e disse para eu tirar os resíduos de soja dos ralos. Perguntei a ele: “por que eu?”. Ele respondeu: “por que não você?”

Esse foi um enorme aprendizado para alguém que nasceu num sistema Casa Grande/Senzala, que o Brasil cultiva até hoje, a ponto de ter se tornado invisível para a maior parte dos brasileiros. Se você tem porteiro, empregada, motorista, babá , folguista e despachante, pense antes de fazer as malas e tirar os filhos da escola, rumo ao exterior. Para sair o Brasil, você precisará rever alguns valores. Talvez seja bacana fazer estas perguntas para si, e para quem você estiver pensando em trazer consigo, antes de tomar a decisão de colocar sua mudança num container:

1. Qual cidade a que você se adaptaria melhor? Você encara neve e inverno de bom-humor? Gosta de competitividade? Prefere uma cidade tranqüila?

2. Qual a sua definição de sucesso? Ser o presidente de uma empresa ou poder chegar cedo em casa e jantar com os filhos? Fazer o que você ama sem ganhar muito ou se sujeitar a um trabalho desinteressante ou estressante para garantir um bom salário? Se você já tem uma carreira estabelecida no Brasil, é muito provável que tenha de dar um ou dois ou três passos atrás em um novo país. Você está disposto a isso?

3. Caso você emigre para um país de língua estrangeira: você fala e escreve inglês? Você fala e escreve espanhol? Português é lindo, o Tom Jobim é famoso e as Havaianas já conquistaram o mundo. Mas a nossa língua, infelizmente, não nos leva muito longe. Sim, há exceções. Você pode trabalhar em empresas brasileiras. Ainda assim, o mundo em volta não fala português.

4. Você tem família no Brasil? Pais vivos? Eles precisam de você? Uma das tristezas de morar fora é ver nossos pais envelhecendo sem a nossa presença. Pense bem nisso.

5. Adaptabilidade é uma das maiores virtudes das “pessoas do mundo”. Qual a sua capacidade de se adaptar a novas rotinas e culturas?

6. Você é casado? Seu marido ou mulher são abertos a mudanças? Estão com a mesma vontade de emigrar? Vivem sem feijoada, futebol e churrasco? Há pessoas que não conseguem abrir mão de alguns hábitos, e têm dificuldade de enxergar as coisas boas do novo país. São os chamados “impermeáveis”: a cultura nova não entra de jeito nenhum. E isso é um problema gravíssimo, que pode acabar em depressão e isolamento.

O Brasil, não posso esquecer, recebeu meus quatro avós, vindos da Alemanha, do Líbano e da Síria. Nessas duas gerações, nosso país deixou de abraçar levas de imigrantes para exportar gente mundo afora. Não se engane: todo mundo sente falta do pão de queijo, da afetividade, da música brasileira. A saudade, no entanto, termina, muitas vezes, na boca do guichê do consulado brasileiro, onde sempre falta uma cópia autenticada de um documento que não serve para nada. Escrevi um livro que reúne depoimentos em primeira pessoa de 23 brasileiros que se mudaram para Nova York. Eles vieram de todos os cantos e origens sociais, mas têm uma característica em comum: a persistência.

Um deles, o fotógrafo Vik Muniz, ressalta que “não existe Shangrilá”. Mesmo emigrando, você vai reclamar de algum aspecto na nova morada. E, depois ou durante uma experiência no exterior, é importante devolver algo ao Brasil. Seja em forma de filantropia, de investimento que gere empregos, ou voltando para melhorar algo que pode ser melhorado. Por fim: nunca espere que o governo (seja esta lástima atual ou qualquer outro) faça algo por nós ou em nosso lugar. Regra que vale para qualquer lugar do mundo. Mas, especialmente no Brasil, já aprendemos que isso é esperar demais.


Tania Menai é jornalista, escreve para diversas publicações brasileiras e acaba de lançar a Anáma Films, para contar histórias de famílias. Autora do blog “Só em Nova York”, na Revista TPM, ela também colabora para o blog “Tudo sobre Minha Mãe”. Seu livro “Nova York do Oiapoque ao Chuí – relatos de brasileiros na cidade que nunca dorme” está esgotado, mas é vendido no exterior via o site do livro, no Brasil via editora (telefone!), ou pessoalmente no Le P´tit Café, no Rio de Janeiro.

Havas Worldwide CEO Andrew Benett on the Reality of Digital TV

Can't Invest in Content Fast Enough

By Alexandra Bruell. Published on March 09, 2015. 0

Andrew Benett, global CEO atHavas Worldwideand Havas Creative Group, came up on the creative side of the ad business. But he forsees a future of hyper-targeting, in which creative depends on media, and media relies on creative.

He talked to Ad Age about what exactly that means and how agencies are coping with having to produce versions of their work for diversifying formats and splintering audience targets.

Ad Age: Is TV really going digital? What does that mean for advertising?

Mr. Benett: Media budgets are finally catching up with consumer viewing. As brands shift 20% and even 30% of "television" budgets from the legacy broadcast format to digital TV, which can be mobile, for example, we need to challenge the nature of the classic TV commercial.

We need more marketers to experiment in that second-screen space.

Where it's more complicated is on the first screen. I don't think there have been any breakthroughs, and no one has cracked the code yet because there hasn't been the ask. You're seeing different messages targeting different groups in any one campaign, but it's not bought at the household level. It hasn't happened in the first-screen market because it's not in best interest of any of the cable operators or even the networks.

Ad Age: How are you responding as an agency group to the shift to all of the digital creative formats?

What's Wrong With Storytelling? Get the Answers the Ad Age Digital Conference

Mr. Benett: At its current trajectory, digital advertising spend should surpass TV around 2017 or 2018. While buttons and banners have their place, marketers are going to need more potent forms of digital communications to justify that level of media investment. I'm excited about the possibilities that increased investment in branded content, native ads and mobile offer. We're going to see the inclusion of episodic content, real-time video and smarter, data-enabled communications.

Over the years we've always been consistent in our decision not to buy a large-scale digital pure-play agency. Every one of our creative agency groups has digital fully baked in as part of the model. We believe in the integration and power of relevant disciplines into a true single agency P&L.


Ad Age: How does all this that affect your production approach?


Mr. Benett: Historically agency producers would manage outside production companies. Now we're insourcing more and more of that. We're even doing a front-end production where you'd traditionally hire a production company, and it's the same level of quality.

If we're doing production and shooting for any communications needs, it doesn't mean it has to be a multimillion dollar shoot. People are getting more efficient. Why wouldn't you create an asset library that can get used across channels? It makes versioning and targeting easier from a production standpoint. I think you'll start to see more and more of that as the world becomes more hyper-targeted.

Ad Age: Is there a change in the balance of power between media and creative agencies with new digital buying opportunities?

Mr. Benett: It's not a change in the balance of power. One of my favorite global creative directors said the other day there's no original idea. It's almost true. We're going back to where we were 20 years ago. Branded content is not a new idea.

What we're trying to do in bringing comms planning into agencies, or integrating media and creative, is recognize that the two go hand in hand. Video content needs to be concepted; we need to think about data optimization, production and distribution; then refine content after we learned something from the data and redistribute it.

Ad Age: What investments do you still want to make on the digital front?

Mr. Benett: We'll continue to invest in all aspects of content and production. We can't invest enough in content. I define content from upstream -- the best traditional TV spots -- to global versioning for digital video.

On the creative business, we'll continue to invest in not just people designing digital wire frames for e-commerce platforms but people who really get e-commerce. We announced the acquisition of Plastic Mobile in Canada. We'll do more like that. We're not going to invest in deep back-end technology. There are very few agency groups that own a back-end partner who will do a final build. We've built several e-commerce sites, but then we do hand it off, whether it's to an Accenture or pure-play build company.

This conversation has been lightly edited.

To hear more from Andrew Bennett on agencies' transformation in a post-digital environment, come to the Ad Age Digital Conference on April 14 and 15 in New York.

The problem with media agencies...

Magnus Djaba

26 February 2015 ,

By putting the channel before the idea, media planners are not helping creative work reach the height of its potential, according to Magnus Djaba.

First off, this is not a rant against media agencies or against communications planners. I think the standard in comms planning has gone up in the years I have been in the business – there are some brilliant young media planners around today.


But what is weird is that all this talent is not leading us to great, or even better, work. In fact, the opposite seems true: something is broken in our business and media planning is no longer helping the creative work reach its potential.

One of the main issues is that, since media agencies went it alone, they have had little direct exposure to the creative product or, more importantly, the people who deliver the ideas. There are some intuitive and experienced creative media planners at the top of many media agencies. But none of today’s young media planners have ever been close enough to the creative work in a creative agency to know how to make the creative work for them.

What you want from any planner is for them to be the chief executive of the task, helping a group of people find out how good they can be, helping client and creative get to the best work, across the best channels. But to get to the best work, you need to know your creative partner as well as you know your consumer. If you don’t work with creative people, you can’t understand them and get the best out of them – and, yes, I know there are creative people in media agencies, but there aren’t enough to make a real impact.

The problem, in my view, is that today’s young planners have a tendency to put the channel ahead of the idea. No great surprise, of course. But it’s the wrong way round. The first rule of great work is that the end is the point, not the means. The end is a brilliant, potent creative idea. The means is the channel.

When media channels become the end as well as the means, that’s a problem. The structure of media agencies means they will always be incentivised to create things to fill the available space. They don’t necessarily want big ideas, but they do often want elastic ones.

Who wants a 'flat' idea? Aren't we always aiming for outstanding work in whatever channel that has an impact?

And it’s not just media agencies that are too focused on the elastic. Last week, I met a good friend of mine, very senior and well-respected in our business. He talked about how his clients are increasingly asking for "flat" ideas that work seamlessly across multiple channels – and that this is where he is focusing his agency’s attention going forward.

I find the concept of a "flat" idea wholly depressing. Who, in a creative industry, wants a "flat" idea? Aren’t we always aiming for cut-through, for sticky, outstanding creative work in whatever channel that has an impact on brands? What’s flat about that?

But we have to face the facts. We’re in a world where clients want more bang for their buck. And in a world of ever-increasing consumer touchpoints, cheap, tailored content at different points on a customer journey can look like a compelling aim in itself.

Creating different types of content is an excellent plan. All good creative agencies are now thinking about how their content can stretch and adapt. The best ones can create and produce their own work across those channels quickly, flexibly and cost-effectively.

And there are media agencies, too, that think they can play in this space. From what people tell me, media agencies that say they can make the creative work are the new spectre at the feast, and hairs are being raised on the necks of many of my industry peers. Not on mine, though. If you, as media agencies do, put channel neutrality ahead of ideas, you end up with content a bit like Roy Castle. Content that (figuratively speaking) might tap-dance, sing, present and tell jokes – but does none of these things very well. Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

Yes, media agencies can have the occasional good – sometimes great – idea. They have the ability to produce content. But they tend to make the means the end. And that’s why they don’t tend to create, produce and own the really transformational work.

I love what communications planning, at its best, brings to the mix. The best comms planners are a bit like Sir Simon Rattle – the conductor of the orchestra, able to bring out the best in every player at exactly the right point, and at the most potent volume.

But what would happen to the music if the conductor decided to make everyone play at the same time, at the same volume? Or even if he tried to snatch the violin and play the solo himself? It wouldn’t be music you wanted to listen to.

I’d love to see media agencies refocusing on what they’re brilliant at, which is conducting the orchestra, making sure they’re getting the most out of every musician – and not trying to play the instruments themselves.

Magnus Djaba is the chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi Fallon UK Group

Young people see more than 20 hours of online video versus only 8 TV

Posted by Editorial 5 days ago in Media

New generations have renounced consume content on TV, or at least in the traditional television. The younger demographic groups have not really given to this content and still appreciate audiovisual content, albeit in a different than they did other age groups form. For them, consume content is something that is done on demand and on their own terms.

This situation is having two immediate effects. On the one hand, traditional television is losing viewers of one of the age groups that brands want more interest and they want to devote more attention (since they are the consumers of tomorrow). And if the televisions lose that audience face a serious problem: how can please the advertisers if they have lost to consumers who want to seduce?

Moreover, internet is experiencing a boom in some of its content, online video, which is getting entice advertisers. The advertising budgets to online video has grown steadily in recent months and hours of consumption of these contents among this population has gone in parallel.

A recent study has figures at that hour of consumption and has shown that young people are increasingly looking online content and consuming less television. For them, it is normal and view content directly on the web: Generation Z and millennials no longer watch television. The look on the internet.

According to the study Acumen Report, young people see a mean of 11.3 hours of videos on sites like YouTube and spaces (which see videos free of charge and open) and see about 10.8 hours on average in services Video-on subscription, as can be Netflix. Faced with these figures (they put in just over 20 hours weekly time devoted to online video), television only gets an average of 8.3 hours weekly consumption. And a particularly notable finding, those 8 hours of television consumption, 6.4 are made from the network.

Why this change

The explanations on why Millennials and Generation Z members have migrated from television to internet have occurred at the same rate that studies on the hours they now spend on either bracket.


Experts have concluded on different occasions that young people prefer the freedom to choose what they want to see and when and value network extras added to the consumption experience.

The study also asked, in this case, how these consumers feel in relation to such content and their different media. 62% say they prefer to consume content directly in digital format. In fact, 70% of young relaxing ensures viewing online content. In front of them only 47% achieved the same using television for it.

But it has not only changed how we consume content but also who are the stars that work for them and they have become their influencers. 32% of teens aged 13 to 17 years online admire more stars than traditional television and 69% of them believe that they could move quickly online world to more traditional.

Video viewers demand choice

2 April 2015

NEW YORK/GLOBAL: A rapidly developing digital video landscape and the growth of social media has encouraged consumers to take more control over their choice of programming, a new survey of global viewing habits has revealed.

More than three-quarters (76%) of global consumers say they "enjoy the freedom of being connected anywhere, anytime" and, while TV remains their screen of choice for viewing most forms of video content, correlating social media interaction is important for at least half of them.

Coupled with the proliferation of new devices around the world, this trend is tipping the scales from video providers to viewers and represents "a huge challenge" for brands and content providers vying for consumers' attention.

These are among the key findings in the Nielsen Global Digital Landscape Survey, a poll of 30,000 online consumers that the US research firm conducted in 60 countries.

"The media industry must embrace the changing landscape and adapt strategies to fit with a new reality, offering engaging and relevant content that is easily accessible across devices and channels," observed Megan Clarken, evp of Nielsen Global Watch Product Leadership.

Social media usage is a key part of this changing landscape with the survey discovering that more than half (53%) of global respondents like to keep up with shows so they can join in online conversations.

Meanwhile, 49% say they watch live video programming more if it has a social media tie-in and 47% use social media while watching videos.

And this second-screening activity is particularly pronounced in Asia-Pacific, Africa and the Middle East, the report found.

For example, nearly two-thirds (65%) of Asia-Pacific respondents and 57% of their African/Middle Eastern counterparts watch live programming if it has social media content.

In addition, approaching two-thirds of respondents in Asia-Pacific (64%) and Africa/Middle East (62%) say they like to keep up with shows so they can join conversations on social media.


"The second, third and sometimes fourth screen is becoming a fundamental extension of the viewing experience," Clarken said.

"While multiple screens give viewers more options, they also give content providers and advertisers more opportunities and ways to reach and engage with viewers," she added.

Also of note for advertisers, the report found that 65% of global viewersprefer to watch video programming live, 63% prefer to watch on a bigger screen than a mobile device, while 67% switch to another channel when an advertisement is shown.

Data sourced from Nielsen; additional content by Warc staff

Google vai vender propagandas de TV. E isso é uma péssima notícia para as emissoras

Bruno Garattoni 23 de março de 2015

Talvez você não saiba, mas o Google também é provedor de internet e TV. Ele criou o serviçoGoogle Fiber, que oferece internet ultrarrápida (1.000 Mbps) e 150 canais de TV por uma mensalidade de US$ 130. É um bom negócio: mesmo preço das demais operadoras, por uma conexão muito mais rápida. O Fiber é um serviço experimental, que por enquanto só está disponível em sete cidades dos EUA. Mas agora, sem alarde, o Google ensaia uma manobra que pode transformar completamente o mercado de TV: ele pretende vender anúncios. Quando o usuário do Google Fiber ligar a TV e sintonizar um canal qualquer, verá propagandas nos intervalos dos programas. Normal. Mas serão anúncios comercializados, e monitorados, pelo próprio Google.

O Google será capaz de dizer a cada anunciante, com 100% de exatidão (não por amostragem, como o Ibope), quantas pessoas realmente viram a propaganda dele. Poderá exibir anúncios personalizados, escolhidos de acordo com o seu bairro, a sua idade, os programas que você assiste, quais propagandas você já viu. E controlar tudo isso em tempo real. Ou seja: o Google vai fazer com os anúncios de TV o que fez com os banners de internet – negócio no qual ele já fatura US$ 13 bilhões anuais. Para as emissoras de TV, isso muda tudo. Porque elas perdem o controle sobre os anúncios, e o dinheiro que trazem.


Claro, nada será imposto – até porque as emissoras produzem e controlam a programação. Só vão aderir ao sistema do Google se quiserem. Mas haverá forte pressão do mercado publicitário para que isso aconteça, por um motivo simples. É muito mais fácil, e geralmente bem mais barato, publicar um banner usando a plataforma do Google, o AdSense, do que procurar o site no qual você deseja anunciar e tratar diretamente com ele. É por isso que os anúncios na internet custam muito menos do que na “velha mídia”, jornais e revistas. Porque na internet, a propaganda não costuma ser comercializada pelo dono do conteúdo, mas por alguns poucos intermediários - dos quais o maior é o Google.

Se ele tiver sucesso em seu novo projeto, vai acontecer a mesma coisa com a televisão. O preço dos anúncios vai despencar, e os canais de TV terão de se virar com muito menos dinheiro – como já acontece, hoje, com a mídia escrita (os sites quase sempre têm orçamentos muito menores que as publicações impressas). Isso é muito bom para os anunciantes, que passarão a gastar menos. É muito bom para o Google, que vai ganhar bilhões em comissões. Só não é bom para as emissoras – e, consequentemente, para seu público. A programação dos canais abertos tende a ficar pior. A dos canais fechados também (a não ser que os assinantes aceitem pagar mensalidades mais altas, o que é pouco provável). Produzir conteúdo custa dinheiro. Com menos dinheiro, ele fica pior.

Esse cenário pode parecer exagerado ou distante. Não é. Foi exatamente o que aconteceu, num espaço de poucos anos, com a imprensa escrita e sua transição (financeiramente mal-sucedida) para a internet. Tudo mudou, e quando as empresas se deram conta, não tinha mais volta. As emissoras de TV provavelmente sabem disso, e tentarão resistir. A dúvida é se o poder delas, por maior que seja, será suficiente.

Google Fiber May Have Created a Game-Changer: Real Measurement of TV Ad Views

Kansas City test hints at advertising's Holy Grail

By Sam Thielman • March 20, 2015, 3:49 PM EDT

Google is testing the ability to measure how many TVs actually showed an ad. Photo: Google Fiber

Want to know exactly how many people saw your ad on TV? Want dynamic insertion? The answer has long been "tough luck." But now it's possible ... in Kansas City.

Adweek has learned that Google will be rolling out a TV ad-tracking system similar to the technology used to measure ad views online, giving the company a more accurate idea of how many people are watching the ad inventory it sells in Kansas City than traditional panel measurement ever could.

This is a big deal: TV measurement has been changing rapidly in the past few years, but the traditional gross ratings point, which relies on a panel of Nielsen viewers small enough to create problems for networks without multimillion-viewer bases, is still the industry standard. Relatively few households have Nielsen boxes; every household with Google Fiber, obviously, has a Google Fiber box. And that box can put the ad in whenever it's timely, and tell the client about it.

"Fiber TV ads will be digitally delivered in real time and can be matched based on geography, the type of program being shown (sports, news, etc.), or viewing history," the company explains in a blog post set to go live this afternoon.


"Like digital ads, advertisers will only pay for ads that have been shown, and can limit the number of times an ad is shown to a given TV. We're excited to see how this test progresses, and we're looking forward to hearing from local businesses and viewers along the way."

Viewers can opt out of being shown ads based on their viewing history, the company says.

The ads will show during existing ad breaks in much the same way that local buyers like car dealerships or restaurants can buy airtime from a national cable provider in a specific market (Time Warner Cable has specific advertising time reserved in Cincinnati for people who just want to advertise there, for example). But these ads will show on both live TV and DVRed programs—in other words, if you save Sunday's Walking Dead until Wednesday, you might get ads for a sale at the Oak Park Mall that starts on Thursday.

"The tracking at this point is pretty unsophisticated," says a source familiar with the deal, explaining that Google is trying to be extra cautious with user privacy on this initiative. Advertisers will pay based on the number of times the ad was shown—the people who watched aren't fed back into a database and matched up by data and purchaser info. But direct, one-to-one measurement of viewers is still a giant step forward on television.

WPP and dunnhumby - Strategic Positive At Right Price

BOTTOM LINE: Various news reports are indicating that WPP (WPP.L, Hold) has made an offer to buy the dunnhumby unit of Tesco (TSCO.L, N/R). Tesco has reportedly been asking £2bn for the business (although asking and receiving may be two very different things). Putting notions of fair valuations aside, which are difficult to assess given the importance of the company’s partnerships and minority stakes retailers will have in different parts of the business, we think the strategic rationale for WPP buying the business would be very strong. Such a transaction would likely be a slight negative for Nielsen (NLSN, Buy), given the improved competitive position that WPP’s Kantar unit would have in the field of market research.

Dunnhumby is one of the world’s largest providers of market research, ranking #8 by revenues globally on Esomar’s 2013 industry survey. Its commercial origins lie in the establishment of a loyalty card for UK retailer Tesco in 1994. Tesco acquired the company from its founders in stages through 2006. Dunnhumby generates revenue from retailers by helping them grow margins and like-for-like sales and by concurrently commercializing related data through an analytics service which sells to manufacturers. Customer analytics, in-store media and coupon-based media are among these latter monetization vehicles, typically organized as a joint venture with the retailer upon whose data the service depends. For example, in the United States, the company operates as a 50-50 joint venture with Kroger (KR, N/R). Overall, various reports have indicated that 40% of revenues come from retailers, while 60% come from manufactures. dunnhumby has also expanded in recent years through acquisitions of adjacent businesses, including BzzAgent (a word-of-mouth marketing service based in Boston with 60 employees as of earlier this year, purchased in 2011) and Sociomantic (a demand side platform based in Germany with global operations, including 200 employees and $100mm in gross revenue during 2013, purchased in April of last year).

The specific scale and trajectory of the business is difficult to know with much precision, although it appears to have been generally favorable. During its most recent earnings presentation in January, Tesco indicated that Dunnhumby generated £0.5bn in in revenue and £100mm in profit (presumably during 2014). The company states that it presently employs 3,000 people. However, we assume that these rounded figures include minority interests.


For further points of reference, the Gold (formerly Honomichi) Report estimated that the company generated $462mm – or ~£0.3bn – in revenue from research activities during 2013 and Esomar estimated a very similar $454mm; Gold stated $121.5mm of this figure came from within the United States; Esomar stated that $106.7mm of this figure originated in the UK. The 2012 Honomichi report indicated that during 2012, US revenue was $118.1mm, with $420mm in global revenue. This figure approximately matches Esomar’s estimates, which equated to 8.8% growth year-over-year. It is difficult to ascertain to what degree non-US revenue growth embedded in these estimates was a function of exchange rates, M&A, onboarding of new retailers around the world or simply like-for-like organic growth in customer spending. Separately, an article from AdAge in 2013 indicated Dunnhumby’s revenue was already “nearly $1 billion.” A report from the Cincinnati Business Courier earlier this year indicated the US subsidiary’s revenue was $313mm during 2014. And for one more set of figures, as of 2009, per the aforementioned company presentation, the business generated around £0.3bn in revenue, including consolidation of its joint ventures. At that time only 16% of revenue originated with Tesco.

While we are uncertain how the different sources of revenue estimates reconcile with each other, the business is clearly a large and important one in the market research industry. Assessing a notionally fair value would to some degree depend on assessing the specific financial arrangements (in terms of equity ownership, revenue mixes, profitability and duration of contracts) established with each key partner. Put differently, it’s difficult for an outsider to opine on a fair value for the enterprise.

Nonetheless, we would expect that if WPP ends up buying the business, there would be some balance between the heightened prices that private equity shops might consider paying for the business (as a company of this nature would probably fare well with the application of significant leverage) and what WPP would consider to be a fair price, considering the synergies that it might realize by folding dunnhumby into its Kantar division. Specifically, Kantar’s position as a leading provider of market research for retailers and manufacturers through its Kantar Retail and Kantar Worldpanel services would be significantly improved. This would arguably strengthen Kantar, potentially at the expense of Nielsen and IRI among others. However, it’s also possible that an improved offering from Kantar would contribute to share capture from smaller vendors or alternately contribute to market expansion. This latter point is notable, as one of the key potential advantages of improved and expanded use of services from these vendors is that large manufacturers and retailers may choose to spend more on market insights in order to make their overall media spending more efficient. Procurement-led efforts to drive efficiencies among many of the world’s largest consumer goods manufacturers has been a core factor contributing to decelerating growth in media spending in mature markets such as the United States, and greater use of analytics services such as those which dunnhumby offer can be used to support this trend.

Tesco has reportedly been asking £2bn for the business. It is difficult to tell if they might actually realize this amount, even if it did represent a notionally fair value for the enterprise. Beyond the minority stakes in different countries held by the company’s retailer partners, there are other moving parts, potentially. Among them might be Tesco’s desire to maintain a minority share of the business for itself. We also note that Tesco’s media account is presently up for review, and we can envision that the awarding of that business to a WPP media agency might be attached to any transaction, and this would provide a slight offset to some costs of the transaction. The account is one of the largest in the UK with more than £100mm in annual billings (presumably equating to more single digit millions of pounds in annual revenue), with Interpublic’s (IPG, Buy) Initiative as the incumbent at present.

As a final note, we thought it interesting for WPP and agency holding company watchers to see two articles relevant to this news. The first is a blog item from Friday’s Wall Street Journal on WPP’s efforts to expand in data (see http://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2015/03/12/behind-martin-sorrells-data-


binge/?mod=WSJBlog&mod=wsj_cmohome_cmoreport ); the second is a fuller report from this weekend’s Financial Times more broadly about the company’s CEO Sir Martin Sorrell (see http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/0a9a6cae-c832-11e4-8fe2-00144feab7de.html#axzz3UV8dr9hQ)

L'Oreal USA Moves to Make All Types of Ads -- Online and Off -- 'Shoppable'

Deal with Powa Could Allow Direct-Response Tags on All Ads, Promotions

By Jack Neff. Published on March 12, 2015. 2

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L'Oreal USA has reached a deal with Powa Technologies that could allow the beauty giant to essentially tag any of its advertising, promotions or in-store materials to allow for instant e-commmerce purchases of the featured products.

L'Oreal said in a statement that the PowaTag technology can "transform any consumer touch point, from print and TV advertising to e-commerce, retail stores and social media into a platform for mobile transactions, promotions and more on person's smartphone."

PowaTag provides 2-D barcodes that consumers can scan with an app to order products quickly.

The company declined to get into precise details on exactly how and when the technology will be deployed. But L'Oreal appears to be the first of the giant beauty players to try adding a direct-response sales elements to all of its advertising, online and off.

"L'Oreal has led the beauty industry for more than 100 years because of our unrelenting drive to innovate for our customers," said Marie Gulin-Merle, chief marketing officer of L'Oreal USA, in the statement. The partnership is meant to merge the online and offline worlds of its customers and make mobile shopping easier, she said.

Like other beauty players, L'Oreal has placed anincreasing focus on e-commerce in recent years for its prestige and mass brands alike, as well as starting e-commerce-only brands such as Em by Michelle Phan.

E-commerce has been one of the fastest-growing channels for the business, alongside such retailers as Sephora and Ulta, but analyst estimates still peg it at between low single-digit to low double-digit percentages of industry sales.

Moradores das favelas brasileiras movimentam R$ 68,6 bilhões por ano

03 de março de 2015 • Atualizado às 11h25


Os 12,3 milhões de moradores nas favelas brasileiras movimentam por ano R$ 68,6 bilhões. É o que revela pesquisa inédita feita em fevereiro pelo instituto Data Favela, com apoio do Data Popular e da CUFA (Central Única das Favelas), e que será divulgada durante o 2º Fórum Nova Favela Brasileira, hoje (terça-feira), em São Paulo.

Com o aumento da renda média, alcançado graças ao aumento real do salário mínimo e do emprego formal, os moradores das favelas conseguem comprar hoje bens antes considerados inalcançáveis. Na pesquisa, realizada em 2013, 46% dos lares tinham TV de plasma, LED ou LCD. Hoje 67% dos domicílios das comunidades são equipados com esses aparelhos.

A pesquisa também aponta para o aumento da posse de máquina de lavar, de carros e motos em comparação a 2013. Hoje, 75% das casas têm máquina de lavar roupas. Em 2013 eram 69%. Em relação à posse de carro, o estudo ostra que 24% dos moradores têm carro. Em 2013 eram 20%. Motos: 14% em 2015, contra 13% em 2013. E os moradores não querem parar de consumir. Nos próximos 12 meses, planejam comprar principalmente notebook, tablet e TV de plasma.

Favela mais endividada

Os moradores nas favelas estão mais endividados hoje do que há dois anos. O estudo mostra que 35% das pessoas possuem dívidas. Em 2013, 27% tinham dívidas. Atualmente, o endividamento é mais alto entre as pessoas de 35 a 49 anos – 45% da população nessa faixa etária têm dividas. Por outro lado, a inadimplência permanece estável nos últimos anos. Hoje, 22% têm conta atrasada há mais de 30 dias.

Os moradores também estão preocupados com a alta dos preços dos produtos e com a dificuldade para pagar as contas. A cada 10 moradores, 8 têm medo da inflação. Quanto menor a renda, mais forte é a preocupação com os preços: 82% da classe baixa, 80% da classe média e 73% da classe alta têm medo da inflação. Já para 53% está difícil pagas contas. Para lidar com a inflação, 86% dos moradores das favelas costumam pesquisar os preços dos produtos.

A pesquisa


O estudo foi feito em fevereiro deste ano, pelo instituto Data Favela, com apoio do Data Popular e da CUFA, com 2 mil moradores, de 63 favelas, localizadas em nove regiões metropolitanas e também no Distrito Federal (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Belém, Fortaleza, Recife, Salvador, Curitiba, Porto Alegre e Brasília).

SXSW Interactive Panel Picks for CMOs and Big Data Futurists

3/11/2015 Comment Now

I’ve been going to SXSW since before Y2K. Back in 1998, the first year of SXSW Interactive, there were all of 56 panels to choose from. This year, there are 70 on branding and marketing alone — and hundreds more covering about a dozen-and-a-half other areas from art and science to social and privacy. What was once a special event for geeks like me has become a must-attend week of ideas for anyone who’s building a future-forward business. Marketers, entrepreneurs, creatives and developers all have something to learn and share at SX — and thousands of them will be gathering in Austin to do just that March 13-17.

But about all those panels.

How is a person supposed to choose which ten or so sessions they can cram into the week from the hundreds that are available? For most people, it’s a simple — but intense — narrowing-down process that starts with identifying panels that represent their primary areas of interest. For me, that means panels related to the future, marketing and how to apply big data to building better customer experiences. Then it’s just a matter of deciding which are the most promising based on who’s talking and/or what they’re talking about. Eventually, you can get it to a dozen or fewer.

If your interests coincide with mine, I’m hoping that I can save you some time by sharing my picks. Here are the top ten panels where you’ll be almost certain to find me at this year’s SXSW Interactive Festival.

1. Using Data to Create Rich User Experiences

Creating better user experiences is the highest and best possible use of customer data — the ultimate goal of collecting it, analyzing it and applying it. But does the expertise to achieve that goal lie with brands, or agencies? I think the answer may be “yes.” This should be an interesting discussion of how it isn’t one or the other; it’s both. I’m looking forward to hearing how agencies and brands have to find new ways to work together to generate data insights and use them to co-create truly transformative user experiences.

2. How Innovation Happens

This panel seems tailor-made for an entrepreneur, technology geek and futurist like me. It brings together Eric Schmidt, the man with the vision to grew Google into the global force it is today; Megan Smith, the country’s Chief Technology Officer; and Walter Isaacson, who’s written biographies of the greatest minds in history from Ben Franklin to Einstein to Steve Jobs. As someone who’s passionate about fostering and fueling innovation, I can’t wait to hear their discussion of how the worlds of business, government and ideas are coming together to spark innovation and change.

3. All Signs Point to Yes: Predictive Is Here

Yes, the old fantasy of being able to tell the future has finally come true, at least when it comes to applying data-based predictive techniques to business decision-making. I look forward to a good


discussion about the science of predicting the future and how it’s becoming an increasingly practical and impactful tool for marketing, UX and other business disciplines today.

4. Is the Internet the Answer?

What does one expect from a panel titled “Is the Internet the Answer?” — that includes Andrew Keen who wrote the book, “The Internet Is Not the Answer.” But I’ll be there, as I’ve made of a point of attending Andrew’s panels for years. I always find him inspiring and thought-provoking as I am a fan of his passion and sharp perspectives on the future. I’m expecting an intriguing conversation on the subject between him and Clive Thompson, a top-notch thinker about technology’s role in everyone’s everyday life

5. How Big Data Helps Convert Fans into Customers

I’d be at this panel even if it weren’t on the big data track that’s being presented by Umbel, the company I run. It’s a hot topic because so many successful brands that have millions of fans often don’t have the ability to discern which ones are actually likely to become long-term customers. The panel will dive into examples of how big brands from entertainment, sports and media are using big data to identity their highest value fans.

6. Does the IoT Need to Be User-Centered? We Say Yes

If the Internet of Things (IoT) is made up of things, where exactly do people fit in? I believe strongly that the individual person needs to be at the center of his/her own data universe, from creating and collecting data, to analyzing it, to benefiting from it. This panel brings together leaders from Disney, Misfit and Sensoria to discuss why user experience matters in the IoT space. I’m looking forward to their discussion of how the real value in IoT will ultimately be in how we use the connections among things to create meaningful user experiences for people.

7. Adapt or Die: Building a Brand In 2015 and Beyond

It’s not survival of the fittest; it’s survival of the most adaptable. That’s the lesson we learned from Darwin, and one that should be top of mind for all marketers today. As technology and industry continue to outpace tradition, not taking action to adapt can be devastating. This panel will be discussing the “digital divide” in which many of the titan brands of the past are losing market share to the fast moving tech companies of the present. I’ll be especially interested to hear how today’s brands are rethinking loyalty and retention — and redefining what it means to love a brand.

8. Big Data Made Actionable. No Really, It’s Possible

Companies I talk to every day get that big data is important; what they want to know is how it’s important to their business in a tactical, practical way. I’m eager to hear how Omar Tawakol of Oracle Data Cloud, who shares my passion for the actionability of big data, will answer that question. I expect he’ll get right down to the nuts and bolts of the ways in which companies can take meaningful action on the data they collect as well as discuss some of the pitfalls many companies are experiencing these days as they rush to build big data solutions.

9.Neuroplasticity and Tech: Why Brands Have to Change

Is technology literally changing the way our brains work? If so, what does that mean for the ways we understand and communicate with each other? And what does it mean if you’re a marketer — someone for whom communicating effectively is everything? I’m interested to hear Dan Machen and


Felix Morgan, the innovative thinkers at the HeyHuman creative agency, talk about the idea of neuroplasticity and its implications for marketing from a neuroscience research-based perspective.

10. Big Data and AI Need Each Other And You Need Both

Artificial intelligence and big data are two of my passions — or maybe I should say they’re one of my passions, since they’re increasingly so intimately intertwined. This panel is another part of the Umbel big data track, where we’ll be talking about how AI is unlocking the value of big data — and vice versa. I think it’s a must for anyone who’s interested in the future of data analytics, or anyone who’s wondering how they can scale the benefits of big data in their business right now.

If you’re one of the thousands who’s heading to Austin this week for the 2015 SXSW Interactive Festival, I wish you a great event. And while you’re here, don’t forget that there’s more to SX than just the panels. Be sure to leave yourself enough time to enjoy the synergies that happen in the spaces that fall between all the panels and parties. That’s where I’ve met future partners, clients and friends — and even generated the first sparks of some amazing new ideas. I hope you will, too.

O melhor palestrante do mundo: desconstrução da apresentação campeã

24 de setembro 2014 | Por Thai Tiezzi

No início desta semana, Richard Feloni, do Business Insider conversou com o campeão do World Championship of Public Speaking (Campeonato Mundial de Falar em Público) e mais, destacou as principais características da palestra premiada.

Veja abaixo a matéria e como todos os pontos estão completamente alinhados com nossas usuais orientações:

Em 23 de agosto, o consultor de recursos humanos Dananjaya Hettiarachchi foi coroado Campeão do World Championship of Public Speaking (Campeonato Mundial de Falar em Público) pela Toastmasters International. Ele “sobreviveu” a sete rodadas de uma competição que durou seis meses e incluiu 33 mil concorrentes de todo o mundo.


Ele e outros oito finalistas competiram na convenção anual no mês passado em Kuala Lumpur, na Malásia. Hettiarachchi ficou em primeiro lugar com seu discurso “I See Something” (Eu vejo algo), de exatos 7 minutos e 20 segundos. Assista o discurso na íntegra abaixo:

Infelizmente não encontrei o discurso legendado.

Hettiarachchi falou sobre o discurso vencedor e o que você pode aprender com ele.

Ele faz com que você adivinhe o tempo todo

Hettiarachchi nos diz que o estilo moderno de discurso faz a transição de um monólogo teatral para uma conversa com o público.

Há vários elementos teatrais no discurso de Hettiarachchi, eles são feitos de uma maneira que se conecte com o público, em vez focar em si mesmo.

Ele inicia e finaliza seu discurso segurando uma rosa nas mãos – a primeira vez para puxar o público para sua mensagem e a segunda vez para deixar um tom de humor. Ele faz um balanço entre o drama e o humor o tempo todo.

“Um discurso tem que ser como uma montanha-russa”, diz ele.

Ele começa com uma mensagem

Hettiarachchi diz que um erro comum que iniciantes cometem na elaboração de seus discursos é começarem com um tópico em vez de uma mensagem clara e concisa. Esta mensagem é o que você quer que seu público pense quando a sua apresentação termina.

A mensagem de “I See Something” é que qualquer pessoa tem o potencial para ser grande, mesmo que tenha abandonado suas maiores aspirações. Para evitar que pareça banal, ele conta sua própria história desde quem quebrava leis e era uma criança perdida até se tornar um adulto focado e motivado. Sua história é o meio para uma mensagem que o público pode personalizar para si.

Ele utiliza com leveza cadência e gestos sem torná-los distrações.

Hettiarachchi está longe de ser monótono, mas ele também não soa rude. Ele habilmente alterna sua voz, baixando-a para um nível solene e elevando-a para efeito cômico.

Preste muita atenção na forma como ele faz uso de pausas. Ele leva de um a alguns segundos de silêncio para enfatizar um ponto, olhando nos olhos de membros da audiência para conectá-los ainda mais.

Ao mesmo tempo, os seus gestos são abertos, mas controlados.

Ele amarra tudo.

Há uma técnica que comediantes utilizam chamada de “callback”, em que uma piada faz alusão a uma anterior para aumentar a quantidade de risos. Isso serve como uma espécie de recompensa pelas pessoas serem ouvintes ativos.

Hettiarachchi puxa isso com a frase, “I see something — but I don’t know what it is.”(eu vejo alguma coisa -. Mas eu não sei o que é). Ele fala no início, meio e fim, e se renova a cada vez, porque joga com a entrega. Ele também apresenta seus pais na história e procura semelhanças na audiência.Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

Quando ele conclui seu discurso, você sorri e se sente motivado.

http://www.soap.com.br/blogsoap/2014/09/desconstruindo-a-palestra-do-campeao-do-world-championship-of-public-speaking/

Canais de TV também adotam modelo de mídia programática

Na Austrália, emissoras como MTV e Fox Sports começam a utilizar a plataforma de automação da AOL; anunciantes poderão segmentar anúncios

Nov 10, 2014 11:25:20 AM

MTV, Fox Sports, E!, Discovery e A&E. Essas são algumas das grandes emissoras que começarão a vender anúncios no horário nobre por meio de soluções programáticas. Isso significa que estão abandonando o método tradicional de venda de mídia.

Mas a adoção dessa prática pela TV só acontecerá, por enquanto, na Austrália. A Multi Channel Network (MCN), companhia de venda de mídia que vende anúncios para 70 canais pagos naquele país, lançará uma unidade privada para a utilização da plataforma Adap.tv, da AOL. Com isso, anunciantes poderão comprar anúncios de televisão praticamente da mesma forma com que compram anúncios para o meio online.

O movimento é impressionante, já que nos EUA, a postura do mercado televisivo ainda é bastante cautelosa em relação à venda programática do inventário. Uma explicação para isso é o fato de as redes norte-americanas ainda não terem enfrentado grandes problemas vendendo anúncios da forma tradicional. Além disso, muitos executivos têm receio de que qualquer forma de venda automatizada signifique a perda de empregos e a queda dos preços.

Na Austrália, por outro lado, o mercado está mais propenso a trabalhar com mídia programática porque é consideravelmente menor (US$ 4 bilhões contra US$ 70 bilhões nos EUA) e mais centralizado. A MCN representa grande parte do mercado de TV paga australiano, inclusive redes afiliadas com a NBC Universal, Viacom e Fox, portanto, pode impulsionar essa iniciativa com menos resistência.

A plataforma Multiview Project, da MCN, permitirá que compradores obtenham dados de milhares de assinantes de TV paga, com o propósito de segmentar anúncios. Eles poderão, por exemplo, veicular anúncios específicos de acordo com os hábitos de consumo de cada lar.


A partir da estratégia da MCN, veremos uma mudança global na venda de publicidade de TV. Ainda assim, é provável que o mercado norte-americano, por ser enorme e fragmentado, demore mais alguns anos para abraçar totalmente a automação.

A Adap.tv também está realizando testes com redes nos EUA, embora ainda não se saiba quais.

Creativity is key to programmatic

11 March 2015

LONDON: Much of the current discussion around programmatic is centred on technology but in future creativity will be seen as the key to fully exploiting the potential of this technique.

The rapid evolution of programmatic from fast-growing niche to mainstream practice is addressed in Warc's Toolkit 2015, a guide to six major marketing trends for the year ahead, produced in association with Deloitte.

While automating the trading of digital ads clearly has potential to increase efficiencies, the role of creativity has tended to get lost in the complex ecosystem that has emerged around programmatic.

But improved targeting and reduced costs are only part of the equation: some estimates say that, all else being equal, high-quality creative can drive four times the response of low-quality creative.

"The technology right now, today, is surpassing the art," according to Jim Kiszka, senior manager for digital media, North America, at Kellogg, a company which has investigated this area in some detail.

But he added that this was a necessary step, in order to "create this baseline of fantastic information that we can then build up from".

And now the focus was shifting. "Thirty percent is the media; seventy percent is the creative, as far as I'm concerned," he said.

For marketers to be able to make the best use of the new approach, however, some internal reorganisation may be necessary, with a move away from siloed teams to a more holistic model.

Peta Williams, consultant, customer advisory practice at Deloitte Digital advised that "if all functions are aligned, the right data can be sought to drive the right insight and drive creativity in the right way".

Data and creativity, she argued, should not be regarded as two pieces of a marketing puzzle but as parts of a four-strand process that consists of data, insight, creativity and impact.

"The creativity should lie within a complete understanding and application of a brand's strategy," she added. "Through this, the right data will be leveraged and used effectively to drive the desired results."

In fact, marketers may only be getting started as to where data can take them in terms of creating personalised and unique marketing which mirrors their overall brand and customer service strategy.

Warc subscribers can read the full Toolkit report atwww.warc.com/toolkit2015. Non-subscribers can download a sample of this chapter here.

Data sourced from Warc


MediaCom tightens procedures

10 March 2015

SYDNEY: MediaCom is to tighten its account reporting procedures in Australia after an independent audit into the media agency indicated malpractice by several individuals on three client accounts.

The revelation in early December last year of "irregularities" in the accounts relating to Yum! Restaurants, insurance business IAG and broadcaster Foxtel sparked an internal review and a flurry of dismissals, as well as the launch of the independent review by consultants EY which has now reported.

"In my 40 years in this business I have never encountered anything of this magnitude and frankly, it terrified the crap out of me and everyone else in the organisation," John Steedman, chairman of GroupM, MediaCom's parent company, told Ad News.

EY looked at 45 campaigns across 19 client accounts from MEC, Maxus and Mindshare with a "heavy emphasis" on MediaCom, going back two years.

In addition to confirming allegations that post-campaign analysis reports for three clients were manipulated, it found three more client accounts with discrepancies although these were said to be "rational or accidental" rather than a result of malpractice.

A new compliance team will oversee the implementation of EY recommendations and monitor ongoing TV performance reporting.

But that is far from the end of the story, as several MediaCom clients, including IAG and Energy Australia, are reported to be reviewing their accounts.

And Mumbrella reported that there are still unanswered questions over the affair, not least why the staff concerned had taken the actions they did and why it had taken so long for these to be uncovered.

"If any one part of this should ring alarm bells for the industry it is this – the whole shemozzle appears to have been started by one junior," it said.

"Are we putting too much trust and not enough oversight on 22-year-olds, who are buying millions of dollars' worth of television on behalf of big brand name clients against what are possibly unrealistic or unachievable performance targets?" it asked.

Data sourced from Ad News, B&T, Mumbrella; additional content by Warc staff

Data Will De-Commoditize TV Advertising

by Dave Morgan, March 5, 2015

There is no question that data and digital approaches are going to reshape the future of the TV advertising industry. Just look at the headlines this past week. Nielsen, the TV measurement company, is buying eXelate, a digital ad data management platform. Comcast is rumored to be buying AudienceExpress, an automated TV ad-buying platform. And at an ARF event I participated in earlier this week, CBS Chief Research Officer Dave Poltrack announced that CBS would be providing


“campaign performance audits” to advertisers, using purchase data from sources like Nielsen Catalina as part of its upfront.

So it sounds as if the TV ad business is on a slippery, data-driven, audience-based digital slope headed to an inglorious commoditized future like online display, with falling CPMs, where content-driven adjacency and brands have largely been kicked to the curb, doesn’t it?

No, TV’s not going to get kicked to the curb. But let’s face it: TV advertising is already commoditized. The majority of TV ads today are traded on the basis of sex/age demographics and gross rating points, allocated and rotated by network, day and daypart, and little else. They are not bought and sold according to the specific spot or show. The brand of the show only matters if it appears on an exclusion list.

It’s getting worse. As audience fragmentation worsens, fewer and fewer shows are able to break through and stand out with large audiences on their own. Already, more than two-thirds of all TV ad impressions are on episodes with national ratings under 0.5 -- a metric that’s quickly moving up to 75% of all ad impressions. So it's getting more and more difficult for most individual shows and episodes to stand out and be valued uniquely.

Data can only make it better. No one can argue that the best way to value a TV ad spot is solely on the basis of broad sex/age and day/day-part segmentation. More data about people viewing that episode, from previous purchase behaviors or actual sales caused by ads viewed from that episode, can only add value. More data means more markets for every spot. In a world where there is robust data on viewers and their behaviors, the notion of “non-endemic” advertising will go away. Every spot will have certain “endemic” advertisers who may find a special connection to a show and its audience, and many other advertisers who will find lots of counterintuitive spots to buy as they match a show’s deep viewer and performance data with their own data about target customers.

Finally, it wasn’t data that commoditized the online display market anyway. It was the way the online industry counted and sold advertising. Online ad impressions are everywhere, in numbers increasing faster than the amount of time people spend engaged with digital media and services. There may be 15 impressions on a single page. Many of them may not be viewable. Fundamentally, there are more online display impressions than there is demand for ads, and the ratio is getting worse.

TV, by contrast, sells on a time basis. TV’s ad impression load grows or shrinks with the overall amount of audience time spent on ad-supported TV shows, with a few exceptions. Today, largely because of careful management of ad loads, pricing, packaging, and commitments, demand for TV spots exceeds the supply.

Thus, data-driven, digital approaches to advertising won’t be TV’s demise. Instead, it has already met its nemesis by making sex/age GRPs its primary currency. It is already commoditized. Data could save it.

What do you think?

6 comments about "Data Will De-Commoditize TV Advertising ".

1. Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited , March 5, 2015 at 3:50 p.m.

If someone handed you a million dollars that you had to spend on stocks over a certain period of time and had to cover certain requirements with only symbols for the names how would you determine which would be most profitable will bring in the most shares sold ? Awk ! Yet, it lives. Media is not


exactly the same, yet it lives. Awk ! TV, radio, print may have the least leeway for fraud in a way. In the quest for perfection, we may loose our quest for the ability to think and decide anything for ourselves (another discussion).

2. Dave Morgan from Simulmedia , March 5, 2015 at 4:02 p.m.

Great point Paula. I don't believe that audience data and computer-driven decision-making will be the only way TV advertising will be bought and sold in the future. Human judgment and content adjacencies will still be a critical part of it

3. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc , March 5, 2015 at 5:25 p.m.

Dave, I agree with many things you say here and in other posts, however I should point out that a large part of TV is already de-commoditized. I refer to most of the broadcast TV networks' primetime fare, some late night network and primetime cable programs, most sports, specials in general, most news shows, plus certain cable channels in their entirety. In these cases the CPMs and demographics are subordinated to the imagery, content compatibility and promotability of being seen in such contexts to the point where this far transcends any evaluation of cost efficient targeting. Indeed, were programmatic ever to come to national TV, it would almost certainly shun such fare and advertisers who prefer these types of buys----there are many-----would simply legislate them into their plans. So, de-commoditizing is already here and has been here for decades. Whether a greater reliance on data will break down these long established media preferences remains to be seen....but, somehow, I doubt it. The question then arises, what about other advertisers---mainly packaged goods types ---- who go more by the numbers and are CPM conscious. Here, I wonder whether using more sophisticated data to aid in targeting, evaluation of sales response, etc. will create the huge benefits that are envisioned as most of the programs that such advertisers buy are "commodity" shows---daytime talkers, game shows, off-network reruns, oft repeated/low budget documentaries, cable "reality shows", old movies, etc., which tend to be priced very cheaply----and competitively to eachother--- compared to the genres I mentioned at the outset. I'm not arguing, just making an observation based on how things actually are. There are, in fact, two kinds of advertisers and two kinds of program content----high CPM premium and low CPM eyeball tonnage collectors. Which of these is going to be most affected by the coming "data" revolution?

4. Dave Morgan from Simulmedia , March 6, 2015 at 11:33 a.m.

Ed, lots of good stuff there. Thanks. I think that the eyeball tonnage folks are likely to move faster than premium CPM folks, once they realize that they can drive more provable, profitable sales by adjusting their plan. However, the fastest movers will probably be folks who aren't in Tv heavily today - like e-commerce or mobile app developers - who can really benefit from TV's power, but need to see data and dashboards like they have in digital before putting money into a media channel. It will be interesting to see.

5. Susan Tillou from Kantar Media , March 8, 2015 at 9:54 p.m.

Dave, thanks for raising another important and timely point. It might help us to widen the lense on what constitutes ROI across linear and IP-based video trading. In traditional (linear) TV planning, implicit to any ad buy was also brand awareness. We now have an impressive ability to use data for audience-based targeting, measurement and link to purchase. But we must also be cognizant of the limitations. Tying ad exposure to sales provides great insight to marketers with short sales windows (e.g. CPG) and where purchases are made online. We now have datapoints where previously only direct response could quantify the impact of advertising. But where short-term or direct sales cannot


be proven, attribution models discount the value of brand awareness – or where messaging didn’t work – as well as other touchpoints that may have influenced the consumer’s journey to purchase. Of course, this doesn’t even consider fraud and bot traffic that only perpetuates the 50% wasted ad dollar issue. To be sure, data will benefit the overall media planning and measurement process, especially as media fragments. Together with a shift to audience-based buying, these move needle by informing WHO is viewing WHAT, (if and) WHY an ad should be placed WHERE – and WHEN. But as the media consumption options multiply, so do siloes of data and standards for metrics. We are closer than ever to having the tools and data to provide fair attribution of each touchpoint along the purchase funnel. Wouldn’t Wanamaker be proud if we worked cooperatively as an industry toward this aim? I’d like to pose 2 further questions to the group as we continue the discussion: 1. Assuming data and automation will provide efficiencies for (human) media planners, how can we re-examine pricing of media and representative data to drive differentiation and bridge the gap between CPM models and traditional TV trading? 2. How long will marketers trust metrics provided by the same companies trying to sell them media*? *In full transparency, I work for a WPP-owned company, but the Kantar division maintains best-in-class, market/media-neutral and auditable currency services.

6. Dave Morgan from Simulmedia , March 9, 2015 at 6:02 a.m.

Excellent points Susan. My take on your questions is that: 1) I expect hybrid pricing, probably based on a target CPM but guaranteed to readjust to a performance metric and, 2) some proprietary methods of ad measurement (like Google search clicks) maye survive as a currency if they are as self-evident to buyers, but the vast majority of ROI media will have third party validation.

Audience Insights: Why Marketers Need To Put Analytics First

By The NewsCred Team • NewsCred Blog • Mar 04, 2015

Do you really know who is interacting with your content?

Who are they? How and where do they spend their time? How do they engage with your competitors? What do they need, want, and love?

Most marketers don’t have the knowledge to truly answer these questions – or, they have bits and pieces, but not the full picture. That’s because the metrics most marketers rely on today barely scratch the surface. We track things like page views, traffic, shares, bounce rate, and engaged time, but these metrics don’t tell us anything about who our audience is or what they care about. They don’t equip us with the insights needed to translate content into consumer value, or set up for global reach and scale.

At NewsCred, we believe that the foundation of smart marketing decisions starts with a strong understanding of who your audience is and what they want – demographics, interests, identity, and intent. That might seem obvious, but in reality, there’s a huge gap between the soft metrics we all track today and the audience insights we really need.

Over the past year, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this problem. We’ve talked to hundreds of our customers – from Pepsi and Pfizer to Dell and Diageo – and through these conversations we’ve worked hard to reinvent marketing analytics from the ground up. At the core of our philosophy is a single belief: it’s not just about reaching more people; it’s about reaching the right people. While thousands or maybe even millions of people share your brand’s content, how do you identify the people who are important to your brand? The handful who are ready to act? Or your biggest fans who


are constantly telling their friends and family about your brand? How do you serve your entire audience while elevating these conversations?

Marketers Need A New Approach

Most marketers think about analytics as the metrics needed to measure success and failure. Their content marketing process starts with strategy, creation, publishing, distribution….and analytics are thrown in at the end to determine what’s working and what’s not.

At NewsCred, we take a different approach. We start with analytics.

We believe that a strong focus on data is needed to give marketers a clear picture of the entire consumer journey – before content is ever created. These analytics should tie the entire content marketing process together, providing insight into the consumer research process, identifying audience needs and pain points, and helping marketers build and execute a more informed content strategy.

So how do you identify these metrics?

Introducing, NewsCred Audience Insights. Robust audience intelligence software that’s powering innovation in marketing.

• Real-time insight into the individual people most important to a brand. Brands can now see who their audience really is: what they look like, where they work, what their title is, what their interests are, and how they engage with any competitor.


• A 360-degree view of the content journeys of individuals and influencers. Brands gain insight into an individual’s content engagement across channels and throughout the entire customer lifecycle – what they read and share, on what channels and when.

• Analysis of content trends and audience behavior over time. Knowing what content sticks and gets shared, brands can use Audience Insights to build a smarter content strategy, creating the right content for the right person, time and place.

Why does this matter? Efficiency and results.

Data-driven processes enable you to create content you know your audience wants so you can stop wasting time guessing or creating content duds and actually optimize your strategy for the exact right person, place, and time. More importantly, this process directly informs your paid, owned, and earned media strategy, ensuring even greater reach, engagement, and conversions across platforms.

“As an industry, we’re not putting our customers first. We need to start providing real value by moving beyond pageviews, uniques, shares and engaged time," said Shafqat Islam, CEO and cofounder of NewsCred. "We need to help our customers understand exactly who they’re reaching and engaging, and if they’re really making a meaningful impact on the business. A deep understanding of real people is the only way to measure content marketing ROI. NewsCred Audience Insights enables brands to finally know that the billions they spend collectively on content marketing each year is leading them to reach the right individuals, at the right place and time.”

We want to make it simple. Here is our three-step process to inject analytics into every step of the content marketing process:

1. Know your audience

Understand who your audience really is and what they want.

2. Know what content works

Get an in-depth look at the content journeys of your audience and understand what sticks and gets shared.

3. Drive content marketing ROI

Optimize your paid, owned, and earned media strategy by reaching the right people, at the right time and place.

The future of marketing is about connecting with individual people - like you and me. The way to connect with real people and win brand love is through meaningful content and conversations. The only way to achieve relevancy with your audience is to truly understand who they are and what they want. Your marketing platform should be able to help you identify, analyze and act on these individuals and content trends at every step of the buyer's journey.

Uncommon sense: how to increase your digital advertising effectiveness through 'reach efficiency'

By Randall Beard, President, North America 02-27-2015


Over the last few years, digital audience measurement has been getting better: measurers are on the lookout for “fraudulent” views, are working to include only “viewable” impressions, and are measuring what percentage of people reached by a campaign actually belong to the group the advertiser was paying for.

These are all fundamental steps toward effective digital advertising: Your digital ad isn’t worth anything if it’s viewed by a “bot” rather than a human; even if a human is sitting at the screen, your ad has to be viewable to have an impact–“viewability” being defined today as being on screen for at least one second when you click onto the site; and it has to be viewed by the right human.

There’s room for improvement, of course: The ANA recently published a study showing that advertisers are wasting huge amounts of money through fraudulent digital ad impressions. And, over about 20,000 campaigns, data from our Digital Ad Ratings (formerly called Online Campaign Ratings) shows that, on average, only 59% of digital impressions reached the intended audience.

Even while they make great progress on these fronts, however, few advertisers and agencies are tapping a considerable additional opportunity to improve advertising effectiveness. Getting the ad to where it can be seen by the right humans means reaching your intended audience. Advertisers and agencies need to be asking, “How efficiently am I reaching my intended audience?”

Reach efficiency is a measure of how effectively a given website delivers unduplicated reach—you always want 10 people to see an ad once rather than 1 person to see an ad ten times. There are arguments to be made for duplication, but research demonstrates that reach is more valuable than frequency. In fact, there appears to be a linear relationship between reach and sales impact: an increase in reach of 50% will increase advertising-driven sales by 50%, all other things equal. So the primary media objective of most advertisers is to maximize reach at a frequency of one.

Let’s put this in stark financial terms: Advertisers pay for GRPs (gross ratings points), which are calculated as reach times frequency, and they buy whatever number they need to in order to achieve a certain reach. Forgive me for sounding a little bit like your high-school text book, but if Site A needs to charge for 50 GRPs in order to deliver 10% reach, it’s because its viewers see its ads five times on average (10 x 5 = 50). If, however, Site B can deliver 10% reach with only 20 GRPs—that is, each viewer sees the ad twice on average (10 x 2 = 20), then you have a much better deal: The same reach at about 40% of the GRPs (and 40% of the cost).

In the delightful land of theory, it’s obvious what to do: increase your reach efficiency! Unfortunately, this isn’t so easy for websites. If it were, Site A would have gotten its act together a long time ago. In fact, our data shows very high variation in reach efficiency across web sites—a difference of up to 10 times between the most and least efficient websites.

The good news is that we have worked out a few things about what actually drives reach efficiency:

1. Registration data: Digital publishers with good viewer registration data can serve ads at the individual level.

2. Frequency capping: As their name suggests, these tools enable publishers to cap frequency at a given level, so that an advertiser’s budget can focus on building reach without overdoing frequency.

3. Cross-device identity systems: Publishers that can recognize the same individual across devices can obviously manage frequency more effectively, because they can avoid exposing the same person to the same ad on different platforms.


To get started, advertisers and agencies need only break down their digital advertising plans by reach, frequency and GRP’s for each site in the plan. As noted, reach x frequency = GRPs, so reach efficiency is easy to calculate by site within any plan. This will immediately flag opportunities most advertisers and agencies don’t even know are right in front of them. Then they can ask publishers about the state of their registration data, whether they use frequency capping tools, and how good their cross-device identity systems are.

Digital advertising is a big opportunity for most advertisers. Getting reach right is the foundation of any well-designed, well executed-digital media plan. It’s tempting to concentrate on creating the right impression on your audience, but, if you want to stay in business, you have to reach them efficiently in the first place.

Connected Cars Digital Media Apps

The car dashboard is poised to become the next major digital platform driving billions of dollars in revenue JOHN GREENOUGH MAR. 6, 2015, 9:25 AM


http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54de5ec969bedd5f558b4567-960/connected-car-revenue-from-systems.png

People spend 6.5 hours per week on average in their cars, and as dashboards become digital platforms it's creating a massive new market for carmakers, digital-media companies, and even marketers. Revenues from connected services are expected to top $152 billion by 2020.

Carmakers are offering a selection of features in their connected cars, with a special focus on entertainment apps and safety-management features.

In a new companion report from BI Intelligence to our connected-car market forecast report, we look at revenue from connected-car internet services, consumer attitudes to these services and how they will pay for them (including getting ads in return for free content), and the potential for self-driving cars.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Connected-safety features bring in the most revenue of all of today's connected-car services, at $13 billion. But safety will lose its spot as the top revenue stream to driver-assistance in 2017. Connected-safety features will bring in $44 billion in 2020. These connections include alerting customers of road conditions, such as severe weather or an approaching hazard, as well as collision-avoidance.

• Entertainment is one of the most popular features available for the connected car, but it is not a major revenue driver. The category will account for only $13 billion in revenue in 2020. Entertainment features include integrations with apps such as Pandora, Yelp, and Facebook.

• But there's still a ways to go before mainstream consumers really understand how they can benefit from the connected car. About 80% of consumers have either never heard of connected cars or are unsure what the term refers to.

• People who actually use connected car services are satisfied with them. About half of those who have a connected car actually use the car's connected features, and those who do use many of these features shows high levels of satisfaction with them.

• Consumers are pretty split on how they want to pay for these services. 25% of global consumers would be willing to receive in-car advertising if it meant they got free basic services in exchange. This means marketers are likely to have a big opportunity to tap into the connected-car market.

To access the full reports on the connected-car market and the connected car as a digital platform, sign up for a risk-free trial of BI Intelligence. Subscribers get full access to all our downloadable reports, data, and graphics.

Big Brands Find Data Is As Much A People Challenge As A Technology Challenge

by Ryan Joe // Monday, March 2nd, 2015 – 9:00 am

Linking up internal data assets is a great start – but while this can lead to nifty business results, it also has the potential to disrupt numerous employees and departments within a company.

Brand marketers from Macy’s, Sephora and Walmart told their stories about combining customer and marketing data sets during a panel at LiveRamp’s RampUp conference last Thursday in Santa Clara, Calif.Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

“It’s definitely a new concept and somewhat difficult for people who aren’t involved in the ad tech or marketing tech space to grasp,” said Lindsay Chastain, director of digital marketing at cosmetics retailer Sephora. “There was a lot of education that had to happen internally, with our IT organization, our analytics group and especially our legal team.”

Nikhil Raj, VP of marketing and advertising products at Walmart, said brands should “draw a line in the sand” regarding their data, figuring out what assets they want to involve and which assets they don’t.

Sephora needed to figure out exactly how working with LiveRamp would affect the privacy of its client data as well as the security of its own sales files, especially since it would be entrusting that information to a third-party partner.

Even after the sell-in, however, businesses need to figure out how to work with the data solution.

“Once you sell it at the highest level, you need to figure out how to get it adopted and for it to become part of the DNA of what you do,” said Macy’s Abhijit Shome, VP of marketing and omnichannel customer.

At Macy’s, the LiveRamp solution sits in marketing, co-owned by the digital marketing and customer infrastructure teams. But Sephora – a relatively new LiveRamp customer – is still figuring it out.

Chastain said, “We have a smaller structure in terms of how we tie our customer data back to marketing. It’s definitely an involving process trying to figure out who is the right owner for this kind of partnership.”

Sephora is also trying to reconcile budgeting between digital marketing and retail marketing teams, especially as data linkage shows how digital marketing affects in-store spending.

“That continues to change the organization's focus in allocating marketing spend,” she said.

Harnessing data is as much a process challenge as a technology challenge, which in turn makes it a people challenge.

“If you approach it as a shiny, new technology solution, it will cause you a lot of heartburn,” said Shome. “You really have to realize that it’s a change you’re bringing in. Who’s going to be doing what and how does their job change? And what do they think and feel about that? Does it scare them? How do you deal with that? You’re putting in a new technology and a new way of thinking.”

Macy’s bringing in LiveRamp coincided with an agency change, another factor the retail giant had to work through. Agencies often have their own way of measuring and reporting. If that’s the case, they’ll have to work through the brand's new processes, even as the brand itself is trying to figure it all out.

“Those are pretty significant challenges, and the larger the team involved, the exponentially larger that challenge becomes,” Shome said.

Sephora’s solution was to measure test campaigns to figure out the effect LiveRamp might have on its business, people and processes.

“Starting small in specific campaigns to get some initial measurement was helpful for me selling it internally and helping people understand what this actually could mean,” Chastain said.


And once that’s in place, businesses can consider scaling up.

Meerkat for iOS Lets You Live Stream Video to Your Twitter Followers

No, this is not an app livestreaming meerkats going about their day. It could be though. Meerkat for iOS lets you live stream video on Twitter in one click.

Once you’ve downloaded the app and found your good side, all you have to do is hit ‘stream’ and your video goes live instantly, showing up on your followers’ Twitter feeds. If any of your friends have Meerkat, they’ll get a notification alerting them to your live stream and they can comment and interact with you using the app.

We trialled the app and found the stream to be pretty clear and steady. However, at present the app seems to zoom in quite a bit while capturing video, so an elongated selfie stick may be required if you plan on videoing on the go.

So @MattNavarra appears to be livestreaming his facial hair: http://t.co/VpdcjFkcwY pic.twitter.com/akfv0v5Ayd

— Martin Bryant (@MartinSFP) February 27, 2015

While there are similar apps on the market like TwitCam and the Livestream app, Meerkat’s simple interface and ease of use could make this one a definite competitor appealing to brands and bloggers alike, provided that the zoom function is sorted.

Meerkat is only available on iOS at the moment with no confirmation of an Android version just yet.

➤ Meerkat [iOS]

This article was written by Amanda Connolly from The Next Web and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

Tim Cook Says the Upcoming Apple Watch Will Replace Your Car Keys

With the final details about pricing and launch dates expected at Apple’s March 9 event, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared another feature being built into the watch; it could potentially replace your car keys.


Cook told The Telegraph that the watch was designed to replace your car keys and the key fobs used by car security systems. So not only does Apple want you to leave your phone in your pocket, but also your keys.

We’re going to need bigger pockets.

Of course, no one at Apple can even mention cars without speculation that the company is building its own vehicle. While a car isn’t expected for years, the Apple Watch is expected to ship sometime in April.

➤ Apple Watch will replace your car keys, says Tim Cook [The Telegraph]

This article was written by Roberto Baldwin from The Next Web and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

Strategy Corner’s Digital Trends of the Week: March 2nd

By Cody Levine, Engagement Planner, BBDO NY

A recap of this week’s digital trends, brought to you by BBDO’s Engagement Planning team. This week features the power of Instagram Video, Facebook’s Advertiser growth, and brands attracting Gen Z.

Instagram Video Aiding In Brand Growth


Since the implementation of video on Instagram, brands who have dedicated efforts in that style of content creation are reaping the benefits. According to Adweek, Nike has tripled its number of followers to over 12 million, up from 4 million last April when Instagram rolled out Video. Additionally, Victoria Secret’s followers increased from 4.2 to 10.5 million, while GoPro and NBA both saw their followers grow 2 million. Although Adweek did admit these companies marketing budgets surely played a role in their success (and were not disclosed), the follower increases are hard to ignore. Any skeptic of the power of sharable video on the platform should have a look.

Facebook Grows Platform Advertisers 33% to 2 Million

This week, Mark Zuckerberg announced an impressive milestone - Facebook now has 2 million advertisers. Even more impressive, in just the past 6 months, this number has grown 33%, an incredible feat that Facebook attributes to the SMBs (small and medium businesses) that continue to flock to the social media platform as a means to reach their target demographics. Building on this, Facebook has launched an “Ads Manager” aimed at helping businesses with lower social savvy manage their marketing campaigns. Still standing far behind google in ad revenue, the company netted $3.6 billion in Q4 of 2014.

YouTube’s And Nickelodeon Take On Generation Z


YouTube and Nickelodeon are both making strides to cater to the true digital natives, Generation Z. This week they launched stand-alone apps and video services exclusively for the world’s youngest demographic. The YouTube Kids app aptly features a dynamic range of child-friendly cartoons and engaging educational programming ‘made for curious little minds’, all without the dangers of encountering the dark side of YouTube.

Nickelodeon, whose ratings remain volatile, announced plans to launch a stand-alone video subscription that will revive “Noggin”, a preschooler specific channel that could tap into successful shows like “Blue’s Clues” and “Franklin and Friends”. So While we’re spending time with millennial workshops, Nickelodeon and YouTube are insuring they’ll have support for the next generation. A wireless generation, it may seem.

Programmatic Fact vs. Fiction

Eric Wheeler | March 2,

This column, guest authored by Orchard Richardson, seeks to dispel the many myths that abound in the programmatic buying world.

This column was guest authored by Orchard Richardson, general manager and senior vice president (SVP) of publisher and media solutions at 33Across.

With programmatic growth projected to reach a spend of $14.88 billion in 2015, it may seem surprising that there are some major mental barriers that roadblock publishers and advertisers from investing their time and money programmatically. Programmatic buying has preconceptions for both sides of the equation that unfortunately are more fiction than fact. Publishers and advertisers alike need to take a closer look at some of the "obstacles" that may be preventing them from taking advantage of one of the biggest technological advancements in digital advertising.

Publisher Perceptions

Fiction: Programmatic cannibalizes direct sales opportunities.

Many publishers are wary that selling their inventory programmatically puts their direct sales initiatives at risk. In actuality, advertisers go directly to publishers with their branding budget but use their direct-response budgets programmatically. If publishers continue to think that programmatic


selling cannibalizes direct sales, they’ll miss out on large opportunities. Direct sales teams would be more strategic and focus on their top advertiser opportunities that are in market. Programmatic selling also allows sales teams to cover more ground, increase revenue, and broaden the scope of a site’s buyers. The cherry on top of this is the new market intelligence gained programmatically. Sales leadership can now practice what they preach and focus their teams on the 20 percent of advertisers that represent the majority of their spending and opportunity.

Fiction: Programmatic decreases eCPM.

CPMs are declining industry-wide, but this is not due to programmatic. The decline stems from the almost infinite supply of standard IAB units, which drives down prices. Additionally, publishers who implement unrealistic programmatic CPM floors to align with their brand rate cards may be contributing to the decline of their site’s eCPMs. If publishers allow for natural competition, it may actually increase their eCPM and drive up fill rate, giving publishers the true value of their inventory and increasing overall gross revenue.

Fiction: Lower-quality advertisers, less money.

As more advertising dollars shift from traditional ad spend to programmatic, most brands that you can think of are already buying programmatically. Publishers can work with quality demand partners who will connect them with trusted brands. Publishers just need to do research and ask the right questions. Who are their clients? Do their creative formats meet IAB standards? What brand safety tools do they employ? Many partners will also manage category blocks that don’t meet your standards (e.g. pornography, diet sites, etc.). You can also manage settings yourself on many dashboards.

Advertiser Perceptions

Fiction: Programmatic = Poor Inventory

Many brands are wary to invest in programmatic since they believe they would put their brand at risk with poor-quality inventory. Similar to how most brands are dipping their toes in the programmatic pool, the large majority of publishers work programmatically; even the publishers that have direct relationships with brands. Publishers do not want to miss out on this revenue stream, especially as more money migrates into programmatic. There is little difference between inventory offered directly and programmatically. Of course, there is a broader source of inventory offered programmatically and just like publishers, buyers need to beware before investing on certain platforms. Do your research and work with platforms to put standards in place that are right for your brand.

Fiction: Programmatic buying does not help branding campaigns.

Yes, programmatic buying is usually thought of as a direct-response buying tactic, but don’t pigeonhole programmatic - you’ll miss out on brand awareness opportunities. With the series of levers that can be pulled, brands can find new audiences and consumer markets that may otherwise go untapped. Programmatic media buying creates an unbelievable amount of efficiency for brand marketing, allowing brands to scale hard to identify audiences with high-impact and video advertising. Market intelligence is the added bonus of programmatic buying; brands can uncover new market segments.

With a little education and research, publishers and advertisers can really take advantage of the power of programmatic. That’s not to say that programmatic has completely evolved. We still have strides to make as an industry, such as streamline buying and having standard naming conventions. Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

While the rest of the industry is playing catch-up, both publishers and advertisers can break out of the programmatic roadblocks.

Orchid Richardson is general manager and senior vice president (SVP) of publisher and media solutions at 33Across, Inc., where she is charged with overseeing the platform that supports more than 1 million online publishers including premium brands like Demand Media, Conde Nast Viacom, and Time, Inc. Prior to joining 33Across, Orchid was head of digital operations for Hearst Magazines Digital Media.

Homepage image via Shutterstock.

Social Media Week: Digital Marketers Must Predict the Future to Succeed

Emily Alford | February 26, 2015

York Social Media Week panel called "10 Years of Digital," Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore unveiled a new marketing tool that will let brands scan the Web to predict trending news before it breaks.

In order to thrive in the future world of digital marketing, marketers must have the ability to predict the future, according to Mashable chief executive (CEO) Pete Cashmore.

In his Social Media Week keynote, Cashmore explained that a new algorithm developed by Mashable can comb through millions of headlines and keywords to analyze the news and predict the next trending topic up to eight hours in advance of the traditional news cycle. "In the past, we’ve looked at the Tweetdeck for breaking news," Cashmore said. "Now, we look at the velocity dashboard to be on the trend rather than behind it."

Mashable's product is currently rolling out to both brands and agencies and allows marketers to predict and prepare relevant content around topical events. For example, Cashmore said that for this year’s Oscars the algorithm became a listening platform for brands and media to understand which Oscar topics would be trending around the watercooler the next morning and prepare videos, tweets, and other content in order to be trend-makers.

The algorithm also works for targeting and segmenting audiences, Cashmore said. For example, a fast-food brand could look at which food conversations might appeal to U.K. males aged 18 to 20 in the coming days. The algorithm could even be used for predicting competitors’ weaknesses.

And while Mashable is now trusting artificial intelligence (AI) to predict the news, Cashmore is still banking on humans to write it. "There’s nothing worse than content that doesn’t sound human," Cashmore said. "AI is not going to speak in a human voice. We’ll never be able to program humor. And it’s really hard to produce video in an automated way. We’re producing tech that helps people be creative."

Voice search is another AI trend Cashmore isn’t banking on, since speaking at watches and phones still feels too awkward for users accustomed to typing on keyboards. "In theory [voice search] should be a good thing. The challenge is strange. There’s kind of a social weirdness, and new tech has to fit with social norms."

Cashmore thinks folding and rolling screens, like the prototypes he saw this year at the Consumer Electronics Show, might be a more applicable alternative to chunky screens and shy voice users. But ultimately, Cashmore says, screens and wearables will have to be used in conjunction with one


another, no matter what the future holds for tech. "It remains to be seen if people want to speak into their devices. [The future] is going to be both [screens and voice search], not either or."

Online behaviour moves in-store

24 February 2015

GLOBAL: Shoppers are taking some of their online behavior into bricks-and-mortar stores by using their phones to compare prices, according to a new global study.

Market research firm GfK interviewed more than 25,000 mobile phone users aged 15 or older in 23 countries either online or face-to-face in the summer of 2014. The countries included Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the UK, Ukraine and the US.

Overall, it found that the leading behaviours in-store were comparing prices and contacting a friend or family member for advice (at 40%), followed by taking pictures of products that they might buy (at 36%).

Globally, men were more likely than women (42% v 37%) to use their phones inside a store to compare prices on a regular basis. And the most active age group was shoppers aged 20-29, with nearly half (49%) saying they regularly do this, just ahead of 15-19 year olds and 30-39 year olds, both at 45%.

"Having a close and real-time eye on the pricing of online competitors and reacting quickly are now key success factors for physical retailers, as well as online ones," said Adrian Hobbs, managing director for online Pricing Intelligence at GfK.

Shoppers in South Korea (59%), China (54%) and Turkey (53%) were the most likely to compare prices in-store on their mobile phones. At the other end of the spectrum were shoppers in Ukraine (11%), South Africa (15%) and India (17%).

GfK noted that "sales staff and the physical shopping experience face a significant new external influence in-store", with word of mouth and advice from the shopper's own circle increasingly present at the very moment of making the purchase decision.

Globally, men (39%) and women (40%) were almost equally likely to use their mobile phones inside a store to contact a friend or family member for advice.

Young adults again led the way here, with 48% of 20-29 year olds doing so on regularly, closely followed by teenagers (47%) and then 30-39 year olds (50%).

Looking at individual countries, shoppers in Mexico (55%), Poland (53%) and Turkey (52%) were most likely to exhibit his behavior, while those in Japan (16%), Indonesia (21%) and Germany (24%) were least likely to.

Data sourced from PR Newswire; additional content by Warc staff

Shoppers Bringing Online Competition Inside Bricks-and-mortar Stores

NUREMBERG, Germany, February 23, 2015 /


• Four in ten shoppers worldwide are using their mobile phones while shopping inside a store to compare prices

• Four in ten are contacting friends or family for advice

• Over a third take pictures of products they might buy

Online shoppers are famous for having instant access to price comparisons at the very moment of making a purchase - but now 'bricks and mortar' shoppers are bringing this behavior in-store.

GfK asked mobile phone users in 23 countries what activities they regularly do on their mobile phones while they are inside a store. The leading behaviors are comparing prices and contacting a friend or family member for advice (at 40 percent each), followed by taking pictures of products that they might buy (at 36 percent).

Half of global shoppers, aged 20-29, compare prices online, while inside a store

Globally, men outweigh women on using their mobile phone inside a store to compare prices on a regular basis, standing at 42 percent and 37 percent respectively. The most active age group is shoppers aged 20-29, with nearly half (49 percent) saying they regularly do this, followed by those aged 15-19 and 30-39, both at 45 percent.

Adrian Hobbs, Managing Director of Online Pricing Intelligence at GfK, comments, "With significant numbers of shoppers being online whilst they are inside shops, bricks-and-mortar outlets need to respond. Having a close and real-time eye on the pricing of online competitors and reacting quickly are now key success factors for physical retailers, as well as online ones. This is especially true for retailers in regions such as Asia and South America, as consumers here are most active in using their mobiles while in a store."

Looking at individual countries, shoppers in South Korea, China and Turkey are the most likely to compare prices in-store on their mobile phones, with 59, 54 and 53 percent respectively saying they regularly do this. Shoppers in Ukraine, South Africa and India are least likely to participate in this activity, standing at just 11, 15 and 17 percent respectively.

Contacting friends or family for advice is equally important to men and women

Globally, men and women are almost equally likely to use their mobile phones inside a store to contact a friend or family member for advice (40 percent of women and 39 percent of men say they regularly do this). Young adults aged 20-29 lead on this particular activity at 48 percent, while teens aged 15-19 follow closely (47 percent) and those aged 30-39 trail at 40 percent.

This shows that word of mouth and advice from the shopper's own circle is now present right at the very moment of making the purchase decision inside a store. Sales staff and the physical shopping experience face a significant new external influence in-store.

Looking at individual countries, shoppers in Mexico, Poland and Turkey are the most likely to use their mobile phones to contact a friend or family for advice while in a store, with 55, 53 and 52 percent respectively saying that they regularly do this. By comparison, shoppers in Japan, Indonesia and Germany are the least likely to do so, with just 16, 21 and 24 percent respectively.

Men and women are equal in taking pictures of products for later purchase decisions


Taking photographs of actual products that they might buy is the third most popular activity that shoppers use their mobiles for while they are inside a store. Globally, men and women stand equal on this activity, with over a third (36 percent) of each routinely taking photos of products while shopping. Globally, teens (aged 15-19) and young adults (aged 20-29) are ahead of the curve on snapping photos inside a store (44 percent and 43 percent respectively), while the 30-39 year old shoppers follow at 39 percent.

Looking at individual countries, shoppers in Mexico (49 percent), China (49 percent) and Turkey (47 percent) are again the most likely to use their mobile phones whilst in a store - this time to take pictures of products that they might buy. By comparison, this activity is still nascent in markets such as India (12 percent), Ukraine (13 percent) and Indonesia (16 percent) - but this trend needs to be watched closely, as smartphone penetration increases in these markets.

View our infographics:

What shoppers do via mobile while inside a store: http://www.gfk.com/PublishingImages/Press/GfK-Infographic-Mobile-in-Retail-Total.jpg

By country, comparing prices via mobile while inside a store: http://www.gfk.com/PublishingImages/Press/GfK-Infographic-Mobile-Compare-Prices-Countries.jpg

About the study

For the survey, GfK interviewed more than 25,000 mobile phone users aged 15 or older in 23 countries either online or face-to-face in summer 2014. The countries included are Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy,Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, UK, Ukraine and USA.


A new tool aims to discover what the subconscious mind is really thinking when people post on Twitter

February 20, 2015

Apparently Jeremy Clarkson has something to hide. Source: Supplied

A TOOL has been created to analyse the hidden personality traits of frequent Twitter users.

The first psychoanalysis of the microblogging site aims to discover what the subconscious mind is really thinking when posts are made.

The tool, created by television psychotherapist Dr Sandra Scott and wine brand Apothic, analyses a user’s most recent 3500 tweets before determining how much of a dark side they might have.

According to a study using the tool, the majority of the nation’s Twitter users (72 per cent) have a dark side — with “passionate” being the most common personality trait, followed by “materialistic” and “egoist”.

“Most of us have some aspect of ourselves which we are not fully aware of, a sort of ‘hidden persona’,” said Dr Scott, who has advised on the likes of I’m a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! and Big Brother in the UK.

“It is interesting to see how we can unconsciously reveal this part of ourselves through the use of social media.

“It’s worth noting that just because we are not fully aware of this aspect of ourselves does not necessarily mean that it is something to shy away from.


“Our ‘hidden personas’ can sometimes make us appreciate ourselves more and reveal qualities that we like.”

She said even outspoken celebrities had something to hide.

“When you consider celebrities, prolific tweeters such as Jeremy Clarkson and Katie Hopkins, they, like all of us, are human beings,” she said.

“I think it is fair enough to say that all of us have a hidden side, we have an aspect of ourselves we are not conscious of.

“Celebrities, maybe more than most, have to be quite conscious about the image they are presenting on Twitter.

“Nonetheless, just like the rest of us, they will be revealing with every word something else they just don’t want to come out.”

Twitter users can analyse their tweets by using the algorithm tool.

Facebook Launches Dynamic Product Ads for Data-Minded Retailers

Merchants like Target can upload catalogs and then zero in on consumers By Garett Sloane

February 17, 2015,

The social network is going after Google with product ads.

Facebook is giving Target and other retailers a new way to market to its 1.4 billion users. It's called product ads—yet another ad format that Facebook says sets it apart from rivals like Google because it can harness the social network's popularity and behavioral and location data on consumers.

The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company announced the marketing offering today, calling product ads "a solution designed to help businesses promote multiple products, or their entire catalogs, across all the devices their customers use: phones, tablets and desktop computers."


Shutterfly uses Facebook product ads.

Businesses will be able to upload their product catalogs and let Facebookgenerate ads for items while targeting them to users. These product ads could rival Google's shopping ads, which haveevidently performed well for retailers in search.

In a blog post, Facebook explained further: "Advertisers can curate ads as they see fit. For instance, they can highlight products that were viewed on their website/mobile app or showcase best-selling products. Or they can create a multi-product ad that highlights the different benefits of a single product."

Like Google, Facebook's system will also recognize when products are out of stock and stop advertising them.


Target and Shutterfly are among the first merchants testing Facebook product ads.

The road of data-driven marketing is bumpy. For all the promise, there’s also a lot of resistance. Many marketers are being dragged kicking and screaming into a world very different than where they started their careers.

I’ve drawn a few cartoons on the tension between the Math Men and the Mad Men. Ultimately marketing will require both. But we’re in an awkward adolescent period of data-driven marketing. Much of marketing today is either mindlessly data-driven or hopelessly data-resistant.

This time of change creates tremendous opportunity for marketers willing to embrace the potential of big data beyond the hype. There has never been a better time to work in marketing. But the role will continue to evolve.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on navigating the road of data-driven marketing.

(Marketoonist Monday: I’m giving away a signed cartoon print. Just share an insightful comment to this week’s post by 5:00 PST on Monday. Thanks!)

PREVIOUS: more with less

1. Rohit Singh

February 9, 2015 at 5:42 am

Hi,

Personally I dont think there is an inherent dislike for data analytics and its application to Marketing. I think the term that we are looking for is confusion. There is suddenly talk of data from all quarters, bound to get on some nerves. But more importantly, there is this confusion around how to use the Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

http://tomfishburne.com.s3.amazonaws.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/150209.datastages.jpg

data available to market better (simply put). There is also some amount of discomfort because more often than not different sets of data exists within an organization – sales, backend, marketing – and one does not know which one to capitalize on and how. The analytics systems and marketing automation applications are not meant to deal with this issue and a custom solution is just too heavy on the pocket not to mention a drain on resources to maintain. The approach needs to be what we used when we were designing questionnaires for Market Research – you need to first know what data you want and then you need to figure the analytics you would want out of that data. This tells you what to store and what to use. It is a much bigger problem to solve but a top down approach is what seems to be a logical way to this.

2. Wes Royer


The ability to analyze data and increased math/technical skills are not just becoming the norm for marketing professionals, but for most jobs in and out of an office-space going forward. Technology and consumer instant gratification have driven us to this need and will continue to do so. But the Acceptance stage of this cartoon is what worries me the most, especially because it’s so true. Just like in politics and the news media, among other daily things, how do you prevent marketers from looking at only the data they care about and finding only the trends they personally agree with? That will be a hard lesson.

3. Cathy Cooper


I love how you framed this dynamic as the stages of grief. Thank you. as a marketer who started as a marketing analyst, I find it both fascinating and frustrating that this divide continues. Conversations about the art & science of marketing have been heated for many years now — longer than the hype about Big Data. I look forward to when we can move past dichotomy into partnership.

4. Chris Fuentes


I once gave a speech on how CMO’s should learn to love your CFO. Nothing is more fun than watching a CFO sell ROI, marketshare and marketing strategy to the board, so they think marketing is under control. Especially when the only marketing metric most board members know is usually the number of Facebook likes a brand has. Over the years, I’ve found that the best combo is a marketing centric-data driven CMO working in partnership with a Marketing centric-financially minded CFO. It tends to make the CEO and the board want to invest in marketing … and that’s usually what CMO’s love to do.

5. Judy Bernstein


What a poignant and hilarious depiction of how twenty first century capabilities are making many of us reluctantly re-visit some of the thinking styles we thought we broke-up with in college.

6. Kathryn Ross



The biggest rewards are often reaped outside the comfort zone of data. The best innovators and strategists are the ones who use data to effectively assess the markets, analyze the risk and measure results; however, do not abdicate the launching of a new market path to the safety of the data. I like the 75-80% measurement of reward vs. risk. 100% reward seldom leads to exceptionalism.

My admiration to the individuals willing to embrace the data yet own the accountability of the associated risks vs. hiding behind or deferring ownership to the data.

7. John Miglautsch (@JRMigs)


You could draw the same sort of cartoon from the data side. Marketing people are opportunity thinkers, they drive the proceedural opperations people nuts. For every interesting data element, there are two new unanswered questions.

8. Betsy Graham


Marketing has always been about figuring out “what works” and then expanding upon it. And good marketers have always looked for ways to quantify their impact on Sales (how else to justify our budgets to our number-centric friends in the finance dept?). So it’s always been data-driven, there just wasn’t as much data and it was much harder to collect and analyze. CRMs and marketing automation systems were a huge leap forward, and now predictive analytics solutions can help us move beyond best guesses by providing incredible insights into both our Big Data and small that we’d never otherwise find. They can help us see what *really* works, make smarter decisions, and continue to change the perception of Marketing as a cost center, to that of a revenue center.

9. Chris Neumann


Why are these cartoons always oriented around data and creative marketing ideas being mutually exclusive? Why not let the super creative folks come up with their most creative stuff, and then see how it does by using the data to measure results and either kill it quickly if it’s not working, or crank it up if it is? A further benefit to the super creative people is that they can try *anything* and call it an “experiment”. In this way, it is less likely to get watered down by various people involved in the process. I firmly believe that being data-driven can hugely *help* companies take more risk and be more creative in their marketing by reducing the risk of something failing.

10. Will Salcido (@bedrockanalytic)


This can be very true, depending on the organization. I led category management at a CPG before moving into marketing as brand manager over the company’s largest brand. It was very different. Whereas in the analytics department we used data to find the best version of the truth, in marketing the analysis of data came too late in the process which meant it was often too difficult to change course. Finding and understanding insights from CPG data was a challenge for most people since


many organizations don’t train their employees or provide the proper tools for end-users/decision makers to analyze. I left the CPG industry to create software that makes it easy to analyze retail data for this specific industry. Know more. Guess less.

11. Nick Salyers


Data driven-marketing is obviously the future (and present) of marketing, and I think what you have captured so creatively is that we have trouble coming to terms with it. The best popular example I know of to explain the importance of data-driven decision making is the movie Moneyball. It talks about how our perceptions are biased for a number of different reasons and statistics has the ability to cut through those biases. As marketers that is what we need. The ability to cut through our biases and pursue the best decisions. There is certainly something to be said about the art of marketing, but I think that the great marketers will learn to skillfully produce marketing masterpieces, using data driven decisions as a medium.

12. PH

February 9, 2015 at 2:01 pm

Data -> Analysis -> Proposal -> Implementation.

The sequence above is the bedrock of almost any living process. Data (or knowledge of some sort) is necessarily the starting point. If you are presented with data that lacks relevance, then you will lose faith in data-driven marketing that utilizes it. So, you end up with the guy that works the system backwards, and only accepts the data that supports the proposal that he wants.

[* I do not recall who originated the sequence, so I cannot give them credit]

13. Joanna Rustin @joanna_rustin


Thanks for your immense creativity and inspiration for self-reflection. These 5 stages are a pretty accurate roadmap for my therapy sessions.

14. Adam Fraser

February 11, 2015 at 3:54 pm

Hi Tom, love this cartoon. As ever there is no black and white here but shades of grey. Data is becoming more easily accessible in ever greater quantities as the world goes digital but it’s important to not get so buried in the data you stop seeing the wood for the trees. Data is one key aspect of modern day marketing (at various stages of the business process) – but Human IP, creativity, asking the right questions and drawing the correct insights are aspects which still matter. A robot/black box cant take over just yet…

IPG Will Remain Out Of The Inventory Resale Business

by Steve McClellan, February 13, 2015,


He didn’t use the words conflict of interest in response to a question about the practice of holding companies and their agencies buying up and reselling inventory, particularly in the programmatic buying sphere.

Rather, Interpublic CEO Michael Roth said the company isn’t a re-seller in the programmatic space because it is “inconsistent with our model” of advising clients on the best way to allocate their spending budgets across different media channels. Helping clients allocate their budgets is a key part of all the holding company offerings. Roth’s implication: It’s hard to be “agnostic” about such advice when you have skin in the game. In other words, it's a conflict.

Roth didn’t cite by name competitors that are in the inventory resale business but WPP and Omnicom have acknowledged engaging in the practice with the blessing of clients.

The fact that some clients are taking programmatic in house, Roth added—in response to a question he was asked on the company’s Friday conference call to discuss earnings with analysts—is because “they don’t trust the pricing” process of holding companies that do it because that process is not fully transparent.

“Our clients view us as partners,” and advisors, Roth said, adding, “There is no risk of us selling them” inventory.

Roth also said he didn’t believe the profit margin on the resale of inventory was significantly higher than other agency/holding company offerings and are likely to shrink over time.

The one exception, said Roth, is the company’s corporate trading practice, Orion, where re-selling purchased inventory is the accepted norm throughout the industry.

There was little discussion on the analyst call of the recent changes to the company’s board of directors –changes that came in consultation with activist investor Elliott Management, which had threatened a proxy fight at this year’s annual meeting. As a result of the board changes, and the creation of a new Finance Committee that will focus on steps to improve profit margins, Elliott agreed to put off any potential proxy battle for a year.

Roth did say he thought the new board members were “very capable.” He added that while the new Finance Committee is not dissimilar from the firm’s audit committee, that additional focus on improving margins was welcome.

Separately, Roth characterized IPG’s latest earnings results as “strong for both the fourth quarter and full year… I believe it’s fair to say that the quality of our offerings is at its highest level in at least a decade.”

Among the company’s financial highlights, organic revenue growth was 4.8% in the quarter, 5.5% for the full year.

By comparison, Omnicom -- reporting earlier this week -- said it posted 5.7% organic growth for the full year and 5.9% for the fourth quarter. And Publicis, reporting Thursday, said it had 2% growth for the full year and 3.2% Q4 organic growth. Havas meanwhile, also reporting Thursday said its organic growth for the year reached 5.1% while fourth quarter growth was 3.5%.

WPP and comScore Partner for Cross-Platform Measurement

JACK MARSHALL


Measurement firm comScore announced a strategic partnership with WPP WPPGY -0.26%-owned Kantar on Thursday, a tie-up intended to improve the companies’ cross-platform audience and ad campaign measurement capabilities in non-U.S. markets.

As part of the deal, WPP will take an equity stake in comScore of between 15-20%.

According to comScore Chief Executive Serge Matta, the deal is intended to combine comScore’s strength in online measurement with Kantar’s TV assets in markets such as those across Europe. He described “a massive global opportunity waiting to be unlocked by cracking the code on cross-media audience and campaign measurement.”

The partnership will have little consequence in the U.S., however, where Kantar’s TV measurement capabilities are limited.

Despite WPP taking an equity stake in the company, Mr. Matta insisted comScore will remain entirely independent. WPP will not have a board seat, and will not have any rights that other investors do not.

“It was very important for us to remain independent, which is why this took over a year to negotiate. We stuck to our guns, we fought hard on the independence piece.” Mr. Matta said.

According to WPP, the agreement continues its strategy of strengthening its capabilities in digital and data investment management businesses. WPP’s digital revenues were over $6 billion in 2013, amounting to approximately 35% of the group’s total revenues of $17.3 billion, the company said. WPP has set a target of deriving 40% to 45% of revenue from digital in the next five years.

Last year WPP also took a 16.7% stake in TV measurement firm Rentrak. According to Mr. Matta, comScore and Rentrak are currently in partnership discussions also.

“This has been spearheaded by (WPP CEO) Martin Sorrell. This is about WPP’s vision of putting data and digital at the heart of everything,” he said.

Heineken joins list of brands demanding independent ad tech solutions

John McDermott | February 5, 2015

Months after losing business to Google, TubeMogul has bounced back: Beer brand Heineken announced on Tuesday that it would allocate 10 percent of its 2015 ad budget to programmatic and that TubeMogul would be its exclusive provider of video ad-buying software.

It’s a notable win for TubeMogul, which lost a large portion of Mondelēz’s business to Google last fall, and makes Heineken the latest brand to advocate for independent ad tech solutions as opposed to those offered by media sellers.

That is, Heineken and others believe it’s unwise to use a company’s ad tech products when purchasing that company’s ad inventory.

“There’s enough evidence to suggest that [these companies] are leveraging the pipes — whether that’s the platform or the marketplace — to actually manipulate their revenue,” Heineken’s senior media director Ron Amram told Digiday. “It’s a conflict of interest even if there’s no malice or manipulation, and I don’t want to put [a company] in a situation where I don’t trust [it].”


Amram’s comments relate to the concern that certain companies, namely Google, are using their ad tech software to pressure brands into buying their inventory. Demand-side buying platforms (DSPs) such as TubeMogul are used to execute transactions across multiple ad exchanges simultaneously and in real time, helping the brand buy ad inventory as efficiently as possible. Using a DSP provided by a company that also sells media — such as Google’s DoubleClick Bid Manager DSP and its YouTube video inventory — raises concerns that the company’s DSP will be used to funnel more spend to its media properties instead of treating all inventory objectively.

This “double-dipping” was a particular concern for Amram when assessing potential video DSP vendors, and part of the reason why he chose TubeMogul over competing solutions, he said.

“With Google, essentially, it didn’t meet the criteria of being independent,” Amram said. “YouTube is an important partner and platform for us. This is not replacing YouTube, but keeping YouTube in mind.”

Heineken’s deal with TubeMogul does not mean it will stop buying inventory from YouTube or any video publisher for that matter. It does mean that all video ad buys will be conducted through TubeMogul’s software, though.

The benefit of using a media company’s ad tech when purchasing that company’s inventory is simplicity, Amram acknowledged. But the ease of use must be weighed against concerns about objectivity.

Amram is not alone in wanting unbiased ad tech vendors. Jon Suarez-Davis, Kellogg’s vp of global media and digital strategy, expressed a similar concern in regards to Google’s decision to stop letting third-party data-management platforms operate on its ad network.

It’s an encouraging sign for third-party ad tech supplies that don’t sell any media and thus can’t use access to media as a bargaining chip when negotiating with brands.

Last fall, Google pressured snack brand Mondelēz to drop TubeMogul in favor of its own DSP, DoubleClick Bid Manager, and used YouTube as leverage.

“From Ron’s comments, we can infer that TubeMogul is gaining the benefit of some of last year’s consolidation in video,” former Googler Ari Paparo told Digiday.

“With Adapt.TV, BrightRoll and LiveRail all getting acquired by major media companies and YouTube’s inventory getting preferential treatment by DoubleClick, there’s a real need for independent buying platforms,” Paparo added, referring to ad tech companies that have were acquired by AOL, Yahoo and Facebook, respectively.

And in this respect, concerns about objectivity are industry-wide and not limited to just Google. AOL, Facebook and Yahoo are some of the largest ad sellers on the Web and have all made significant investments in ad tech in recent years. Whether their position as an ad seller comprises the objectivity of their ad tech is the concern.

“There is a line of thinking — and I don’t necessarily subscribe to this — that if you own a platform and the own/operate media properties, you can’t be as agnostic in terms of serving the client as a pure platform,” according to Eric Franchi, co-founder at ad tech company Undertone.

Homepage image courtesy Getty Images


Correction: In an earlier version of this story, Ari Paparo mentioned LiveRamp being acquired by data analytics firm Acxiom. He misspoke. He meant to reference LiveRail, a video ad tech company that was acquired by Facebook.

Google’s impending data platform restrictions raise concerns

John McDermott | January 19, 2015

Google is planning to prohibit data-management platforms (DMPs) from operating on its widely distributed ad network, raising concerns from some marketers and agencies that it is constricting which ad tech tools they can use.

At the end of March, Google will start enforcing a pre-existing policy that will prohibit certain DMPs from firing tracking pixels on Google Display Network unless those DMPs also own the demand-side platform (DSP) executing the transaction.

Google’s ad network is the market leader, accounting for 16 percent of the market, according to market research firm LeadLedger.

Google pointed to previous comments in which it described the move as a way of preventing data leakage, which hurts the publishers in its ad network. Data leakage occurs when a third party — in this case, a DMP — collects information on a website’s users and subsequently advertises to those same users on different sites. When data leakage occurs, the value of a website’s audience data diminishes. Having a large number of pixels fired on the same webpage can also slow down users’ Web browsers.

This rule could have significant effects on the entire ad tech industry. Hybrid demand-side platform/data-management platforms such as Turn would not be affected. But standalone DMPs, such Krux and Oracle Data Cloud (formerly BlueKai), would be put at a disadvantage because it would make campaign analytics and frequency capping harder. It would also hurt an advertiser’s ability to retarget users on other networks from data gleaned via campaigns run on the Google ad network. (The change, first announced last October, was originally scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, but in mid-December, Google extended the deadline to the end of March.)

Complicating the situation is Google’s unusual role in the ad tech system since it offers a competing DSP in Google Bid Manager. Naturally, competitors are crying foul.

“Sadly, Google’s new policy forces marketers to fly blindly by stripping them of the instrumentation they need to manage and meter their messages. In fundamental terms, the policy subverts Google’s espoused objective to bring an end to marketing without accountability,” Tom Chavez, CEO of DMP company Krux, wrote in a November op-ed in ad tech trade publication AdExchanger. “Without DMP pixels, marketers must revert back to carpet-bombing users.”

The move has triggered consternation not just with vendors but with some agency executives and marketers, who fear being constrained in their choices of vendors. And executives familiar with the decision said that the impending change is both a means for Google to shift brands and agencies to Google’s own DSP and data products from competing solutions, and a defensive measure against Facebook, which has made significant ad tech developments over the past two years.

“If our partners are not allowing us to track our audience across channels, then it creates an inefficiency in buying, and we don’t know if we’re buying the same audience twice,” said Oleg Korenfeld, svp of advertising technology and platforms at media agency MediaVest. “Google would Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

like as much of the buying processing to go through them, and buying is not about media now, it’s about data.”

Megan Tweed, Razorfish’s vp of media, noted Google has a history of limiting third parties from accessing its ad tech products in order to have brands and agencies use all of its ad tech products. Razorfish used to work closely with Teracent, an ad tech company that allowed brands and agencies to serve display ads customized to specific consumers. Teracent was integrated into some of Razorfish’s software, and there were plans for Teracent to create more customized features for Razorfish in the future.

But those plans were scrapped after Google bought Teracent in November 2009. Google only prioritized working with clients that were consolidating on its suite of ad tech products, she said. Razorfish, which was using Atlas as its ad server at the time, and was therefore not included in those plans.

“The idea is you create difficulties, then you create a solution,” Tweed said of Google prohibiting DMPs. And that solution is to use Google at every stage of the digital ad buying and measurement process, she said.

Having a media seller measure the effectiveness of its own media invokes objectivity issues, however. Instead of having to use Google technology to judge the effectiveness of Google-sold ads, brands should be able employ impartial third parties, said Jon Suarez-Davis, vp of global media and digital strategy at Kellogg.

Kellogg doesn’t use Adometry, an ad attribution company Google acquired last May, because it isn’t an unbiased party, he said. Kellogg also doesn’t buy YouTube — the largest video platform on the Web — because it does not allow third parties to measure the effectiveness of ads there. Google’s limitations on third-party data providers are a means for it to sell brands on using Google’s trove of first-party data, he added.

“It’s darn well concerning,” Suarez-Davis said of Google restricting DMPs. “You have to balance the efficiency that you can get from having a consolidated stack with the need for independent, unbiased measurement and performance.”

Both Suarez-Davis and Tweed both speculated that Google is building a DMP solution of its own.

“We are working on data management capabilities as part of our advertiser offering (and are subject to the same policies as our partners),” Google spokeswoman Andrea Faville said in a statement.

The move comes as Google girds for more competition in ad tech from Facebook, which has revived Atlas as a rival ad server. Some industry executives expect Atlas will soon have both DSP and DMP functionality. Atlas is certified to fire pixels on Google Display Network.

“It’s hard for me to see a world where marketers unify their customer and audience data on Facebook, but laying that aside, it’s even harder to imagine Google allowing Facebook to drop a pixel on their media,” Chavez told Digiday. “How does Google incent marketers and agencies to buy its media while staving off encroachment from Facebook? Navigating that tension is likely to be one of the most delicate dances Google has had to do since its founding.”

i Multiscreen • a month ago


"How does Google incent marketers and agencies to buy its media while staving off encroachment from Facebook?" asks Tom Chavez.

Who says Facebook and Google are rivals? Facebook and Google work hand in hand.

"Starting soon in the US, we will also include information from some of

the websites and apps you use," according to Facebook's June 12th, 2014 announcement:

Making Ads Better and Giving People More Control Over the Ads They See

http://newsroom.fb.com/news/20...

"Atlas is certified to fire pixels on Google Display Network," according to John McDermott.

Facebook's detailed information on its mobile users combined with the breadth of Google's web data will make the conglomerate's power unrivaled! This is a matter for securities investigation, as the average investor believes the two are competitors, not working hand-in-hand. They keep it discreet, but they have advance knowledge of products and services in development between the two, that may be labeled, "insider."

i Multiscreen i Multiscreen • a month ago

Here is a link about Facebook from 2011 - it's been going on for years!

Facebook has hired outsourcer Direct Alliance Corporation of Tempe AZ to put together a Phoenix-based ad sales team

http://aimgroup.com/2011/09/28...

Just don't say, Facebook and Google are competitors. Facebook's outbound sales calling center is the same as Google, and its managers are privy to the day-to-day numbers and the climate of its successes.

i Multiscreen i Multiscreen • a month ago

They do this through a subsidiary with reps from both companies. Revana

Why am I being contacted by Infinity Contact or Revana?

https://support.google.com/adw...

Infinity Contact and Revana work with Google AdWords to help establish initial online advertising campaigns and provide customers with related support and services.

While Google has many valued partners and resellers of Google AdWords

in the U.S. and Canada, Infinity Contact and Revana are organizations

working on behalf of Google to help new advertisers start and optimize

their campaigns.


Always be careful about checking the identity of people claiming to

be operating on behalf of Google. The simplest way to do this is to ask

them to send you an email to verify their credentials - Google

representatives, like those at Infinity Contact and Revana, will always

have an @google.com email address."

SMG Strikes Deal To Integrate 'Granular' Set-Top Data Into TV Planning/Buying System

by Joe Mandese, Yesterday,

Publicis’ Starcom MediaVest Group this morning will announce a deal with digital TV set-top data firm FourthWall Media that will enable the agency and its client to target TV users by matching their anonymized purchase data with the TV shows they watch.

The data will be processed through Big Data platform Acxiom in a way that ensures that consumer information remains anonymous and privacy compliant. SMG has a long-term agreement with Acxiom to utilize its Audience Operating System for integrating a variety of consumer data sets across various digital media, so the integration with TV audience data builds on that.

The companies described the data as “anonymous, non-aggregated granular viewership data from millions of set-top boxes,” and said it builds on a long history of developments by SMG to leverage non-traditional sources of TV audience information to plan and buy TV better.

Like those other developments, the FourthWall data will be integrated into SMG’s proprietary planning and buying system, TARDIIS.

New marketing models emerge

6 February 2015

LONDON: The time is ripe for a generational change with regard to marketing mix models which will "vastly increase" marketing effectiveness according to two industry figures.

Writing in the current issue of Admap, Alice K. Sylvester and Jim Spaeth, partners in media metrics consultancy Sequent Partners, noted five areas where they saw opportunities for modeling to move forward.

Ever more complex econometric models have enhanced marketers' view of the natural flow of consumers' multi-platform behaviour, they said, but, ultimately, multi-touch attribution promised an understanding of marketing and creative efficiency alongside that behaviour.

All this relies on data, however, and the authors suggested there are "immense opportunities for improved data inputs to the models".

In particular, they want to see highly granular data from all touchpoints. "Increasing the granularity and variability of media inputs can increase the estimate of a medium's RoI by as much as 27%," they reported.


They also highlighted the "shocking oversight" when it comes to measuring creativity, with some observers claiming that 70% of the sales effectiveness of advertising can be attributed to the creative message.

Acknowledging that this is a difficult area, they argued that more direct integration of copy tests into marketing mix models would move the industry on from determining which ads worked to understanding why they worked.

Another failing of current models is that they often reduce marketing decisions to shuffling money around the brand's tried and true tactics, when they could instead be guiding marketers to not simply allocate funds but to recognise new opportunities.

It's about effectiveness rather than efficiency. "We need marketing models that help marketers and media planners make the important decisions they face every day," they said, "models that help improve the RoIs of the past, not force marketers to live with them."

There is also more to be done in the field of understanding the sources of brand value and how to maximise them. The simplistic equation that says the long-term effects of advertising are twice the short-term needs to be overhauled.

At its simplest, Sylvester and Spaeth see the new generation of marketing models guiding marketers to improve their RoIs with consumer-based insights to inspire their creativity.

But, they add, "there is a lot of work to be done before the pieces are assembled for Big Data to replace scanner data".

Rising angst over airbnb operations

February 06, 2015 10:00PM

Staying airbnb ... the Sydney Swans will stay at airbnb properties under their new sponsorship agreement. The team’s best and fairest winner for 2014, Luke Parker, pictured. Picture: Phil Hillyard Source: News Corp Australia

AUSTRALIAN tourism operators are seeking government intervention to halt the rise of airbnb down under and force the company to abide by the same laws as the rest of the industry.

The San Francisco-based website that allows people to rent out rooms and other properties to travellers currently has about 30,000 listings across Australia and over a million worldwide.

Tourism Accommodation Australia and the Australian Hotels Association this week lodged documents with the New South Wales Government highlighting concerns with airbnb, at the same time as the company signed a new partnership with the Sydney Swans.

Under the deal, the Swans will stay in airbnb properties when they travel to AFL games around the country.


The growing popularity of airbnb in New York has triggered rallies from tourism operators competing with short term online holiday rentals. Pic: AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews Source: AP

Acting CEO of Tourism Accommodation Australia Carol Giuseppi said they were concerned airbnb was an unregulated accommodation provider that supported neither jobs nor taxes.

“The government should not pick winners and losers in the marketplace,” said Ms Giuseppi.

“Ensuring short-term online rental companies adhere to the same city, state and federal regulations as hoteliers is absolutely crucial if there is to be a level playing field within the accommodation sector.”

She said airbnb operators were unlikely to be paying GST on rooms, and there were no consumer protection measures in place.

“Under the Australian Building Code requirements, there is a significant investment made by accommodation providers to ensure that they meet the safety and accessibility standards,” Ms Giuseppi said.

“Most of the airbnb options have very few, if any, public safety measures in place for guests that traditional accommodation has.”

Other jurisdictions have already addressed the airbnb quandary with changes to laws, or in the case of New York City, a series of lawsuits against “illegal” operators.


Clampdown ... opponents of Airbnb hold signs that reads ‘My home Is Not A Hotel,’ during a hearing at City Hall in New York. Picture: AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews Source: AP

Grace Lawyers property law specialist Peter Ton said local governments had immediate responsibility to enforce building codes but many had put the issue of airbnb in the “too hard basket”.

“It costs a lot of money to pursue prosecutions and to be frank there isn’t any direct legislation that applies here; there is a vacuum in the regulation of airbnb,” said Mr Ton.

The gaps in the law had even led to some apartment building managers taking matters into their own hands, by issuing security cards to tenants, and locking them out after 10pm.

“(Airbnb rentals) are causing a conflict between apartment owners who didn’t buy into the building thinking they’d have a hotel room operating next door,” Mr Ton said.


Home stay ... a Brisbane unit being rented on airbnb for $1000 a week. Picture: Russell Brown News Corp Australia Source: News Corp Australia

“Because there isn’t clear regulation, people are taking things into their own hands a bit.”

An airbnb spokesman said they encouraged hosts to familiarise themselves with locally set regulations which could be confusing.

“We’re working with policy makers around the world on clear, progressive and fair laws that allow for home sharing,” he said.

“The majority of our listings are outside the main hotel areas, so airbnb allows guests to stay in traditionally less visited suburbs, support local businesses there and provide an important boost to the local economy.”

6 Things They Don't Tell You When You Leave the Big Corporate World for Your Own Business

JANUARY 30, 2015

After working in the glossy world of corporate life, a business professional who goes it alone might at first find the change a shock.

Here are a few of the things nobody thinks to mention until you’ve already set up shop.

Related: 4 Things Entrepreneurs Should Think About That May Not Be in the Business Plan

1. Being an entrepreneur is lonely.

Because the company is a startup, there’s no HR division, accounts department or administration team. So it's just you, the company founder, overseeing all these administrative tasks.Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

And when you’re out on the road meeting potential clients, nothing gets done because you’re not there to do it.

With several key departments missing from your workforce, outsource some of these tasks. These contractors will need to be fully briefed to work to your specifications. That saps time but, without the manpower to get things accomplished in-house, you have no choice.

If you need someone to brainstorm with, find a business partner or hire your first team member.

2. Talent doesn’t queue up.

As passionate as you may be about your enterprise, the person you might try to hire may not be. Top people rarely want to join a company they don’t know for less pay, fewer benefits -- and less certainty.

You need to market yourself and your brand. Share your vision and woo potential employees so that they will see the positives of a startup: more responsibility, the opportunity to learn new skills and possibly an equity share.

Once you have an employee on board, keep that person.

It’s crucial for the team to bond, otherwise discontented employees will quit.

Related: 7 Tips for an Investment Pitch That Excites and Inspires

3. Even in a buoyant market, investors are hard to find.

You might think you’ll be tripping over angel investors or venture capitalists who want to buy into your business. But finding the right investor for your needs may be tricky.

Before you start raising capital, ask yourself some hard questions: What's the true value of my business? What share should I give away? What terms will be fair?

Consider what else you need from an investor. Some come with a wealth of experience that a startup founder can tap into and can offer a mentoring relationship as well as cash.

4. Convincing customers to buy your product is hard.

Marketing a new venture is no walk in the park. You want clients to buy into your business. But they don’t know your brand, so you have to work extra hard.

You’ll find yourself talking to the guy at the bottom of the chain of command at some organizations and it can be like walking through a minefield trying to figure out which discount to offer to get your foot in the door.

Gaining recognition for your brand requires persistence. You also need patience: Deals take much longer to close than you might initially realize. Resilience is necessary for bouncing back if you lose a client.

But that's just a small setback. So get up and get back out there selling.

5. Cash is king.


A healthy cash flow is key for a startup and success at securing financing from a bank is far from guaranteed. This means getting paid is crucial but customers don’t always respond to bills on time.

It may be tempting to threaten to cut relations with a nonpaying customer, but is it the right move? Will this burn a relationship that you took so much time to build?

Set automated reminders to help you remember to gently chase after payments owed. Sometimes customers just have so many other bills that yours -- from a small player -- ended up at the bottom of the pile.

6. There’s a big personal toll.

While entrepreneurs go it alone because they’re passionate about their business, they must consider the costs to their personal life.

There’s no such thing as a 9-to-5 schedule for the company founder and no holiday when he or she can take a complete break from work. Unless you have a business partner to share the workload, you cannot just hand over the reins and head out the door.

And when it comes to maternity leave, forget it. When my second child was born this past summer, I took one week off. This is where having a co-founder or # 2 becomes so valuable.

Two Big Questions About Video in Social Media (and Some Answers)

All of this activity raises two questions: Will video advertising in social media help shift TV budgets toward digital? And how do social platforms complicate the ad viewability debate? What happens in the coming year will help answer those questions.

Will Video Help Social Media Grab TV Budgets?

For almost as long as social media advertising has been in existence, the industry has speculated about whether properties like Facebook could tap into ad dollars earmarked for TV.

So far, traditional TV hasn’t been hurt. As social media advertising and digital video advertising spending has grown, so has spending on broadcast and cable TV. eMarketer forecasts that TV ad spending will reach $70.59 billion in 2015, up 3.0% from 2014. Digital video spending will rise to $7.77 billion, a 30.4% increase over 2014.


But with Facebook’s aggressive push into video, and agencies’ willingness to scrape together a media budget for digital video from wherever they can find it, it is possible that marketers will dip more heavily into TV spending to fund video ads in social media.

And when a major agency holding company executive says publicly that his company is encouraging clients to shift spending from TV to digital video, the drumbeat gets louder. Omnicom Group’s Daryl Simm, CEO of media operations, told The Wall Street Journal in October 2014 that the holding company is “counseling our clients to move between 10% to 25% of TV dollars to online video.”

Meanwhile, UM, a division of the IPG agency holding company, inked a two-year, multimillion-dollar deal with Facebook in September 2014, doubling its expenditures there. Facebook’s Premium Video Ads were a key driving factor in the deal, and UM’s head of media, David Cohen, told Advertising Age that most of the budget would come from either TV or online video.

Whether these drips become a stream will become more clear in 2015, when advertisers make their upfront TV buys.

“On the TV side, we’re still not in the right cycle,” said Facebook’s Simo. “Next year is going to be when we will see” whether budgets shift.

“I think what Facebook is doing with their premium video product is a way for them to gain share of upfront video dollars. I expect to see quite a bit of growth around that product next year in the video upfronts,” said Lange, of Starcom.

But video in social media also presents a bucketing challenge, since it doesn’t fit easily into one media vertical. And advertisers may also dip into print and display budgets to fund expenditures.

“I’m not sure it’s banner money going to digital video or television money going towards digital video, or social money going towards digital video, so much as it’s a little bit of all of it,” said Anastas.

Another twist on the budgeting question is that some believe that TV budgets and digital video budgets will come together, with advertisers buying “video” in whatever platform or device makes sense. As O’Hanlon put it, “I think it’s a rare occurrence for any brand or even an agency to put together a unified video effort. That may be the way of the world going forward, but right now it still



seems to be broken out, as opposed to treating video as a holistic asset that can run anyplace video can be served.”

How Do Social Platforms Complicate the Viewability Debate?

Viewability is a major concern across the ad industry; in a December 2014 study of browser-based desktop and mobile display ads (not including video ads), Google found that 56.1% of the ads were not seen.

But the issue doesn’t just impact display ads; it includes video as well. Viewability ranked as the top concern about video quality among US video buyers and sellers surveyed by Adap.tv in August 2014.

And because the social platforms have differing standards for what constitutes a video view, it is creating headaches for marketers and agencies and pitting the platforms against each other.

For example, here is how YouTube, Facebook and Twitter define a view:

YouTube: For TrueView in-stream ads, a view is recorded when viewers watch 30 seconds of the ad, or to completion, if the ad is under 30 seconds. For TrueView in-slate ads (which play before long-form YouTube partner videos over 10 minutes), a view is recorded when viewers choose to watch the ad, which is one of three they need to choose from, or if the viewer sees a video ad mid-roll during the video. For TrueView in-display ads or in-search ads, which run next to video content or search results, respectively, a view is recorded when viewers click on a video ad and begin watching the video.

Facebook: A view is recorded if the ad autoplays for at least 3 seconds before the user scrolls away.

Twitter: A view is recorded when someone clicks to play the ad and the ad starts.

Further complicating the issue, the Media Rating Council (MRC), an industry body, in June released a standard defining a viewable video impression as 2 seconds, with the additional requirement that 50% of the ad’s pixels must be visible on the browser page. However, the MRC also said that if a video ad is clicked, it may “in certain instances, be considered a proxy for viewability.”

The lack of a common standard is worrisome to advertisers and agencies, which need to know when an ad is viewed and how to compare view counts across platforms.

“Facebook and much of the industry define a view as being at least 3 seconds. But YouTube, at least with their TrueView [in-stream] product, only charges advertisers for a view if the entire video is viewed,” said Starcom’s Lange. “Until the industry agrees on a more consistent standard, it’s just going to be important that advertisers are aware of the differences both when they’re planning and negotiating buys as well as interpreting results.”

“One of the big pushes that we have not just at MEC but across all of the GroupM companies is to go to a true viewability standard, and right now the social networks in general are just not there,” said Mallin. “Of course, we’re still buying and we’re still working with them, but the Holy Grail is having a measurement across every platform. This isn’t just an issue for social, it’s an issue across digital.”

Most executives interviewed by eMarketer said they thought Facebook’s 3-second rule was acceptable.


“A lot of advertisers and brands are saying, ‘Three seconds, is that an accurate measurement of whether someone’s actually viewed the video? My personal feeling is that it’s OK,” said Jeff Tan, director of digital strategy and communications planning at Vizeum. “Think about when you’re scrolling through your mobile newsfeed. If you actually stop and pause for 3 seconds to watch a video, even if it is on autoplay, that is generally a long time.”

In Facebook’s opinion, “if you’re just not interested in the video, you’re going to scroll past it in less than 3 seconds,” said Simo. “Given that there is no click, we try to find a proxy for intent, and sitting around for 3 seconds is definitely a strong proxy for that.”

However, Twitter’s Singh, while not specifically calling out any competitors, said his company is backing a stricter standard: “A view should be when there’s some sort of indication from the user that there’s an intention to view. I think there are some parties that are heading that direction, and that’s generally where we’re heading.”

Advertisers may have the final say in this debate; if they gain good results from video ads that play for a few seconds, then they will effectively back that standard by buying more ads on Facebook. However, if the ads do not perform as expected, YouTube and Twitter may be the beneficiaries of more spending.

There is no question that determining engagement is easier with the metrics YouTube and Twitter use. Actively clicking to play an ad signifies a level of interest, while letting an ad play for a few seconds is a more passive indicator.



Big Data Has Big Effect When Shared Companywide

FEBRUARY 3, 2015

Two-thirds of execs say some departments have much better access to data than others

When it comes to maximizing big data, companies need to share the numbers across departments. Unfortunately, that’s not happening, based on October 2014 polling by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

Among executives surveyed worldwide, about two-thirds agreed that some departments in their organizations had much better access to data than others. Around four in 10 said access to relevant data was limited and strictly controlled at their organization or that accessing it wasn’t easy. And while more execs want to create a data-driven business, some had issues with employees gathering data, let alone sending it along to others.

Just over one-quarter of respondents believed that all employees had access to the data they needed—and only 16% said the same but that it was also available in a user-friendly way. The ability to customize data feeds and dashboards with data was allowed by few.



Nearly half of execs whose companies had made more data available agreed that collaboration across business units and departments had increased. Making data more available and usable also helped with speed and efficiency in many areas: 63% said information and knowledge were shared more quickly and freely, 57% were able to control internal risks and operate more efficiently, 45% said quality and speed of execution had improved and 42% said decisions at all levels of the organization were made faster.

One issue that stood out in EIU’s study was employees’ ability to use data. Just 25% of executives agreed that even when data was made available, employees were able to readily extract relevant insights, and an improvement in employee innovation was one of the least common changes due to data availability and utilization. Those who can’t handle data may be at risk: 41% of US marketing executives polled in October 2014 by Forbes Insights said that data analytics usage had resulted in new hires to bring in new skills—and possibly replace those who just don’t get it.

Innovid Releases The First Interactive Video Benchmarks Report

PR Newswire | Feb 5

Interactive Formats Captivate Consumers, Boost Time Spent on Each Impression by 70%

NEW YORK, Feb. 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Innovid, the technology platform delivering immersive video advertising anywhere, today released its Interactive Video Advertising Benchmarks: Q4 2012. The Benchmark provides advertisers with the only comparative report in the industry to assess the performance of video and help plan the most impactful media allocation. Overall, marketers running Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15


simple pre-roll campaigns saw an average 1.21% Engagement rate and 69.59% Completion rate on average. Meanwhile, campaigns utilizing video interactivity saw a whopping 3.09% Engagement rate and 71.58% Completion rate. Furthermore, interactive campaigns delivered an additional 21.57 seconds in time spent, converting 30 second media buys into 51.57 slots and delivering a 70% increase in brand exposure with no additional media investment.

Innovid studied over 900 campaigns in Q4 2012, served utilizing its advanced video Ad Server on more than 1000 premium publishers and ad networks globally. The first report of its kind, provides benchmarks for Awareness Rate, Engagement Rate, Time Earned, Completion Rate, Ad Viewability, and Click-Thru Rate focusing on Pre-roll, Innovid's iRoll® Apps, and iRoll® Expand formats. Innovid examined metrics from hundreds of advertisers across 15 different categories to produce the quarterly report, which is available for download at:http://www.innovid.com/insights/benchmarks.

"The Quarterly Benchmark report is a great representation of how video advertising is performing across the industry," said Zvika Netter , CEO of Innovid. "We served simple pre-roll campaigns to the most complex interactive units across thousands of sites for our clients. Adding a native element like interactivity to pre-roll campaigns proved to be a winning strategy for advertisers, who were able to maximize the impact of their media buys and earn an average additional time spent of 21 seconds of consumers with their brand. This Benchmark report should help our agency and media partners evaluate creative impact, media planning efficacy, campaign performance, and make better decisions about their media allocation."

Overall key findings of the Innovid Interactive Video Advertising Benchmarks: Q4 2012 report include:

• 15 second slots saw the highest completion rate at 74.41%, versus 30 second slots that delivered a 68.91%

• Consumers however are more likely to engage with longer form content, clicking-in at 2.99% rate on 30-second units versus 2.01% on 15-second slot

• Interactive campaigns recorded a 44.54% awareness rate, while pre-roll displayed only a 17.57%

• iRoll Apps provided an average 1.01% CTR, making it a great resource for advertisers with backend goals

• iRoll Expand delivered an additional 27.37 seconds in time earned on average, providing marketers with brand goals an efficient vehicle to engage with consumers and maximize media budgets

Innovid also captured industry specific data for its iRoll Apps and Expand formats, with highlights including:

• iRoll Expand units commanded the highest Engagement Rate across the board, with the Entertainment category garnering rates as high as 6.7%, followed by Pharma at 6.08%, and CPG at 4.02%

• iRoll Expand units also recorded the highest time earned for marketers, with Movie Studios receiving an additional 36.22 seconds per impression, trailed by Finance at 36.21 seconds, and Telecom with 30.46


• When it comes to Completion Rates, the Beauty industry captivated consumers the longest with both iRoll Expand and Apps campaign showing an 85.71% and 85.67% rate respectively

• iRoll Apps for Telecom and Pharma categories delivered a 1.68% and 1.34% click-thru rate, while plain Pre-roll units came in third place at 1.21%

Glossary

Awareness (rate): The number of times the video environment is moused over by the user while the pre-roll plays and then divided by all the impressions served. The event is counted once per impression.

Engagement (rate): The first click by the user to the iRoll unit and then divided by all the impressions served. This can either be an interactive slate open event, or click-thru depending on the format of the unit. The event is counted once per impression.

Time Earned: The average time in seconds a user spends interacting with the unit while the pre-roll video is automatically paused in the background. Note, iRoll Apps units do not consistently require the pausing of the pre-roll video in the background, and therefore may not generate the Time Earned metric.

Completion (rate): Impression logged immediately upon completion of the video play, divided by all impressions served.

Ad Viewed (percent): The average duration of the pre-roll video watched by users, calculated as a percentage.

CTR: A click directing users to a new web page and then divided by all impressions served.

DFP offers the following video-specific metrics, in addition to the other metrics available within the Reporting tab.

Metric Description

Start Number of impressions where the video was played. Event is logged once per view. If a user stops play and restarts it, the restart isn't counted.

First quartile Number of times the video played to 25% of its length.

Midpoint Number of times the video reached its midpoint during play. Event is logged once per view. For example, if a user watches 20 seconds of a 30-second ad clip, then restarts the clip and watches it to completion, the event is counted once. However, if a user watches 10 seconds of a 30-second ad clip, then stops and exits, no midpoint event is counted.

Third quartile Number of times the video played to 75% of its length.

Complete Number of times the video played to completion. Event is logged once per view. If a user restarts the clip, it's not counted again. For example, if user plays 30-second clip for full 30 seconds, event is logged. If user replays clip full 30 seconds, event isn't logged again. If, however, user plays 20 seconds of clip


then stops and exits clip, no event is logged.

Average view time

Average time users watched the video. For example, if one person views a 20-second ad for 20 seconds, then a second user views the same ad for 10 seconds, the average view time is calculated as 15 seconds. The event is logged when a user plays the ad to completion, stops play of the ad, or rewinds the ad. View time can't be longer than the duration of the ad.

Average view rate

Percentage of the video watched by users. For example, if users watch an average of 20 seconds of a 30-second ad, then the average view rate is reported as 66.66 percent.

Completion rate

Percentage of times the video played to the end.

Error count Number of times an error occurred, such as a VAST Redirect error, a video playback error, or an invalid response error. See the IMA SDK code site for a complete listing of the six error reasons.

Video length Duration of the video creative.

Pause Number of times user paused ad clip. Event logged once per view. If user repeatedly starts and pauses ad clip, it's not counted again.

Resume Number of times the user unpaused the video.

Rewind Number of times a user rewinds the video.

Mute Number of times video player was in Mute state during play of ad clip. If player is muted before ad plays, it's counted the same as if user mutes player while ad plays. Event is logged once per view. If user mutes ad clip multiple times during play of ad, it isn't counted again.

Unmute Number of times a user unmutes the video.

Collapse Number of times a user collapses a video, either to its original size or to a different size. For overlays, this tracks the number of times the user minimizes the ad without fully removing it from the player.

Full screen Number of times ad clip played in full screen mode. Event only applicable for Windows Media Player.

Average interaction rate

Number of user interactions with a video, on average, such as Pause, Full screen, Mute, etc.

Skip button shown

Number of times the Skip button appears in the video ad (By default, 5 seconds after the ad begins playing; for publishers using VAST 3, the network-wide skip time can be changed). This metric helps identify how many skippable ads were shown, regardless of whether the user clicked Skip.


http://code.google.com/apis/ima/docs/sdks/googleflashas3_apis.html#AdErrorCodes

Video skipped Number of times a user clicked the Skip button in the video ad.

Engaged view Number of times the ad was viewed to completion or for 30 seconds, whichever happened first.

View-through rate (VTR)

Percentage of skippable ads that had engaged views. (This metric is calculated by dividing engaged views by skips shown.)

Online Video Has a Completion Rate of Almost 50%

James Dohnert | April 9, 2013

Online video offers an over 47 percent completion rate, according to a recent study by Celtra.

The study found that 80 percent of online video is less than one minute long. Celtra says that video is being used increasingly by advertisers. Specifically, the firm says mobile video ads are being utilized be advertising firms.

"As video continues to be the most popular and consumable content in mobile rich media ads, advertisers are starting to produce videos exclusively for mobile consumption," said co-founder and chief product officer of Celtra Matevz Klanjsek.

"Such videos consistently out-perform content produced for other channels and used in mobile ads, such as TV commercials."

Celtra found that 43 percent of online ads feature video. A key reason for that could be because video encourages more engagement. According to the study, over 14 percent of viewers interact with video ads. Celtra says that figure shows a 50 percent growth from the Q3 2012.

A majority of online video is under one minute in length. Celtra's research discovered that the average online video is 45 seconds long. About 46 percent of online video was also reported to be less than 30 seconds in length.

"Interestingly, the length of the video doesn't have a significant effect on the performance, as users typically drop off in the first couple of seconds or tend to watch the video until the end if it proves interesting enough," continued Klanjsek.

The statistics come as Celtra unveils the addition of video research numbers for its analytics platform, AdCreator. Celtra's platform now offers measurements for total video consumption, average video play time, and video attention span.

Celtra's statistics come from an examination of over 150 videos over the course of Q4 2012. The company reports that about 730,000 consumers saw the online videos. Types of video reviewed included commercials, movie trailers, and product presentations.

Marketers shift retargeting focus

30 January 2015

LONDON: Almost two thirds of European marketers plan to increase their expenditure on retargeting this year and sales are not necessarily the primary objective a new report has said.


AdRoll, a retargeting specialist, surveyed 250 marketers across France, Germany, Ireland and the UK and found that 39% were already spending between one quarter and one half of their online ad budget on retargeting and that 60% said brand awareness was their top retargeting objective.

Retargeting has low reach but high ROI, as Ted McConnell explains in Warc's Programmatic Primer, and has generally been regarded as a driver of sales. This was a priority for 57% of respondents while customer retention was a focus for 51%.

Conversions remained the top metric for campaign success however, being cited by 57%, but just over half (51%) were also looking for consumer insights, an indication that retargeting has a role to play in other areas.

"Marketers have expanded the way they think about retargeting," according to Michael Bertaut, managing director/EMEA at AdRoll.

It had, he said "moved from a niche tactic to a critical tool for turning data into successful strategies" and was "leading the charge in programmatic by paving the way for a deeper understanding of online customer behaviour".

If that is the case then it can't come too soon, as a study last year noted that the law of diminishing returns sets in rapidly with retargeting. More than half (53%) of respondents to that survey said online ads were of interest on initial viewing, but by the fifth time they were "intrusive", with users progressing to being angry after the tenth time.

Most marketers in the AdRoll survey said retargeting boosts other marketing tactics: 74% of respondents reported a lift in search campaigns when retargeting is added in, and 68% reported a boost for email marketing.

Perhaps surprisingly, given its importance in media consumption, 44% of marketers were not retargeting on mobile. Thirty-six percent felt mobile advertising has yet to develop a good user experience, while around one quarter did not have their own app (27%) or mobile site (23%).

Data sourced from AdRoll; additional content by Warc staff

The shopper of the future: How today's young shoppers see tomorrow's shopping experience

How do you want to shop in the future? We've asked youngsters around the globe…

Much has been written about the shop of the future, but what about the shopper of the future? Increasing urbanization and developments in technology are constantly redefining the retail landscape. In recent years, the pace of change has accelerated dramatically and we are seeing new retail models emerging as people change the way they shop. One dominant theme in recent times has been to speculate about the future of the physical retail environment.

To give retailers, manufacturers and distributors much needed insight into future shopper behavior, we have undertaken a multi-country study of over 7,000 shoppers in Brazil, China, Germany, India, Italy, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, the UK and US. The Global Young Shopper Survey is an authoritative study that gives a glimpse of both the shops and shoppers of the future. In this white paper we look at what those young people told us about their expectations for the physical store, the


online shopping experience and how they expect to be shopping in the future. It provides a fascinating insight into tomorrow's shopper, today.

Bricks and mortar will remain relevant but retailers cannot be complacent

The young people we surveyed told us that the physical store is here to stay. While the Millennial Generation has been raised on online shopping, there is virtually no difference between those aged 16-21 and those aged 22-65 when it comes to the likelihood of them shopping in-store in the future. The vast majority (72%) of 16-21 year olds in the UK think they will shop in-store as much or more frequently than they do already, compared to 75% of those aged 22-65 (see Figure 1). The differences in other developed markets are similarly marginal.

We see the same trend in developing markets, but here the margins between young and old are greater. In India, for instance, the gap between the two age groups stands at nine percentage points, and it's 12 percentage points amongst the Chinese. This enthusiasm for shopping in stores amongst consumers globally is good news for all who have invested in physical stores – but is not a signal for complacency. Our research suggests that the bricks and mortar stores of the future need to be clearly differentiated from other retail channels if they are to fulfil young shoppers' expectations and stay relevant. For instance, by the experience they offer, the way they are designed, the customer service they provide and the products they sell.

Figure 1: % of respondents thinking they will shop in-store the same amount or more frequently than they currently do

One of the reasons that stores can thrive alongside online retail is that many consumers continue to regard shopping as a social activity. At least half of all the young people we surveyed said they liked to visit shops with friends or family, ranging between 70% in Russia to 92% in China. In the UK, Germany, Italy, South Korea, India and South Africa this phenomenon appears to be on the rise as the young are more likely to think they will shop with family and friends as much or more than they currently do compared to the adults in the survey (see Figure 2). The gulf was highest amongst Indian shoppers with a 15 percentage point difference between young and old (88% of those aged 16-21 compared to 73% of those aged 22-65). In fact, 56% of young shoppers in India expect to shop socially more in the future than they do now (between 27% and 50% for all other countries).


Figure 2: % of respondents thinking they will shop the same amount or more frequently as a social activity

The popularity of shopping with others is an opportunity for physical retailers to differentiate themselves from their online competitors. Stores can bring people together and provide a social experience in a way that a laptop or tablet simply can't. Retail parks add cinemas and bars to the shopping trip, a significant cross over between retail and leisure activities, and one that appeals to younger consumers. In the UK, grocery retailer Tesco has bought Giraffe, a restaurant chain popular with young families in an attempt to re¬energize its hypermarkets and turn them into destinations. In the US major retailers including J.C. Penney, Ann's Loft, Banana Republic and Urban Outfitters have all introduced food and drink to their stores to give shoppers a memorable experience – either as permanent or temporary fixtures. Although not a new concept – department stores with food and drink outlets remain appealing across the world – retailers are using innovation to add a contemporary take and create a sense of fun and excitement that appeals right across the board. We anticipate similar initiatives from physical retailers in all categories as they seek to make retail more of a lifestyle experience for shoppers.

Section summary

• Young people expect to shop in physical stores more in future.

• Shopping is considered a social activity – and stores are a crucial ingredient.

• Retailers need to focus on offering an experience in-store to differentiate their offer.

Younger shoppers expect online to deliver a gold standard omnichannel shopping experience

So stores and shopping malls will continue to have an important role to play in the future. But what about online? The important message from the youths in our survey is that there is no black and white store versus online scenario. For young people the future shopping experience is truly omnichannel, and that means both channels make an important contribution to the overall experience.


For instance, young people are significantly more likely to see the benefit of buying from online stores that also have a bricks and mortar presence (see Figure 3). This is particularly true in the US, UK and Germany, but it is a consistent theme across all markets in the survey. In fact, in India, South Africa, Brazil, Russia and the UK at least one quarter claim only to buy from online stores that also have physical stores. This is compared to less than one in ten young people in China and South Korea.

Figure 3: % of respondents preferring online shops with physical

Part of this perceived benefit may be that young shoppers prefer to research online and then purchase in a shop. The trend of webrooming is particularly prevalent in India and Brazil at 86% and 80% respectively (see Figure 4). Within Europe it is most common in the UK at 76%. The opposite trend of showrooming (research in-store, buy online) was widespread a few years ago but has fallen in popularity, underlining how young shoppers continue to be attached to the physical shopping environment. With this preference for webrooming amongst young shoppers it is essential for retailers to have a coherent and consistent strategy across all devices to deliver the expected seamless omnichannel shopping experience.


Figure 4: % of respondents agreeing / strongly with the statements "I have researched items online before buying them instore" and "I have researched items in-store before buying them online" (16–21 year olds)

One channel that young people are significantly more likely to turn to as part of their shopping journey compared to older shoppers is mobile. Youngsters are more likely to use a mobile phone or tablet when researching or buying products in all markets, with the difference being most pronounced in the US and South Korea where 19 percentage points separate those aged 16-21 and 22-65. Irrespective of age, Indians and the Chinese are significantly more likely to shop via their mobiles. Use of this channel is far more widespread in these countries (see Figure 5).

Figure 5: % of respondents agreeing / strongly with the statement "I use a mobile phone / tablet when researching or buying products"

Our survey highlighted a number of barriers that prevent young consumers around the world from shopping online. In Western markets the cost of delivery is consistently ranked as the main barrier to buying online (see Figure 6), with reliability of delivery also a cause for concern. In developing markets trust and security top the list of concerns.

In more developed markets there is an opportunity to reinvent the cost of delivery. Retailers such as Amazon or Ocado in the UK are offering subscription models for delivery and providing additional benefits to customers who join the scheme. Reliability of delivery is a consistent barrier across developed markets, coming in the top five objections. Offering a Click & Collect option is one way retailers can address this problem of fulfilment. However, they need to think carefully about the positioning and form Click & Collect takes: in our survey young people didn't think of it as favorably as other retail options, so retailers need to work harder if they want them to adopt it.


Figure 6: Barriers to shopping online for 16–21 year olds; ranked importance of barrier (selected statements)

In developing markets concerns center around trust and the security of online shopping. Many say they prefer to see a physical product before agreeing to buy it. Much of this is routed in culture and tradition, for example, cash on delivery has been popular in Russia as a way of mitigating worries about transferring money online and delaying payment until the product is inspected and accepted. If online is to achieve greater take up with younger shoppers in developing markets, retailers must earn consumers' trust and provide a consistently positive online shopping experience. In India, South Africa and Brazil payment and the security of personal details is the number one barrier to shopping online. Trust can be won in various ways. For example, a generous and easy-to-use returns policy can help. Although local legislation may not dictate this consumer friendly approach, in many markets retailers can make a strategic decision to adopt this approach to differentiate their offer.

Irrespective of the barriers, in all developed markets excluding Korea, young and older respondents think online will play a more important role in the way they research and buy products in the next two years (figures cross country vary between 34% for Germany to 60% for India). In Korea more respondents see mobile and apps playing a more important role than online in general (33% mobile vs. 29% online). Overall figures on the future importance of mobile/apps are only slightly lower than online.

Section summary

• Young people want to be able to choose where they shop – there is no either or decision between stores and online anymore.

• The phenomenon of researching online and shopping in-store (webrooming) has grown in popularity to surpass showrooming (researching in-store before buying online).

• Young people use their mobiles more than any other age group to research and buy products and services.

• There are still barriers that prevent young consumers from shopping online and retailers need to understand these to tackle them.

Looking to the future: how to win over young shoppers


We asked our young respondents to tell us what they would hope to see from retailers in the future. While lower prices come top of their wish list across all markets studied, improving the shopping experience with greater choice, easier returns and improved delivery services mattered to all consumers.

These findings are not specific to young shoppers but are on the wish list of both age groups. And a seamless omnichannel experience also makes it onto the list: between one quarter of young respondents in Germany and nearly half in Brazil (48%) want shopping across online and physical stores to be easier (see Figure 7). The figures for the older age group are even higher in nearly all countries.

Figure 7: Which of the following would you hope to see from retailers in the future? (%)

(rollover to expand)

Although improvements to functional services such as Click & Collect and home delivery are rated as being most valuable by older shoppers, our survey shows that young shoppers are most excited by the prospect of innovative technologies such as Amazon's drones for product delivery. The gap between older and young shoppers is typically wider in the developed markets, while in India and South Africa there are no differences between the different age groups. In the US, 50% of young shoppers are interested in Amazon's drones compared to 34% of those aged 22-65 and in the UK 49% of younger shoppers are interested compared to 40% of older shoppers (see Figure 8). This trend is continued in Germany (34% and 23%) and in Italy (54% and 44%). Appetite for new technologies is consistently higher amongst the young, but there are significant differences between the geographies for other attributes. For instance, although young US shoppers are more likely to purchase goods in-store and to have them delivered than older shoppers (32% compared with 25%), the opposite is true in all other countries. In Russia in particular the young are less likely to cite this (44% of those aged 16-21 compared to 60% of 22-65 year olds). These results show the need to study each market in detail and for retailers to create strategies that are tailored to each locality if they are to succeed in meeting shoppers' expectations both now and in the future.

If more proof were needed that consumers aged 16-21 in our survey had high expectations of shopping in the future, customization was high on the list. Young people in the US, Germany and Russia are much more likely than older shoppers to be interested in customized products. Furthermore, young shoppers are willing to trade their personal information where they see a direct benefit to them. For example, 49% of 16-21 year olds in Brazil want to buy products unique to them, and 51% want the store to "talk" to their mobile phone to tell them about products that match their needs. This is why beacon technology is gaining more traction around the world, most notably in the US. We anticipate continued appetite for increasing personalization from young shoppers and a willingness to embrace technologies that help facilitate a more tailored shopping experience.


Figure 8: Imagine shopping in the future. Which of the following services would be valuable to you as a shopper? (%)

(rollover to expand)

Section summary

• More choice, easier returns and improved delivery services matter to all consumers in the survey.

• Consumers in nine of the ten markets studied expect to research and buy online more in the next two years.

• New technologies such as Amazon's drones for delivery are appealing, but more in some countries than others.

• Younger shoppers have a greater appetite for personalization – and are prepared to share their personal data in exchange.

In their own words

These results paint a very positive picture for retail, and suggest that in the future we won't think of shopping as either an online or offline experience. Younger shoppers are embracing the shopping mall and store, giving retailers plenty of opportunities to adapt their offer to appeal to them as they grow up. But they also have high expectations of online and that experience needs to evolve to keep them coming back.

In summary, we'll let young people speak in their own words about their expectations for the shopping experience of the future:

"I feel that shopping on mobile phones will get more and more prevalent. Even when buying items in-store, I will use the mobile phone to scan QR codes and compare prices. As for the method of payment, I have a tendency towards using mobile payment as it is more convenient."

"It would be nice to apply some intelligence, whereby, based on individual customer preferences, I would receive information and lists of items that may be of interest; perhaps there would be a specific app listing the items."

"3D images will be available so I can try clothes to see if they will fit or not."

"Most large scale shops will also have their own app that I can connect with my bank account and purchase items on my phone and have them delivered to my house."

"There will be more use of smartphones to navigate stores and find products you need."

About the study


Global Youth Retail is a GfK proprietary study carried out in 10 countries (US, UK, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). The total sample of 7,266 people includes a boosted sample of circa 5,000 16–21 year olds.

The study explores attitudes and behaviors across grocery, personal care, fashion, mobile and personal electronics.

For more information on the study, global results and individual country reports please contact:

James Llewellyn Global Shopper Consultant [email protected] T +44 20 7890 9911

Our consultant James Llewellyn says:

"In talking to the shoppers of the future we can be sure of one thing: retail and the shoppers' expectation of that experience will continue to change, and this change will only accelerate.

Technology has disrupted the marketplace and will continue to do so. The winners will be the manufacturers, distributors and retailers who adopt the most agile and collaborative philosophy in this era of constant change.

The foundation of this approach will be seamless connections between the different channels, with each touchpoint delivering a differentiated experience that nudges shoppers toward the products and services most relevant to them."

Clear QR Code

Executive summary

This campaign shows how Clear dandruff shampoo repositioned itself from being a dandruff specialist, to being a holistic 'scalp expert' in Thailand.

With a limited budget, the brand required a powerful idea to attract the attention of consumers, drive traffic to the Clear website, and ultimately increase sales and market share.

This was achieved by using a very unusual but relevant channel – the human scalp itself.

The medium became the message. A quick response (QR) code tattoo was designed as a haircut on the scalp and when scanned by a smartphone only the QR codes designed on healthy scalps would direct people to the Clear website, where people could get information on the scalp and the product.

This innovative and well-implemented guerrilla activity saw Clear Thailand generate massive talkability, generating over 10 million free contacts, tripling website traffic in just 10 days and ultimately increasing Clear's market share.

Market background and business objectives

The clash of the Titans

The hair category in Thailand is a highly competitive market, with lots of brands and aggressive advertising and promotion budgets. Unilever has a strong position, with nearly 50% of the market share and a number of global brands in its portfolio such as Sunsilk (the market leader), Dove, Clear


mailto:[email protected]

and TRESemmé. The main competitor is Proctor & Gamble (P&G), with its brands Pantene and Head & Shoulders (H&S).

Pantene and Sunsilk are the biggest spenders in the market, together accounting for approximately 40% of the share of voice, bombarding consumers with the beauty benefits of shiny, silky, voluminous hair.

Clear and H&S are the only brands with a specific 'curative' and unsexy benefit – that of removing dandruff.

Despite being approximately twice the size of its direct competitor, H&S, Clear Thailand's value of market share in 2011 was declining by 13% (down by two percentage points). The team realised that in order to get back to growth, the brand had to move from being synonymous with anti-dandruff to occupy a more holistic position of 'total scalp healthcare'.

In order to do this, Clear started communicating a message 'to nourish the scalp for healthy hair'.

Online was a critical tool to support the campaign and the agency was briefed to develop an idea that would drive traffic to the main Clear website.

Our challenge – how to make the scalp sexy

In a market where every brand talks about shiny and voluminous hair, no one thinks about the scalp or seems vaguely interested in it. So how to drive people's attention to the scalp?

Objectives

• To improve the 'scalp expert' score in the brand image profile by the end of 2011

• To increase traffic to the Clear website.

Insight and strategic thinking

Look at the finger that points to the moon or the moon itself?

Clear shampoo targets men and women aged 18 to 30 with dandruff problems. They want to have confidence but dandruff is a confidence killer, so they want to get rid of it.

They don't know that dandruff is caused by an unhealthy scalp, so they focus on the symptom instead of solving the root of the problem. Once the symptom has gone, they go back to using ordinary shampoos until the symptom comes back – and the cycle starts again.

This is made even worse by years of communication on 'hair beauty', where the focus is naturally on how beautiful hair looks and no one thinks about the scalp.

The team started working on a very simple yet powerful insight – the scalp is simply invisible.

Our strategy: the medium is the message

Building on the target insight, the team realised what the core issue of the brand is that the scalp is not a priority for Clear consumers.


In order to break the cycle, the brand had to increase the scalp's relevance. And to increase its relevance we had to break a big psychological barrier – that the scalp is boring, unsexy, and both emotionally and functionally invisible.

Traditional ATL could rationally convince consumers of the importance of a healthy scalp, but it wasn't effective in emotionally convincing our beauty-driven consumers. As a result:

• We had to make the scalp cool and trendy

• We had to make the invisible visible

• We had to use unique and surprising channels to wake up our consumers.

So we made the scalp tell the story. Our strategy: media is the message.

Implementation

The QR hair tattoo

The human body has been used throughout the ages to share messages of all types – think about tattoos, for example. However, no one before Clear had ever thought of using the scalp to communicate a message.

The team created the first interactive campaign that used the human scalp as a channel to demonstrate to people the importance of its health.

A quick response (QR) code tattoo was designed as a haircut on the scalp itself. When scanned by a smartphone, only those QR codes designed on healthy scalps would direct people to the Clear website, where people could get information on the scalp and the product.

The Clear team phased the campaign in order to maximise the limited-budget effort.

Phase one: Seeding

Guerrilla troops were sent into the city centre with this new hair tattoo on their scalp to generate awareness and encourage people to scan the QR code. This started generating curiosity, with many people scanning and taking pictures of the new hairstyle.


(Above: Guerrilla troops in central Bangkok)

Phase two: Boost and viral

In order to further push the campaign, Clear persuaded a local TV celebrity to get the hair tattoo and become its spokesperson during his appearance on TV programmes. This massively boosted awareness, and generated interest in the haircut and the scalp itself.

The QR code hairstyle became cool and popular amongst youngsters, who spontaneously adopted it as the latest hairstyle trend. News media started picking up the new phenomenon and it immediately went viral.

(Above: QR code on main magazines)

Performance against objectives

Objective one

To improve the 'scalp expert' score in the brand image profile by the end of 2011.

Results

• The scalp became one of the hottest topics in the city and the QR campaign, with zero paid media, generated over 10 million free contacts (source: Mindshare)


• The 'scalp expert' score in the brand image profile almost doubled in 2011, from six to 10 points (source: Unilever/Nielsen data – Unilever brand health check).

Objective two

To increase traffic to the Clear website.

Results

• The QR code increased the traffic to the website by over 400%. The Facebook fanbase increased from 7,000 to 20,000 in just 10 days (source: Brilliant Million statistics of Clear campaign)

• The 'Clear QR code' campaign took over Thailand's second-largest newspaper's cover page for two consecutive days for a media value of over US$1m (source: Mindshare)

• Last but not least, the talkability travelled overseas. In November 2011, the idea was replicated by the English betting brand Betfair, who recruited Wayne Rooney's hairstylist Daniel Johnson to create QR cuts – QR codes shaved onto the back of players' heads (to check this go tohttp://www.notcot.org/post/44312/).

(Above: free contacts)

From a business point of view, although the campaign had a more qualitative objective it helped add value to the brand and supported quite a strong price increase (10%), especially in convenience stores and small formats.


Wayne Rooney's hairstylist Daniel Johnson has been recruited to create the first-ever QR cuts, which are QR codes shaved onto the back of players' heads. (Betfair signed up Bromley FC to unveil the look at their FA Cup first-round clash against Leyton Orient.)

Lessons learned

The online community has a very low attention span and lots of distractions on a daily basis. People need to be surprised or even shocked, especially when the topic is quite boring.

Budget is an important factor but, when it comes to online, not sufficient in itself to drive people's interest.

The main learning from the Clear case is about how to choose the right and relevant channel to arouse people's interest.

This choice seems to be driven best by the combination of two factors:

• Relevancy stemming from a clear definition of the problem and the insight – in the case of Clear, 'the scalp is invisible'

• Surprise and novelty factors – who would think of using this channel?

AB InBev takes digital into stores

28 January 2015


NEW YORK: Anheuser-Busch InBev, the brewing group, is hoping to maximise the impact of its ads by introducing digital coolers – capable of showing content like TV spots and video – into physical stores.

Anson Frericks, senior director/brand activation at Anheuser-Busch InBev, discussed this topic at the latest ad:tech New York conference.

He framed the debate by looking at the firm's Budweiser brand, which secured a major advertising hit during the 2014 Super Bowl with a commercial featuring its iconic Clydesdales and a puppy.

While this effort generated considerable viral traction, Frericks reported, the returns measured in actual sales were rather more muted.

"Our consumer purchases beer generally in a very different environment than they consume advertising," he asserted. (For more, including further details about this digital solution, read Warc's exclusive report: AB InBev extends appeal from puppy commercials to in-store coolers.)

"What my team is tasked with doing is trying to figure out how we make our ads more relevant to the consumer at the time the consumer is going to purchase, taking into account the whole way the world is moving from a digital standpoint."

And engaging shoppers "in the occasion, when they're purchasing beer, with our ads talking to them directly" may well achieve that aim.

Indeed, Frericks suggested, digital solutions such as the connected coolers – which boast translucent screens and can be programmed from a central location – promised to deliver that result.

"It's really revolutionising how we are actually reaching our consumer at the point of sale," he said.

There is also a strong statistical underpinning to support the idea that these appliances could boost sales, further enhancing the possible benefits for the company.

"If you look at beer sales in the US, and you look at our sales at each convenience store, grocery store and packaged-liquor store, our percentage of sales at that store is directly related to the amount of cold space that we have in that store," said Frericks.

"And then if we can reach those consumers with our coolers with amazing digital strategies, we can even drive incremental volume to our advertising and reach the consumers when they're about to shop."

Data sourced from Warc

How CPG Advertisers Stack Up for Digital Video

JUNE 12, 2015

CPG brands lead for digital video impressions and views, struggle with engagement

Research indicates that consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands lead other industries when it comes to digital video ad impressions and views.


According to Videology research, the CPG industry accounted for the largest share of digital video ad impressions served on the platform in the US during Q1 2015, with one-quarter of the total. Second-place restaurants trailed by 7 percentage points, and no other industry broke double digits.

Videology noted that CPG had led all other categories for impressions for the past four first quarters (with Q1 2012 being the first).

In a Q1 2015 FreeWheel study, which looked at digital video ads served in the US via the video ad management and monetization platform, CPG ranked tops again, this time for share of views. Fully 22% of digital video ad views were for CPG placements, while No. 2 retail grabbed 18%.

However, other research suggests CPG brands have struggled to gain video ad viewer engagement. According to data from digital advertising platform Sizmek, the start rate for CPG digital video ads was just 10.0% in 2014, which was among the lowest of the more than one dozen industries measured. Just over half of those ads were played halfway through, and slightly over one-third were played all the way through. The average viewing time was 11 seconds.

eMarketer estimates that this year, the US CPG and consumer products industry will spend $840 million on digital video ads, representing 17.0% of total industry digital ad spending and putting CPG in fourth place among industries for digital video dollars.

Based on April 2015 polling conducted by Advertiser Perceptions for theInteractive Advertising Bureau, many of those dollars will come from TV budgets. Among US CPG buy-side professionals




who intended to increase their digital video ad spend this year, shifting money away from TV was the top way in which they would fund such growth. Fully 53% were moving money from cable TV, while 45% said the same about broadcast TV. In comparison, 34% said an increase in digital video ad dollars would come from an overall expansion of advertising budgets, 32% intended to shift funds away from nonvideo ads online, and 24% were moving spend away from ads that were neither digital nor TV.

Twitter And The Venture-to-Public Company Transition Challenge

Twitter’s CEO, Dick Costolo, has announced he is departing the company and will be replaced by one of the company’s founders on an interim basis. While the change appears to be of Costolo’s making, prior to this event, there were issues causing generally unwarranted dissatisfaction among the investment community and among some press towards Twitter which reflects broader issues about venture stage enterprises which have public securities.

There has long been a gap between the expectations put forward by Twitter’s management around the potential ubiquity of the company’s core product among consumers and the reality of its niche-y scale. Further, in recent quarters investors were concerned about turnover in the company’s management during its time as a public company, which never really allowed the company to escape the perception that Twitter was the “clown car that fell into a gold mine.” And then came the revenue miss during the first quarter, conveying that guidance provided mere weeks earlier was off-base.

However, what investors generally failed to understand about the company – and perhaps what management failed to fully communicate – was that Twitter was and remains a venture-stage enterprise. It just happens to be traded publicly. For a company to invent what is essentially a different means of communication (let alone use as an advertising and marketing vehicle) involves an awful lot of aspiration. As we’ve noted previously in this context, sometimes it is necessary to aim for the stars lest one never reach the moon. Getting to the moon is a pretty remarkable place to arrive at, even if it’s not as lofty as originally intended. Product iterations and people iterations are necessary byproducts of the effort necessary to attempt to achieve those aspirations, and we can certainly look at some of the turnover within Twitter as reflecting of that iterative nature. We’re reasonably sure that similar iterations occur in a lot of other venture-stage companies, if under less visibility. And as for missing guidance…well, one quarter doesn’t a year or business make. While we would think that a company as large as Twitter should have systems in place to better assess coming quarters, a slowdown this year never necessarily impacted the long-run share of digital ad revenue the company was capable of generating. Of course, confidence might have reasonably been diminished slightly, but the market’s reaction to the first quarter was always an over-reaction (which is largely why we upgraded the stock to Buy following the stock’s fall-off).

All of these issues should not be viewed as unique to Twitter. We can only wonder how Facebook would have behaved as a stock were it traded at a similar stage of its commercial development in, say, the year 2010 at which point it too had been generating revenue for only five years (2012 was rough enough, and Facebook was two years more mature than Twitter at that time). There are dozens of large-ish private companies we track in the ad tech space who almost certainly experience similar issues without anything like the glare that Twitter experiences. While the market’s lack of receptivity to smaller public companies these days is the primary reason being private is a better choice for many early stage companies, doing what Twitter has to do – aspire, iterate and under- or over-estimate a quarter’s results ahead of time – is made easier in private.

With Costolo’s departure from the executive suite at Twitter (though not the Board), little changes on these matters. Twitter’s new CEO, whomever she or he is, will undoubtedly set stretch goals for the


company. They will probably restructure management a few times. And they will probably hit or miss revenue growth in any given quarter. Should Twitter do what many mature companies do instead, setting sights lower, aggressively managing financial expectations (and perhaps massage numbers a little here and there) and retaining certain managers in a pen for future potential use, or just to keep them off the market? We think most would agree “no.”

Still, we do think that whomever is running Twitter going forward will need to focus its dialog with the investment community on the commitments they know they can meet and on areas in which they have been successful, like commercial traction with large brands and what seems to us to have been a number of clever strategies to support a strong long-term position within the advertising industry. More clarity on emerging revenue stream segments will be helpful, too. Twitter has a very good story to tell on its MoPub and TellApart acquisitions, among others, but very little in the way of disclosures. More of a display to the investment community of what we think is still a deep bench of management talent at levels below the top wouldn’t hurt, either.

But mostly, we think that investors will need to be continually reminded that an investment in Twitter provides public market investors a way to play in venture, for better and worse. The same should be true for all companies at a similar stage of their development.

AAPL Ad-Blocking Concerns - Too Early Too Worry


BOTTOM LINE: Investor concerns around ad-blocking have become pronounced in recent weeks, made all the more “real” by news that Apple’s (AAPL, N/R) upcoming browser update would offer such a feature. We think it’s far too early to be concerned about any impact from ad-blocking, with other issues far more likely to impact the sector if any do at all.

A growing number of stories have run in various publications in recent weeks around the general topic of ad blocking and mobile ad blocking in particular. This has been made all the more “real” to US investors by news this week that Apple’s upcoming browser update will itself allow consumers to block “cookies, images, resources, pop-ups and other content” associated with advertising.

Concerns that mobile ad blockers this will lead to meaningful changes in ad spending are likely overblown for several reasons:

• Most mobile content consumption occurs in apps (around 90% according to many studies we have seen). Apps are unlikely to be impacted by this change

• Some publishers might oblige registration and de-activation of ad blocking for access to a site

• There could be more of a focus on forms of advertising that are embedded within a publisher’s content such as branded content or whatever the publisher might want to define as “native”

• Desktop-based inventory could see a reconcentration of budgets on the margins, as desktop consumption of digital media is not necessarily down in absolute terms, but mostly is correctly viewed as down as a percentage of digital time

In short, we think it’s far too early to be concerned about any impact that Apple’s moves might have outside of broader concerns in digital advertising (see our recent note from March on “Advertising’s Parade of HorROIbles” – Madison and Wall 3-13-15.pdf- which includes a range of issues that are


probably much more worthy of concern to digital media owners than ad blocking). However, we don’t think that any slowdown to digital advertising in its broad sense is occurring any time soon.

ANA to Launch Fact-Finding Probe Into Media-Buying Kickback Claims

Group's goal is to 'clean this mess up'

June 11, 2015, 12:05 PM EDT Advertising & Branding By Andrew McMains

CEO Bob Liodice says his board is confused, angry and disbelieving.

Are media agencies pooling media purchases to get rebates on the time and space they're buying and not passing those savings on to their clients? With another investigation set to start, that question won't go away anytime soon.

The Association of National Advertisers is about to launch a search for a consultant to examine claims that media agencies are getting "kickbacks" from media sellers in the United States by buying media for multiple clients at the same time.

The practice is not unusual in overseas markets but not the norm in the U.S. and now marketers—egged on by former media agency leaders like Jon Mandel—want to get to the bottom of it.

The new investigation comes in the wake of the ANA and 4A's starting a joint task force to study how agency-marketer contracts are set and develop a code of conduct.

"The issue that we have is we don't know where truth lies," Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the ANA, told Adweek.

The goal is to get an objective look at the situation, Liodice explained. "Let's hire a third party to take an unbiased look at the way the industry is operating," he said, "to be able to synthesize all the various perspectives that are in the marketplace and to do whatever research" is necessary "to provide a clean understanding of what is taking place, so that we can effectuate the right discipline and the right behaviors that will start to clean this mess up."

The ANA's board of directors initiated the search after hearing from Mandel and others that media agencies are benefiting from volume discounts in the U.S. and may be hiding that benefit through overseas units. Mandel raised this issue at an ANA conference in March, and it has simmered in the minds of marketers ever since.

"There's a level of disbelief," Liodice said. "We had several knowing people present to the board" who "validated what Jon Mandel has been talking about."

Liodice declined to further describe the "knowing people," who he said insisted on confidentiality before addressing the board.

When asked about the reactions of board members, Liodice said that some are "bewildered, some are confused, some are angry, some are disbelieving."

Broadly, marketers sense that there's a problem here, but its extent is unknown. Figuring that out is the core assignment the ANA will distribute among consultants.


The association is still drafting a request for proposals, but it could be ready as soon as next week. Based on submissions and possibly a round of presentations, the ANA will hire a consultant, but that's at least a month away. For now, however, board members are satisfied that the process is underway.

"Recognizing that there is a substantial amount of information that is in the marketplace, you have to come to the realization that you can't bury your head in the sand and hope that it goes away," Liodice said.

"We are not out to throw anybody under the bus," he said. "That is not the intent. But it is to get a clear articulation of facts, to say, 'C'mon, how can anybody dispute these facts?'"

P&G "hacks" the laundry category with Swash

Stephen Whiteside Warc

Procter & Gamble is famed for its ability to watch, learn and adjust – to study consumer habits and product usage, identify new trends and adjust its product offering to tap into the ways people live.

And the Cincinnati-based organisation now believes that a new generation of on-demand shoppers are so eager to save time and effort they will happily splash out $500 on a machine helping them avoid washing or dry cleaning their clothes.

Launched during October 2014 in partnership with Whirlpool, its Swash cleaning device – a stylish, slender appliance that stands roughly four-feet tall – promises to "refresh" a shirt, blouse or pair of pants which already has been worn, but maybe needs some wrinkles smoothed or a slight odour neutralised. And it will do all of this in approximately ten minutes.

"Really, Swash is about: how do you hack laundry? How do you completely change the process so that consumers have a better life?" Clark Reinhard, director/new business creation at Procter & Gamble, told delegates at Internet Week New York 2015.

Consumers, he reported, spend between $125 billion and $150 billion buying apparel every year, and another $25 billion on "getting those clothes ready to wear," either through washing them at home or


using dry cleaners. And the "single biggest tension" expressed by people when discussing these forms of fabric care, according to Reinhard, is undergoing a dramatic shift.

"For years and years, it was cleaning and removing stains," he said. "Today, the number one consumer unmet need in this category is: 'I want to spend less time doing it, so I have time for more important things.' That's what consumers are frustrated with.

"They're frustrated with: 'I lose half my Saturday, or I'm losing a few hours a day, or I'm chained to my house, because I've got to get my clothes ready to wear.' So we had that insight, and said: 'We want to solve that.'"

As a starting point, Procter & Gamble – which owns leading laundry brands like Tide and Febreze – conducted research with shoppers and a "landscape analysis" to gain a deeper appreciation of emerging habits. "One of those is re-wear," said Reinhard. "So [for] consumers, more and more, it's totally acceptable to re-wear your clothes."

Look back 20 years, he informed the Internet Week assembly, and 50% of customers were "willing to admit" they sported an item or outfit at least twice before washing it. In 2015, however, this figure is significantly higher. "Today, 19 out of 20 of you would probably admit that," Reinhard continued.

"It's totally socially acceptable to say, 'You know what? This shirt I wore today: it really didn't get that dirty. As long as it didn't get any stains on it, I can wear it again. I might have to refresh it a little bit, but I can wear this garment again. That's a huge consumer trend. And, in fact, there are 40 billion re-wear occasions a year."

Drilling down further into its prospective clientele, P&G learned that considerations about whether to give a piece of apparel another run around the block often arise on a daily basis. "What consumers tell us is: 'There's this moment in my day when I'm changing clothes, and there's are three paths that I can take with this garment,'" said Reinhard. And they are:

• throwing something in a washing hamper or on a dry-cleaning pile;

• deciding the item is still appropriate to wear;

• condemning it to "clothing purgatory, where it's stuck in the middle. For many of us, that's a chair in the bedroom," he added. "One of our goals was to solve that."

These investigations also identified several extra pain points – a list covering the gamut from purchasing products to getting them cleaned and removing creases:

• "Seven out of ten consumers literally will not buy a garment they would like to wear because of the care instructions … whether it is dry-clean only or it is special handling, they just don't buy it. So that's a tension," said Reinhard.

• "Twenty percent of consumers actually dry clean more than once a month, and those consumers are spending more than $750 a year dry cleaning … not to mention the frustration with their clothes not being available to them.

• Across more than 3,000 consumer interviews, the vast majority of P&G's respondents shared a common sentiment: "I absolutely hate ironing."


As researchers kept digging, they discovered certain customer segments may find an alternative to the current laundry cycle especially appealing – including fashionistas boasting a wardrobe full of items that require careful treatment and individuals who have accumulated a nice, but limited, selection of clothes and want to keep their favourite ensembles in circulation.

Having been convinced by these insights, the organisation began working on a solution. "At P&G, everything surrounds the consumer. Our mantra is, 'The consumer is boss.' So we always start with: what's the insight, what's the tension, in his or her life? What is the frustration that he or she has? And how do we improve their life? That's the starting point, always," Reinhard said.

"Secondly, then, we apply technology to try to solve that. So we come up with the idea and then create the thing that's going to solve that tension for her."

In the case of Swash, the firm soon realised it could not finish such a task alone. "What we recognised is that we don't have all the capabilities to bring the right solution to life for the consumer … We are the world's largest fabric-care company, but we don't make appliances," said Reinhard.

"So we went to the world's largest appliance manufacturer – Whirlpool – and said, 'Hey, would you like to partner in inventing this new space?'"

The result was a joint venture – with P&G assuming a 51% stake, and Whirlpool the other 49% – aiming to develop a gadget that refreshed clothes in the same amount of time it takes to have a shower. "It did take us a while," Reinhard conceded. "We tried to make a devices that actually fits with consumers' lifestyle."

As an indicator of its success in this area, Swash users simply peg an item onto an adjustable hanger, insert a pod – as with Keurig coffee machines – pick a cycle, then let an illuminated display count down how long the process has left. This offering only requires a 120V power outlet and needs no fixed water supply, fuelling the hope that owners will keep it near their clothes in the bedroom.


Since launch, Reinhard reported, Swash has received various awards, including recognition at this year's Consumer Electronics Show and Edison Awards. Additionally, the product has "been endorsed by dozens of top publications" – building awareness, interest and confidence among the target audience, which can then translate into sales.

"We've sold thousands of them," Reinhard said. And these early buyers have given it an average star rating of 4.3 on a five-point scale. Swash has also secured a Net Promoter Score – where the number of brand detractors are subtracted from its active advocates – of 60%, placing it alongside the best performers across multiple industries.

"Consumers are delighted," Reinhard told the Internet Week crowd. "We're starting to see develop into 'Swashaholics'. It really is a game-changing innovation."

Virtual Reality’s Future Relies on Improved Storytelling – Interview with Aaron Koblin

The Vrse founder sits down with PSFK to talk about virtual reality's bright and not-so-distant future

SIMONE SPILKA 9 JUNE 2015

The majority of virtual reality creators today would classify VR as a medium in its youth. PSFK Labs’ new report on virtual reality shows that as a variety of headsets are released with different attributes, experts are predicting virtual experiences will come to scale within a year. In our report, PSFK explores in-depth virtual reality’s growing hold on industry.

Now that the gears for widely accessible technology are in place and turning, the responsibility rests in companies like Vrse, VR’s celebrated storytelling platform, to imagine and influence how immersive content will transpire. Vrse, a collaboration between Aaron Koblin and Chris Milk, takes a content-first perspective to this rapidly growing field. As a result, we spoke with Koblin on the technology’s influence on our modes of storytelling.

Not simply a gadget shop, Vrse focuses on narrative-based and realistic experiences that resonate emotively with the viewer. Koblin explains:

We’re at a time where you can actually create a sense of presence where you forget that you’re wearing this somewhat cumbersome attachment. You forget about it and you actually lose yourself in this virtual world, whether that’s photography or cinema—it’s about trying to transport you to another place.

In recent years, too, virtual reality has been touted as the future of gaming and filmmaking.

The cameras are getting smaller, they’re going to be more widely available, and they’re going to be mass-produced. You’re going to be able to get a consumer-level device that allows you to be somewhere else entirely, and that’s an exciting future.

More recently, virtual reality has been used in journalism to transport news readers off the page and into the stories themselves. Reimagining the possibilities for storytelling through photorealistic immersion is where Vrse makes strides above its competitors and with things moving at a rapid speed within the industry, anyone with a mobile phone can now move through a virtual room.


Vrse New York Times Cover – “The Walking Cover”

Other businesses are taking advantage of novel partnership opportunities to support the VR community. Koblin predicts an impressive ROI for the first case study collaborations in unorthodox markets.

When you look at what’s happening, brands can actually spend some of their budget on things that put virtual reality into production. What you’ll get is much more; virtual reality can make the material way more engaging.

According to Koblin, there’s a common misconception about VR, what it means, and what it’s capable of, created by the camp of people who have yet to try the experience for themselves. The reaction of those that have tried it, versus those that have not, is striking.

The most interesting thing about virtual reality that you can’t find out anywhere is the actual feeling of presence, and feeling of being in virtual reality. It’s not something that can be communicated by talking about it.


http://cdn.psfk.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/NYT-VR-Cover.jpg

Vrse’s Virtual Reality Experience – catatonic.co

For example, Koblin imagines a future of virtual experiences where viewers can join a live excavation of a cave that has been untouched by humans for 8,000 years. Far from being just another layer of entertainment, virtual reality, in Koblin’s eyes, has the ability to transcend time and space.

You very quickly accept the fact that you’re in a different place. That feeling is something incredibly novel. It’s a visceral experience to be able to just trick yourself into believing you’re somewhere else.

Vrse

To read the full interview with Aaron, where he talks about the what VR will become in the future, and the major pitfalls that brands and content makers are in today, along with and more comprehensive analysis on virtual reality’s growing trends, purchase PSFK’s newVirtual Reality Mini Report.

PSFK’s new VR Snapshot Report is taking a broader look into the ways the technology is being used today across industries. The VR Mini Report Snapshot marks PSFK’s first venture into a less formal but more accessible report format that still captures the industry-defining comprehensiveness and vision of our standard-length reports. Get it here.


http://www.psfk.com/report/VR

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Digital's Third Wave Is Coming: Don't Miss the Ride

Four Big Opportunities for Agencies and Brands in the Next Wave of Digital

By Brandon Geary. Published on June 10, 2015.

It's easy to get change fatigue these days. As always, we're hearing urgent calls for brands and agencies to evolve to become more digital, data-driven and tech-first.

You might be forgiven for yawning. In the first place, haven't we seen this movie before? Nearly every agency today has deep competency in search, display, paid social and even content creation. We're good with this stuff. In addition, the more things change, the more they stay the same. TV continues to occupy a significant amount of people's time (4.5 hours per day, according to Nielsen), and brands are still putting a lot of money into it.

But it's no time to get complacent. While disruption is nothing new, brands are finally responding to it in a big way, rapidly shifting their budgets to new platforms. In the next 12-24 months alone, we'll see all of the following:

• Digital overtaking broadcast in total media spend.

• Mobile overtaking desktop in digital media spend.

• Marketers purchasing 63% of display media programmatically.

• Companies spending over $32 billion on marketing technologies for their organizations.

• Google joining Facebook, Twitter, and China's WeChat in having the majority of its revenues come from mobile.


http://www.psfk.com/report/vr-games-virtual-reality-trends

In other words, we find ourselves in the midst of a third wave of digital, brought on by the rapid proliferation of micro video, messaging apps and devices with larger screens. For digital agencies, it's a bit like the dog finally catching the car. It's great that everyone wants to pay us for our expertise, but we also have to get our organizations in line and show results, or brands will go elsewhere.

In particular, four big (and difficult) opportunities lie in front of us: co-creation, data and creativity, the new breed of native and culture.

Casting a wider co-creation net

Increasingly, people don't follow brands. They follow a rapidly emerging set of artists, who have built audiences seemingly overnight. For example, Vine is still under three years old but already has more than 200 users who have a million-plus followers. The good news is that these new stars are typically open to working with brands and agencies -- and their fans don't seem to mind. That's why we should embrace co-creation to produce content that people actually want to see. If you're looking for help in this area, companies likeTinker Street and Fullscreen can lead the way.

Even Small Businesses Are Ready for Marketing Automation

Making data the true friend of creativity

We've talked a lot as an industry about data inspiring creativity, but much of the talk has been cheap. Agencies need to put analysts and creators in the same room. What's more, they need to educate their creatives on what data can do for them. Gone are the days of sleepwalking through elaborate dashboards. Today, social listening tools can help drive conversations; usage data can inform content production; and eye-tracking can reveal what might work (and not) before going live. Companies like Domo are finally making data friendly enough to that everyone can understand it.

Going native

When it comes to mobile, display ads don't work (49% of clicks are accidental). Native advertising can be much more successful, but it has to be done right. That means we need to bring some serious craft, storytelling and awareness of where we're publishing to our efforts. A native ad that looks like a disruptive banner is a disruptive banner -- and will get the same results.

Getting serious about culture

While many media startups and technology companies offer credibility, cachet and great compensation packages for young talent, many agencies still have 24/7 work environments and startling annual turnover rates. Instead, they need to create cultures that respect the work/life balance, encourage diversity and provide tangible opportunities for learning and development.

Digital's third wave makes it an exciting time to be in marketing, but we should have no illusions about its implications. If digital agencies move fast and smart to catch it, they will be the big winners. If not, our clients will find more dynamic partners to move their brands forward. In other words, time to get to work.

ADBE Summit Comments, WPP Panel and GOOG Threat?



BOTTOM LINE: Adobe’s (ADBE, Buy) annual marketing cloud-focused Summit is being held this week. We think that Adobe has generally made a favorable case for the notion of an integrated solution, and marketers and agency executives – including those from WPP (WPP.L, Hold), which hosted a panel session on the space – are similarly conveying a preference for such offerings. However, reasons why few marketers are actually choosing such solutions at this time become evident from conversations on the floor and through listening to commentary on panels we attended. Although Adobe’s long-term strength is clear to us, additional perspective we gained on the long-term potential for Google (GOOG, Buy) to compete more directly with Adobe further serves to highlight an important rationale for pushing forward with better and better-integrated solutions.

We are attending the annual Adobe Summit in Salt Lake City this week. The event is primarily focused on the company’s marketing cloud offerings and the broader eco-system of marketers, agencies and service providers who work with them. Our most important take-aways from the event relate to Adobe’s continued progress in developing and marketing an integrated offering of marketing tech and ad tech solutions. These efforts have not gone un-noticed by industry contacts we interacted with at and during the event, although there remains a common view that no supplier of marketing cloud services has fully (or even sufficiently) integrated their solutions. We think this remains as one of the major reasons behind why marketers and agencies will prefer to work with multiple vendors in the near-term.

One particular panel we found to be insightful featured senior executives from several WPP business units including Acceleration, Cognifide, KBM, Mirum and VML, customers of Adobe’s Analytics, Target and Experience products. These entities collectively contain thousands of employees who work extensively in IT consulting and marketing technology development roles on behalf of WPP clients – mostly large marketers. Participants on the panel were clearly believers in the potential of the opportunity presented by marketing cloud solutions in general and Adobe in particular, not least as they work with marketers pursuing technology-based transformation projects which, on our read, are necessary to capitalize on the potential that marketing tech can bring them.

However, commentary related to growth obstacles were particularly useful for purposes of better understanding the challenges that Adobe and others still have to overcome, including:

• A lack of systems-based thinking by many marketers, who still tend to think in terms of specific business goals and silos

• The need for better organization of data, as so much of what marketers can do in marketing tech is dependent on the quality of their data assets

• A lack of centralization of technology licensing which leads to a problem of “DUDs”, or “databases under desks” and multiple (as in potentially dozens of) instances of content management systems among individual marketers, for example

• Issues integrating marketing technology solutions from the same vendor, which lead marketers to ask why they should be acting as integrators themselves

• Fragmentation of vendors of marketing tech offerings with potentially best-in-class point solutions, which makes vendor selection difficult

• Different marketers come at Adobe’s offerings by differing entry points, as some have worked extensively with products that Adobe bought, but not with others. We read this through the lens of the challenges that one-size-fits-all offerings present, as marketers may need to experiment with different vendors to find the right fit of a solution for a given marketer’s needsBabelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

• Many marketers will be focused right now on the brand experience or on social media more generally rather than on data-driven marketing (which would play to the sweet-spot for Adobe – or any given marketing cloud given the strategic importance of the DMP and the generally favorable perspectives we have heard about Adobe’s data management offering)

• Few marketers are looking at marketing through the lens of product management of the company’s content assets and brand experience

• Creative strategies need to evolve to make it possible for creative assets to become technology assets (i.e. creative strategies are not typically mindful of the potential that technologies like marketing cloud solutions offer)

On an area we have been particularly focused on – namely the degree to which digital trading tools will be integrated with marketing technology tools – there was agreement that an unbroken experience between consumer profiles, content management, site optimization and digital buying is optimal. Concurrent with this view, during the day’s first keynote and later on during the financial analyst session, the company emphasized its focused position on an integrated suite of solutions including an programmatic buying capability which improves on its current offering. Of course, a challenge that Adobe faces is that there are many incumbents in the world of DSPs, differentiating themselves by virtue of their service, their technology, their scale, their integration with exchanges or other buying tools and their very own DMPs.

Adobe management seems to recognize that they can’t “out-DSP a DSP,” which is probably correct unless the company buys one of the large players already operating in the sector. This speaks again to the manner in which Adobe is competing, and that is through its focus on the suite and the integration that it has been offering, with a well-regarded DMP, Experience and Analytics solutions in particular. This year there seemed to be a focus on the progress that Adobe has made integrating the former NeoLane (now Adobe Campaign) into the overall offering, and so it would not be surprising to hear more about how well that product integrates with the DSP in the near future.

As it to emphasize the importance of suites over the long run, one notion that occurred to us over the course of the day relates to the longer-term potential that Google may eventually offer a suite of tools centered around a DMP. Although Adobe faces plenty of competition at the present time, a Google marketing cloud offering would be more directly comparable to Adobe in particular if we consider the improving capabilities of Google’s site analytics offerings, the degree to which those products integrate with Google’s digital buying tools and the likelihood that eventually Google will offer a data management platform that blends data Google has with marketers’ first party data sets. Such a product offering would probably be very compelling to a marketer which has not effectively locked-in with Adobe (and which does not care about tying too much of its business activity to Google). Incidentally, a panel discussion we observed on paid search referenced the potential that Google could eventually support the buying of audience profiles in paid search campaigns, which might serve to blur the lines further between display and search, and capitalize on a Google DMP / marketing cloud offering. However, just because Google may eventually attempt to compete in the space is not necessarily a net negative factor for Adobe, as the market opportunity they are pursuing is vast, and the presence of more large players with compelling offerings may serve to catalyze growth in the overall market.

Twitter embraces livestreaming, confirms periscope purchase

By Trevor Mogg — March 14, 2015


Periscope breaks away from Twitter, lets you sign up using just your phone number

Twitter confirmed on Friday that it’s acquired Periscope, a startup that’s working on a livestreaming app for mobile.

Reports last week suggested the deal had taken place, but until Friday neither party had made it public. The terms of the transaction haven’t been divulged.

The software, which hasn’t even been released yet, makes it easy for users to view livestreams or recently recorded video segments. The interesting part will be to see how Twitter integrates the service with its own, with greater integration posing a bigger threat to apps like Meerkat, which lets Twitter users quickly and easily tweet links to livestreams. Meerkat’s popularity among Twitter users has reportedly exploded in recent weeks, so the folks at that startup will certainly be keeping a very close eye on developments.

Twitter’s Kevin Weil announced the move via the social media service. “Excited to officially welcome @periscopo to the Twitter team,” the VP of product wrote, adding, “Can’t wait for everyone to see what they’ve built.”

Periscope also put out a message,saying, “You may have heard some news: It involves a blue bird,” adding later, “You’ll be hearing more from us soon! We’re gradually expanding our beta, which you can sign up for here: periscope.tv”

Related: How to become Twitter famous in seven simple steps


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Digital Banking in Brazil Reaches Milestone

JUNE 11, 2015

Digital banking transactions neared 19 billion in Brazil last year

Brazil’s banking industry reached a tipping point last year as digital transactions increased their share of total banking transactions to 52%, according to research from Federação Brasileira de Bancos (FEBRABAN).

Overall, the number of banking transactions conducted digitally in Brazil totaled 18.6 billion last year. Nonfinancial transactions were responsible for most of that activity. According to FEBRABAN, more than eight in 10 (82%) banking transactions conducted digitally in Brazil in 2014 were nonfinancial, vs. just 18% that were related to financial activities such as transferring funds.

November 2014 polling by Bain & Company found that 66% of banking customers in Brazil had used a computer for routine transactions in the past quarter. And in January 2015 research by Nielsen IBOPE, banking sites saw 27.9 million unique visitors, or a reach of 39.3% among internet users.

The future for mobile banking also looks bright—but don’t expect users to go mobile-only any time soon. A study by Opinion Box conducted in December 2014 for Mobile Time found that 51.5% of smartphone owners in Brazil accessed their bank account on both computers and smartphones. One-third only used a computer, 4.1% were smartphone-only, and 11.4% didn’t use either device.

But other research suggests that mobile banking apps have a long way to go in adoption. When Opinion Box queried smartphone owners in Brazil in April 2015 about their most-used smartphone apps, banking landed in dead last among categories, with just 1.3% of respondents including it in their top three choices.

One reason for low mobile banking app usage could be due to security concerns. In an October 2014 study by Symantec, 69% of smartphone users in Brazil cited banking or financial info as the personal information they were most worried about being shared or sold by mobile apps; this was the second-highest response, behind usernames and passwords (76%).



Bringing a livestreaming app into the Twitter family is the latest in a series of moves designed to broaden the microblogging app’s media offerings, taking it away from its text-heavy beginnings.

Previews of Twitter photos, and videos from Twitter-owned Vine, started showing up in timelines in 2013, with research showing such placement encourages more user activity on the service (retweets and the like), an important factor for the company as it seeks to generate more interest among marketers.

In addition, it recently built a video-recording function into the app allowing users to easily create and embed clips of up to 30 seconds in their tweets, while the launch of Audio Cards last October means people can now embed content like songs andpodcasts in their tweets. Of course, such features also serve to keep users within the Twitter app for longer, with Audio Cards, for example, allowing people to continue browsing their timeline while listening to the content instead of hitting a link and being taken to an external site.

Blippar app visual overhaul aims to identify everything around you

by JACKIE DOVE Tweet — 15 Mar,

Anyone who drinks Pepsi or reads a fashion magazine has come into contact with Blippar, the image recognition and augmented reality app that connects users with a huge number of products and services by serving a layer of brand-based interactive content.

Today at SXSW, Blippar’s CEO and founder Ambarish Mitra announced an upcoming new version of the app that focuses on non-brand visual search, allowing users to delve more deeply into a vaster array of both products and real world objects.

Blippar’s brand orientation isn’t going anywhere, but Mitra seeks to expand the app’s focus into an all-encompassing and universal visual search engine to complement text- and link-based engines like Google and Bing.


“The new Blippar is about visual search — it will still have shades of the old Blippar where we’ll work with all the brands and give them the singing and dancing content,” Mitra told TNW. “But on most other things, everyday stuff, it will literally act like a visual search engine and give you more utility than singing dancing AR.”


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Visual Search, which will launch in mid-April is a complete overhaul of the Blippar app. Accompanied by a totally new interface, it also will recognize new classifications of real world objects from books to movies to DVDs and eventually from apples to puppies.


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The puppy, Zoe, is being held by her mom for the Blippar demo.

With the new Blippar app, you will be able to view any object via your mobile device’s camera. This image activates Blippar’s digital search and serves up relevant information directly from the local area.

“The new version of Blippar will bring a new world of interaction to search that removes the cultural perceptions from objects,” Mitra said. “The old Blippar was about monetizing brands; the new Blippar will be more about satisfying people’s curiosity about anything around them.”


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Initially, the new version will be targeted to English-speaking countries with Blippar recognizing all English-language album covers, DVD covers, fiction books and movie posters. Blipping such an item will bring up a range of contextual information. An album cover may expose access to videos of the band, a place to buy tickets to a performance, reviews, news, tweets or photos.

But what about the puppy? “When you blip the puppy,” said Mitra, “you know what puppy it is, its history and genealogy, how to look after it, if there’s a vet nearby, the dog sitters and dog walkers — all the connecting points of information. It’s almost like that puppy becomes its own portal.”

All this knowledge is driven through Blippar’s AR engine. The app’s location-based predictive computing uses both deep learning and artificial intelligence to personalize results for each user.

“Our robots access that information from the Web, make it user friendly and give it to the user on the fly. Even the color of the dog and the palette will be selected by the bots.”

Media agency role must change

11 June 2015

NEW YORK: The recent spate of media reviews called by large companies, from Coca-Cola to Mondelez to Visa, is indicative of the failure of media agencies to address clients' real concerns a leading industry figure has argued.

Writing in Advertising Age, Tom Goodwin, svp/strategy and innovation at Havas Media, New York, said businesses were confronted with "the most profound, rapid changes they've ever known, but face a sea of agencies ignoring their needs and holding onto the past".Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

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Observing a vast disconnect between the issues to be addressed and the solutions on offer, he stated that the role of media agencies had to change, to become "more ambitious".

He suggested that they "become stewards through the uncertainty" and help clients to solve their business problems rather than simply buying media for them.

He highlighted four areas that illustrated his view, starting with the speed of change, which, he said, required agencies to structure themselves differently and develop an entrepreneurial culture in order to "keep their finger on the pulse, be agile and ready to change".

Related to that is the need for agencies to "move their focal point further into the future" with staff who can understand wearables, advise on virtual reality and appreciate the opportunities of addressable TV.

The potential of mobile has yet to be fully realised and agencies could work harder, he suggested, to "resolve the tension" between where media money was spent and where consumer time was spent.

Similarly, agencies ought to spend less time talking about Big Data and more time in serious analysis and insight creation. They "need to clean data better, learn how to work across data systems, structure processes to maximize learnings and, above all else, define metrics that matter".

The ongoing changes wrought by digital media have "caused structural issues in the entire world of advertising," Goodwin said, to which agencies have yet to fully respond, as they continued to be "arranged around channels in a world where the internet makes them irrelevant."

Warc is currently accepting entries for the Warc Prize for Connection Strategy, a new global competition to find the best examples of channel thinking that delivers brand advantage and which looks at the strategy, analytics and measurement that power modern media investment.

Data sourced from Advertising Age; additional content by Warc staff

With $25 Billion Up for Grabs, Media Agencies Need to Change

Agencies Can No Longer Ignore Client Needs

By Tom Goodwin. Published on June 10, 2015.


The last six months have seen at least 20 large companies calling media reviews, with a total of $25 billion in media dollars on the line. We're even seeingcreative agencies swoop in, yet few can agree on what's driving the surge.

It's a Rorschach test of sorts -- what we believe is driving the change depends on how we see the industry. Some assume it's just the ever-present act of cost-cutting, while others think it reflects transparency issues. As a person tasked with driving change and innovation at a forward-thinking media agency, I see it clearly as a sign that our clients are facing the most profound, rapid changes they've ever known, but face a sea of agencies ignoring their needs and holding onto the past.


We're a few weeks away from Cannes, our industry's annual celebration of the niche, unambitious application of creativity: the endless use of drones, the hopeful user-generated content, the hopeless iBeacons, the 3D printed trinkets and conceptual vending machines. It's our chance to reward test-and-learns while our clients face real threats. Never before has the disconnect between their needs and our solutions been greater.

While our industry overlays Pharrell onto case study videos, our clients face a world of incredible new possibilities, of accelerating change, of uncertainty and of sweeping new threats. I believe it's the confident navigation through these changing times that clients need the most.

Our role as media agencies should become more ambitious -- to move from helping our clients buy media to helping them solve business problems; to shift from facing the industry to facing real people; to become stewards through the uncertainty; to know what is changing and what is staying the same; and to unleash the power of new technology to transform our clients' businesses.

It's a big change in mindset, but it's what is required. Here are just some of the problems I typically hear about that demonstrate how we need to change.

Accelerating change

Things have never been so fast before, but will never be so slow again -- from changing TV viewing habits, to apps that explode and die in weeks, to real-time marketing. Clients want to know what's next, what is dead, what is changing, and even more importantly, what isn't and how can they test and learn to maximize learnings and reduce risk. This calls for agencies to operate in a fundamentally different way -- to keep their finger on the pulse, be agile and ready to change. Agencies need to be structured differently, to operate with an entrepreneurial culture and to employ new talent to keep a view on what lies ahead.

New media consumption

From desktop to tablet to mobile, we're moving to the smallest screens we've ever known and ones that are measurably the hardest places to connect with consumers. If money should follow time spent with media, but mobile ads struggle to move dials, then we need to work hard to resolve this tension. The opportunities on mobile are incredible -- it's our wallet, our social graph, how we navigate the world, where we buy things and where we find key information. Clients need help unleashing the potential of the most personal devices we've ever known.

Less big data, more clear insights

Everybody talks about big data, but few talk about the results of it. We need to move from big data to clearer insights and to help clients do more with what they have. Big data places new demands on media agencies: They need to clean data better, learn how to work across data systems, structure processes to maximize learnings and above all else, define metrics that matter. Clients need leadership in serious data analysis, less rhetoric and more insights.

The future is now

Clients need media agencies that can move their focal point further into the future; to go from being agile to anticipatory; to blend media, creative and technology together; and to go from the act of buying media to solving business problems. They need people to understand wearables, advise on VR, put into place mobile coupons and get a grip on what WhatsApp or Line or We Chat or Viber can


mean. We need to unleash the opportunities of ads with "buy now" or addressable TV or any one of a thousand tantalizing new opportunities on the horizon.

The change to digital media has caused structural issues in the entire world of advertising. We're arranged around channels in a world where the internet makes them irrelevant. We're spending more and more time in places demonstrably harder to connect in. At Havas Media, I would like to think we've begun to make some of these changes. All agencies need to find ways to solve the problems of tomorrow, so the question is, what is your agency doing -- after Cannes?

Marketing Research Industry and NLSN Outpaced Advertising In 2014

Brian Wieser Jun 5

BOTTOM LINE: New data on marketing research industry indicates 3.2% growth for the sector in the United States using a narrow definition of the sector. Nielsen (NLSN, Hold) slightly expanded its share of spending within the industry, largely due to its exposure to faster growing parts of the business in media measurement. WPP's (WPP, Sell) Kantar unit was relatively weak last year (growing by 1.2%) as was, implicitly, Nielsen’s non-media measurement businesses, at least on a relative basis.

Marketing News has published the new “AMA Gold Report” which provides the most comprehensive summary of scale and trajectory for the marketing research industry in the United States that we are aware of. This study is a successor the long-standing "Honomichi 50." It is an important benchmark for the industry, largely because so much of it is in private hands and otherwise difficult for outsiders to assess.

Our summary of revenue and growth trends for leading marketing research companies and the broader industry is available here: (Market Research 2014.xls)

According to the new data, during 2014 the US marketing research industry, as narrowly defined here, grew by a +3.2% annual growth rate, a deceleration from 2013’s +3.6% level but up from +1.7% during 2012. The industry has a 5-year CAGR now of 1.9%, vs. a comparable growth rate of +2.5% for media owner ad revenues. Over the same period of time, GDP and PCE (personal consumption expenditures) both grew by +3.9% on similarly nominal bases. That market research grew slower than media owners over a five year time frame should not be overly surprising, although the sector is capable of out-performance in weak years such as 2009 downturn. It is more notable that the sector out-performed paid media advertising during 2014, whose growth was only +1.7% last year on a normalized (ex-Olympics and political advertising) by our estimates.

Within the industry, which captured $9.9bn of revenue last year, Nielsen is by far the largest participant in the industry, at 35% of US industry revenues (pro forma for its recent acquisitions). This is up from 31% in 2009 on a like-for-like basis, or 26% excluding acquisitions, reflecting the relative strength that Nielsen has in the US market. WPP’s Kantar roughly maintained its position, rising from 9.4% during 2009 to 9.7% during 2014, although this was down from 9.9% during 2013. comScore (SCOR, N/R) is notable for its growth in the sector, with a +18% CAGR over the past five years, although only slightly more than $200mm in annual revenue within the US, the company still only accounts around 2% of the industry’s activity.

Among the more notable observations that we highlight post our read of the report is the relative growth of Nielsen and IRI (Nielsen’s most direct competitor on the Information sub-segment of its Buy segment). According to the Gold Report, IRI reportedly grew in the United States by 5.8% last year,


which compares with our estimate of Nielsen’s total company US growth of +3.8% during 2014 and +4.3% over the prior five years. (Note that the Gold Report headline figures indicate that Nielsen declined by -3.2%, but this figure did not evidently adjust for M&A activity). IRI’s growth suggests it captured some share gains in the areas where it competes directly with Nielsen around syndicated retail sales data given that Nielsen’s segments which do not compete with IRI (the Watch-related businesses in particular) likely grew faster than the company average. Kantar grew by +1.2% for its US research businesses on Gold’s estimates.

One observation we noted following last year’s release, which the authors similarly referenced in their report this year, relates to the appropriate definition of the market for market research. On the one hand, a narrow definition of market research reflects much of the business as it exists today. Data and market research activities are commonly attached to different business functions presently, with market share tracking may be paid for by a sales budget, while media monitoring may be paid for by an agency; data services may be attached directly to media costs or to a technology service. However, we would expect that budgets for market research and data should become increasingly interchangeable given what should be possible in connecting the dots between consumer targeting, media exposure measurement and sales measurement. This is particularly important when thinking about the long-term growth of the marketing research business, as the lines increasingly blur with data-related activities, as highlighted both by some of Nielsen’s recent actions (such as its purchase of eXelate) and by WPP’s positioning of Kantar as its Data Investment Management segment.

Consequently, we think that budgets for data and marketing research should be viewed more interchangeably when thinking about long-term trends. Benchmark growth rates for the combination of activities to which Nielsen and Kantar are exposed thus undoubtedly outpaces the growth rate shown in the Gold Report as a result.

Starcom and Zenith bring programmatic in-house

By James McGrath | 1 May 2015


Publicis agencies Starcom MediaVest and Zenith Optimedia are bringing programmatic in-house, integrating their trading capabilities.

The group said today that its programmatic expertise will be moved upstream into agencies, with each agency able to negotiate commercial terms with their clients based on an individual basis.

It will still operate the Audience on Demand suite, a VivaKi product, but both Zenith and Starcom said by bringing it in-house it would be able to act quicker rather than the platform sitting externally.

Earlier this year VivaKi shook up the market by enbedding staff within agencies.

“We believe that providing our clients with a more integrated and bespoke solution is pivotal in how we deliver experiences,” SMG CEO Chris Nolan said.

“As programmatic continues to move into new channels, we believe this move allows us to be well placed to deliver personalisation across many more channels with speed.”

Both also said that by bringing capability in-house, it would increase transparency for clients.

“In an environment where many questions are being raised about the non-transparency of trading desks, we believe we need to be unequivocal in our position. This is a move clearly made to ensure we are focused on the requirements of our clients,” ZenithOptimedia Australia CEO Ian Perrin said.

More to come


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Marketing Tech Stack Illustrations Highlight Wide Range of Approaches

Brian Wieser <[email protected]>

BOTTOM LINE: A leading blog focused on marketing technology has published 21 different marketing technology “stacks.” As we review in this note, beyond illustrating the actual functions that marketing departments may have responsibility for, these presentations help illustrate to us that marketers will not necessarily rely on single providers of marketing technology and that no single flavor of marketing technology stack necessarily dominates the future. Still, none of this takes away from the tremendous growth that we expect to continue seeing in this sector, benefitting the software companies and providers of related services involved with selecting, implementing, integrating, operating and benchmarking that software in the future. We continue to hold particularly positive views on the two marketing technology software companies we cover in this sector, including Salesforce.com (CRM, Buy) and Adobe (ADBE, Buy) largely as a result.

Chiefmartec.com, a leading blog focused on all things marketing technology has published a presentation of 21 different marketing technology “stacks,” as part of an effort the site has led to illustrate different ways that companies organize their technology choices. The article and accompanying presentation is located here: http://chiefmartec.com/2015/06/21-marketing-technology-stacks-shared-stackies-awards/

We thought the most notable presentations are those from marketers whose businesses lie outside of the software industry, primarily because they might be more representative of “typical” companies (although we recognize the selection bias here, as only a company who thought its marketing technology choices were sophisticated might have chosen to submit its marketing stack to the blog). Specifically, we highlight two presentations here (Marketing Stack), one which can be identified as the marketing tech stack for a Canadian law firm (likely Fasken Martineau DuMoulin, a firm with 770 lawyers and 1,354 employees per LinkedIn) and another for John Wiley, the book publisher (which has ~$1.8bn in annual revenue and 5,100 employees as of its last fiscal year)

Beyond illustrating the actual functions that marketing departments may have responsibility for (relevant to anyone trying to understand the broader advertising and marketing services industry) we thought that all of these presentations help illustrate at least important considerations for investors in the likes of Adobe, Salesforce.com, Oracle (ORCL, N/R) and others.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, marketers will not necessarily (and in fact are probably unlikely to) depend on a single company for their marketing technology needs. It seems that the more sophisticated the marketer, the more it may be likely that best-in-class point solutions will be integrated into a company’s stack (we note that this is offset by a preference we hear from large marketers that they would prefer to have fewer vendors and tighter integration off-the-shelf; it is also offset by the notion that quality gaps between best-in-class point solutions and suites undoubtedly narrow over time)

Put differently, the range of approaches displayed reinforces our view that there probably won’t ever be a one-size-fits-all collection of marketing technology software. Further fragmenting optimal choices, as Chiefmartec notes, some organize by marketing function, others by a buyer’s journey and


others with a “layer cake” concept of platforms and applications. This reflects a view we hold that over the long-run marketing technology providers may evolve in some ways which look similar to the manner in which advertising agencies evolved. Historically, agencies needed to mirror what they were selling to reflect that their workflows have to complement the workflows of their customers, which are rarely identical, if similar enough to provide identical services to only among narrow groupings of marketers. We can see how a dozen-or-so creative agencies and a half dozen media agency holding companies probably capture half of the world’s advertising activities, but many thousands of others service the remainder of the industry

Still, none of this takes away from the tremendous growth that we expect to continue seeing in this sector, benefitting the software companies and providers of related services involved with selecting, implementing, integrating, operating and benchmarking that software in the future. We continue to hold particularly positive views on the two marketing technology software companies we cover in this sector, including Salesforce.com (CRM, Buy) and Adobe (ADBE, Buy) largely as a result.

SMG Unveils New Global Operating Structure

Larissa Faw, January 9, 2015,

For the past four years, Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG), part of Publicis Groupe, has operated within a cluster model that has been organized by market dynamics. Now, the network is shifting its global management organizational structure into five regions: APAC, EMEA, LATAM, North America and North Asia.

This new business model reflects a shift in how its clients are operating, the agency said, and creates connected regional networks to drive growth in the new era of data-driven content and addressable marketing, say executives. Earlier this week, a sibling agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, said it was reorganizing but in the opposite direction, shifting from a regional to a market cluster model.

In the new structure, two new regional roles have been created: Mike Amour joins the company as President, APAC where he will be responsible for ensuring that the APAC region is aligned with SMG’s global vision and purpose. Amour will work across these emerging markets to drive global consistency, local relevance and also with a focus on new business. In addition, he will work to ensure adoption of SMG’s next-generation product, partnerships and new capabilities across the region. Amour will be based in Singapore and reports to John Sheehy, SMG’s president of global operations.

Amour’s direct reports include Hanley King, chairman, India, Jeffrey Seah, chairman, SEA, Chris Nolan, CEO, Australia and Alistair Jamison, CEO, New Zealand.

Meanwhile, Iain Jacob, currently president, dynamic markets, will become SMG’s president, EMEA to oversee operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. As president, EMEA, his responsibilities include further accelerating digital transformation, integrating RUN, MRY and other SMG capabilities as well as driving growth across emerging markets in the region. Jacob is based in the UK and reports to Global CEO Laura Desmond.

Matt Blackborn, previously president, emerging markets, takes on the newly created role of president, global investment & Diversification. In his new position, Blackborn will strengthen SMG’s investment practice and will be partnering closely with both VivaKi Exchange and VivaKi leadership teams to drive new media investment models. Blackborn is based in London and will report to Sheehy.

Amour, Jacob and Blackborn will serve on SMG’s Global Executive Leadership Council.Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

“These changes and additions bolster the strength of SMG’s senior leadership team, who come from diverse backgrounds, bringing expertise in technology, content and global client management,” said Desmond. “Mike’s deep understanding and track record of success in APAC and Iain’s digital expertise and leadership across several key markets are examples of these strengths.”

Continuing in their roles are Monica Gadsby, CEO of LATAM and SMG’s U.S. Multicultural operations; Bertilla Teo, CEO of SMG in North Asia, which includes China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea; and SMG North American CEO’s Brian Terkelsen (MediaVest USA), Lisa Donohue (Starcom USA) and Chris Boothe (Spark).

Publicis' Programmatic Arm Sends Traders to Individual Agencies

By Alex Kantrowitz. Published on February 13, 2015.

Publicis' programmatic arm Vivaki no longer wants to buy ads.

The organization has completed a major reassignment of its ad traders, sending 120 employees out to individual Publicis agencies, and taking them off its own books. Vivaki CEO Stephan Beringer confirmed the moves.

"If you're a marketer, do you want your programmatic decisions siloed and balkanized from everything else that you're doing? No. You want it integrated," said Laura Desmond CEO of Starcom MediaVest Group, which shares stewardship of Vivaki with ZenithOptimedia, all part of Publicis Groupe.

The restructuring, meant to bring Publicis' advertising technology jockeys closer to its clients, is also an admission that the traditional trading desk model no longer works for Publicis. Those who remain at Vivaki will now focus on training, research and development, data management and analytics, Mr. Beringer said. Vivaki will retain a small group of traders to help with testing.

"Scale and agility, if you want to achieve both, you cannot centralize too much," Mr. Beringer said. He does not want to end up with a "monster organization" that cannot respond to the needs of each market and agency, he explained.

Bob Rupczynski, VP-media, data and CRM at Kraft Foods, said the new structure helped bring Publicis' programmatic ad buying more in line with Kraft's data and day-to-day operations. "What they're doing moving programmatic down to the agency level is brilliant," he said.

Mr. Beringer likened programmatic today to the early days of social media, where expertise centers were built within agencies and then farmed out as social became more integrated across campaigns. "As you move forward, things mature and they become a given," Mr. Beringer said. "After this first phase, in every area, you have to look at the second wave and how you drive scale and how you integrate it in your endeavor."

A new arrangement recently put Vivaki under the control of Starcom MediaVest group Global CEO Laura Desmond and ZenithOptimedia Group CEO Steve King, with each getting a year at the helm on a rotating basis. Ms. Desmond, currently in control, is overseeing big changes to a lucractive area during her first turn at the helm. Shifting trading to individual agencies will give client teams, and ultimately clients, more access to the digital buying activities. It's unclear how it will impact the agencies' bottom lines.


The arrangement will likely diminish Vivaki's revenue, but Mr. Beringer said the move was made with the entire holding group's interests in mind, not just Vivaki's. "Normally in every business, the revenue follows the resource," he said. "We are looking at all this today from a group perspective."

The move comes as more clients move their trading desk operations in-house or ask individual media agencies to set up custom desks that aren't tied to central holding company trading operations. Driving the trend has been marketers' desire for more insight into agency fee, pricing and data privacy issues.

"There's no reason why a client who has an agency team would not use the team," said Mr. Beringer, disputing the notion that clients will pick between a more insight and less insight model. "That's completely counterintuitive because these people know the business of the client best, and that's why we are doing this."

Contributing: Alexandra Bruell

SMG launches real-time content marketing solution across EMEA

by Gurjit Degun, 13.05.2015

Brands will be able to sign up to one of two options – owned or licensed. With the former, advertisers can push their own content from their website or social media accounts across paid display advertising.

According to SMG, brands have seen a four-fold increase in engagement when pushing their existing content.

The licensed option allows brands to "identify, source, publish and scale" third-party content within their display media. This can either be curated by in-house specialists or taken from readily available content from AOL, Time Inc and Forbes.

SMG said that this product has "helped increase relevance and shift perceptions".

Content@Scale will be led by Iain Jacob, the president of EMEA at SMG, and Olivier Gers, the global president of LiquidThread, SMG’s branded content division.

Gers said there would not be a specific team in place to work solely on Content@Scale. He said the rollout would begin with LiquidThread informing clients of the product.

He continued: "The immediacy of the creative that is generated maximises awareness and peaks the interest of people to visit the pages and therefore yields four times the engagement.

"So there’s a real efficiency that we can create on behalf of our clients to really maximise the marketing objectives."

Content@Scale has already been rolled out in North America, Latin America, Canada, India and Australia. SMG has been testing it in EMEA since October last year.

Jacob said: "As technology changes the speed and way people engage with content across devices, it’s imperative successful marketers are able to connect with consumers in real time.


"Content@Scale enables brands to become agile marketers by mining and distributing premium content that's most relevant to their consumers in a particular moment consistently across all markets globally, regionally and locally."

Tudo que você precisa saber sobre os lançamentos do Google

29 de maio de 2015

Nesta quinta-feira, o Google I/O 2015, conferência para desenvolvedores realizada em San Francisco, nos Estados Unidos, foi palco para inúmeros lançamentos do Google.

Entre as atualizações, algumas já aguardadas pelo público, estão novidades que prometem facilitar a vida de muita gente, como o funcionamento do Google Maps no modo off-line. Muitas delas estarão hospedadas no Android M, próxima edição do sistema operacional, considerado como a mais potente até o momento.

Reunimos aqui algumas das novas ferramentas da gigante da internet que você precisa conhecer:

Maps e Youtube off-line

Como já foi falado, o Maps, uma das ferramentas mais funcionais do Google, passará a funcionar no modo off-line. Assim, será possível consultá-lo mesmo estando em lugares remotos aonde, muitas vezes, não há alcance da internet.

O mesmo serve para o Youtube. A plataforma funcionará como uma espécie de locação de vídeos. Isso significa que o usuário conectado poderá armazenar filmes e assisti-los, em até 48 horas, sem conexão com a internet.

O foco de ambos os recursos é tornar as ferramentas ainda mais acessíveis, especialmente em países em desenvolvimento, com difícil acesso e/ou conexão ruim.

Google Photos

O aplicativo irá organizar, editar e armazenar as fotos do usuário. Até aí nenhuma grande inovação. O fato é que a empresa garante que o espaço de armazenamento será ilimitado. Além disso, eles prometem não comprimir as imagens de até 16 megapixels e vídeos com até 1080p de resolução.

O app será um escape atraente para quem ainda não aderiu a nuvem. Isso porque conta com várias funções inteligentes, como a separação de imagens por pessoa através da detecção facial e geolocalização.

Economia de Bateria

Em sua nova versão, o Android ganha um modo inteligente de economia de bateria. Chamado Doze, o recurso utiliza detecção de movimento para colocar o celular em modo "soneca" sempre que o aparelho ficar estático por um longo período.

Segundo o Google, o Doze garante até duas vezes mais bateria. E o melhor: mesmo "dormindo", o aparelho será capaz de disparar alarmes e receber notificações de contatos categorizados como favoritos.

App para Internet das Coisas


Como já falamos na semana passada, o Google já está pronto para se aventurar na "Internet das Coisas".

Criado por engenheiros do Chrome OS, do Nest e de alguns outros setores da empresa, o Brillo possui todos os suportes do Android, incluindo Wi-fi e Bluetooth. Segundo a companhia, trata-se de um sistema simples, seguro e com possibilidade de suporte a diversos dispositivos, como lâmpadas e fechaduras inteligentes.

Pagamento Móvel

Nomeado como Android Pay, a função estará disponível no Android M como uma solução de pagamento móvel.

Entre as características está o suporte de leitor de impressão digital, que permitirá o uso da digital do usuário para efetuar uma compra. A plataforma também realizará compras ou pagamentos vinculados aos aplicativos bancários.

Parcerias

A Apple acaba de perder sua exclusividade sobre a HBO Now. O Google anunciou a chegada do serviço streaming ao Android. Isso permitirá que os usuários assistam programas produzidos pelo grupo, como Game Of Thrones e True Detective.

Já a parceria com a GoPro vai resultar inovações na forma de captar vídeos. Com o Jump será possível criar vídeos em 3D, através de câmeras com tecnologia para gerar imagens em terceira dimensão. A plataforma também possibilitará o compartilhamento deste conteúdo.

Óculos de realidade virtual

Parece que a democratização de suas tecnologias é a nova filosofia do Google. Com o objetivo de tornar o Cardboard, suporte de papelão que vira um "óculos" de realidade virtual, acessível a todos, foi apresentado uma nova versão do equipamento, mais simples e fácil de montar.

Além disso, foi anunciado o Expedition, um kit de Cardboards direcionada para o meio educacional. Os equipamentos permitirão que os alunos possam conhecer diversos lugares do mundo através da realidade virtual. As imagens serão controladas pelo professor por um tablet.

Redação Adnews

Why Pre-Roll Video Ads Need to Be Interactive

Interactive pre-roll video ads drive engagement, awareness

March 26, 2015

Still relying on traditional pre-roll? It may be time to move on, based on recent research. According to an analysis released in March 2015 by Innovid, interactive pre-roll video ads outperformed standard pre-roll across all metrics throughout 2014.


Interactive video impressions served worldwide to desktops via the Innovid platform last year saw an average completion rate of 77.7%. While standard video wasn’t too far behind, the source noted that any extra second advertisers can spend with viewers is worth it. A much wider gap was seen when it came to how long each ad was viewed. The average user watched 84.3% of an interactive ad, vs. 79.4% for standard video pre-roll.

Awareness was also higher for interactive video ads, at 31.0%, vs. 12.5% for pre-roll units.

Standard pre-roll was better for one thing, though: clickthroughs. While interactive units had an average clickthrough rate of 0.4%, this was 0.8% for standard impressions. Innovid noted that interactive’s lower rate was due to the fact that the ad type is meant to keep the user within the unit itself.

Overall, online interactive pre-roll video ads worldwide had an average engagement rate of 2.8% last year. This was even higher for longer ads, with 30-second spots seeing an engagement rate of 3.0%.

Data released in February 2015 by Sizmek also found impressive performance among interactive video ads. Based on impressions served worldwide in 2014 via the Sizmek platform, interaction rate for interactive video was 3.6%. Start rate was 86.2%, while nearly 80% of placements played to the 50% mark and two-thirds to completion.

eMarketer estimates that this year, US digital video ad spending will reach $7.77 billion, up 33.8% year over year. This figure puts video’s share of US digital ad dollars at 13.3% in 2015—the second-largest share of any display format.


The Future Is Personalized

By Tessa Wegert Jun 4, 2015

Because consumers have come to expect personalized marketing, in the future, it will be key for brands to incorporate personalization in programmatic, wearables and branded content.

Move over, content: In digital marketing, personalization is king.

Now more than ever, consumers expect personalization from brands. In response to a survey on online shopping behavior conducted by IBM, nearly 50 percent of consumers said they want personalized promotions online.

"Retailers may not be doing enough to meet consumer expectations shaped by digital experiences outside of retail," IBM concluded. Indeed, digital marketers are demonstrating a devotion to experimenting with personalized messaging in multiple forms. A recent survey of VentureBeat readers revealed that while marketers are most likely to incorporate personalization into email, they're also personalizing social media interactions, owned media properties, display ads, and mobile messaging. Let's take a look at some of the tactics, formats, and channels they're using to create a more meaningful consumer connection.

In Programmatic Marketing

Recently, ad platform Jivox introduced a new functionality that makes it easier for brands and agencies to serve highly personalized display, mobile, video, and native ads with programmatic technology.

"Personalization is no longer just an option for advertisers, it's the norm," says Diaz Nesamoney, chief executive (CEO) of Jivox. "For campaigns to be successful, consumers need to feel connected with the content they are being served, and it needs to be relevant and engaging. In order for advertisers


to achieve the level of personalization that is expected, advertisements need to be data-driven, serving the right content, to the right person, at the right time."

There's no question that the demand for these capabilities is contributing to the industry's remarkable growth. The U.S. programmatic ad market surpassed $10 billion last year and is expected to reach $20 billion by 2016.

Brands like Sears Canada are running both dynamic retargeting campaigns and data-optimized original creative. "When we are serving back to the consumer the same products that they are interested in or had researched, it provides a reminder and a comfort of convenience of access," Nurullo Makhmudov, Director, Online User Experience & Strategic Initiatives with Sears Canada, recently told eMarketer. "It's an invitation to come back and finalize your purchase. In that sense, it becomes a highly personalized and individualized execution."

In Wearable Technology

There are few better occasions to personalize a brand interaction than when a consumer is sporting a wearable device. Gadgets like the Apple Watch afford a level of brand intimacy that surpasses even mobile phones and tablets. Digital marketing firm R2integrated - which recently acquired New York-based Make Me Social and works with such clients as Under Armour and MasterCard - says wearables are an important extension of a brand's mobile strategy.

"They represent an opportunity to deliver more personalized, more relevant, more targeted, more timely and more connected experiences," says Matt Goddard, CEO of R2integrated. "For the marketer, understanding (consumer) behavior and using that data to achieve attribution of marketing touch points should be a key focus when building an integrated wearable strategy."

In Branded Content

Personalization plays a part in branded content as well. In February, Forbes announced that it partnered with AOL-owned Gravity.com to customize the content recommendations that appear to readers in the Promoted Stories section of its site. The alliance is meant to increase user engagement; according to Forbes, Gravity's technology determines which topics readers engage with most often, and delivers content recommendations based on these preferences.

Personalized branded content can also take the form of user-specific responses to tweets. Last year, American Express offered Twitter users personalized digital autographs from musical artist Pharrell. Part of the #AmexUNSTAGED campaign, the effort was designed to promote the brand's sponsorship of a series of concert films.

Also last year, Travelocity partnered with creative agency McKinney to launch a Twitter-based campaign inviting users to share their dream destinations using the #IWannaGo hashtag for a chance to win a trip. Travelocity's gnome mascot responded to 60 of the tweets with personalized Vines. According to Twitter, the brand was able to gain more than 34,000 followers.

"Campaigns that personalize not just the greeting but also the content reinforce that the brand knows more than the consumer's name," says Chick Foxgrover, Chief Digital Officer of the 4A's (American Association of Advertising Agencies). "People will first connect with the brand representative and then identify with the personalized content, which makes the brand message that much more attention-grabbing.


"Whenever this level of personalization is possible, it will have a strong positive effect on the messaging or offer," Foxgrover adds.

The future of digital marketing lies in creating personalized brand moments. And it's already here.

Can Marketing Tech Adoption Catch Up to Data Adoption?

JUNE 8, 2015

Marketers further ahead in data collection, integration than tech usage, education

Gathering data is critical for marketers, but in order to act on insights gleaned from all of the information collected, the right tools and skills are necessary. An April 2015 study by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and Winterberry Group found that while marketers acknowledged the demand for data integration, they were behind in implementing the technology and training needed to do so.

When asked the extent to which they agreed with certain statements about marketing technology, US marketing professionals were most likely to “strongly agree” or “agree” that aggregating different data sources was a top priority at their firms. However, more than six in 10 also noted that integrating new technology with existing tools—essential for getting data in order—was a challenge for their



organization. Fortunately, nearly as many respondents intended to purchase or implement new marketing tech in the coming year, and the majority had already done so and were working toward putting such tools to use.

However, implementing technology isn’t enough; training employees on how to use technology and proving its value are also important—and further responses indicated that marketers had their work cut out for them in these areas.

Promisingly, DMA and Winterberry found that many of the top initiatives at marketers’ companies focused on technology—though data was still more important. About six in 10 respondents said their firms would prioritize integrating and activating new data sources. A close 56.7% intended to evaluate current marketing technologies and see how they were using them, and 53.8% said they would focus on checking out new options. When it came to getting employees caught up, 54.8% said they would prioritize staff training.

As DMA and Winterberry noted, there’s “a crucial need for the alignment of technological tools and the skill sets needed to implement them.” And marketers that don’t leverage technology to act on data risk missing out on dollars. When a December 2014 study by PricewaterhouseCoopers asked US CEOs about the areas where digital technology was creating very high value for their company, data and data analytics landed in second at 50%, behind only customer experience (55%).



No Brasil, 68 milhões de pessoas acessam internet pelo smartphone

A maioria desses usuários é mulher e está concentrada na região Sudeste

A nova pesquisa realizada pela Nielsen Ibope constata que 68,4 milhões de brasileiros acessaram a internet via smartphone no primeiro trimestre de 2015. O número representa um crescimento de cerca de 10 milhões sobre os 58,6 milhões do trimestre anterior.

Segundo a pesquisa Mobile Report, o aumento do acesso mobile foi mais expressivo entre as pessoas de menor renda. No quarto trimestre de 2014, as classes C, D e E, juntas, representavam 36%. No trimestre seguinte, o índice saltou para 38%. Porém, a posse de smartphone conectado à internet continua bastante concentrada nas classes A e B, que somam 62% do total.

A Nielsen também apresentou um aumento do uso do smartphone online entre pessoas a partir de 35 anos. Nesse grupo, o crescimento médio no trimestre foi de 20%, enquanto entre adolescentes ficou em 9%. As mulheres são maioria entre os usuários de internet via smartphone, com 51%.

A região Sudeste é o maior mercado de smartphones conectados, com 47% do total. Mais da metade dos smartphones do Sudeste está no estado de São Paulo, que tem 26% do total do Brasil. A segunda maior região é o Nordeste, com 23%.

As redes sociais, serviços de mensagens, e-mail, vídeos, notícias, música e portais são os conteúdos e ferramentas mais utilizados usuários brasileiros de smartphone. Dos vinte aplicativos mais utilizados no Brasil, sete são redes sociais ou comunicadores instantâneos. Na sequência aparecem apps de bancos, e-mail, vídeos e games.

Quanto à leitura de conteúdo, os aplicativos ainda não são o meio favorito dos usuários de smartphone. Em abril, 40% dos usuários disseram que consumiram notícias pelo aparelho. Desses, 68% afirmaram que abriram o navegador de internet do smartphone para se informar, 42% leram notícias a partir de compartilhamentos em rede social e 30% consumiram conteúdo compartilhado em um app de mensagens.


A pesquisa também questionou o quanto as pessoas estão dispostas a pagar para ler notícias no dispositivo. Do total de leitores de notícias, 4% disseram que já pagam para ler conteúdo jornalístico no tablet ou no smartphone e 10% responderam que estão dispostos a pagar.

A pesquisa foi realizada pela internet com 908 usuários de smartphones de todo o Brasil entre 26 de abril e 5 de maio de 2015.

68 milhões usam a internet pelo smartphone no Brasil

De acordo com nova pesquisa da Nielsen Ibope, crescem acessos das classes C,D e E. 40% dos internautas móveis consomem conteúdos de notícias pelo aparelho.

São Paulo, Brasil—O total de pessoas que utilizam a internet por meio de um smartphone chegou a 68,4 milhões no primeiro trimestre de 2015, segundo a pesquisa Mobile Report, da Nielsen Ibope. O número representa um crescimento de cerca de 10 milhões sobre os 58,6 milhões do trimestre anterior.

Entre os dois trimestres, o maior crescimento ocorreu entre as pessoas de menor renda. No quarto trimestre de 2014, as classes C, D e E, juntas, representavam 36%. No trimestre seguinte, passaram a representar 38%, ou um ganho de 2 pontos percentuais. Ainda assim, a posse de smartphone conectado à internet continua bastante concentrada nas classes A e B, que somam 62% do total.

Distribuição dos usuários de internet por meio de smartphones, segundo classe e gênero – Brasil – primeiro trimestre de 2015

Classe econômica segundo critério Abep até 2014 | Fonte: Mobile Report, Nielsen Ibope

26% dos smartphones conectados estão em São Paulo— A pesquisa também registrou aumento do uso do smartphone online entre as pessoas de mais idade. Nas faixas etárias a partir de 35 anos, o crescimento médio no trimestre foi de 20%, enquanto entre adolescentes ficou em 9%. E também foi a primeira vez que a pesquisa registrou uma maioria feminina entre os usuários de internet pelo smartphone, com participação de 51%.

A região Sudeste é o maior mercado de smartphones conectados, com 47% do total. Mais da metade dos smartphones do Sudeste estão no estado de São Paulo, que tem 26% do total do Brasil. A segunda maior região é o Nordeste, com 23%.


Distribuição dos usuários de internet por meio de smartphones, segundo faixa etária e região – Brasil – segundo trimestre de 2015.

Fonte: Mobile Report, Nielsen Ibope

As redes sociais e comunicadores de mensagens, e-mail, vídeos, notícias, música e portais são os conteúdos e serviços mais utilizados pelos brasileiros na internet do smartphone. Dos 20 aplicativos mais utilizados no Brasil, sete são redes sociais ou comunicadores, quatro são bancos, três são plataformas de e-mail, dois são para vídeos e os outros são um game, uma loja de aplicativos, um navegador e um serviço de mapa e GPS.

10% dos leitores de notícias no smartphone quer pagar para ler conteúdo jornalístico.

Os aplicativos ainda não são uma forma usual para ler notícias pelo smartphone. Em abril, 40% dos usuários de internet pelo smartphone disseram que consumiram notícias pelo aparelho. Desses, 68% disseram que abriram o navegador de internet do smartphone para se informar, 42% afirmaram ter lido notícias a partir de compartilhamentos em rede social e 30%, por compartilhamento em um aplicativo de comunicação de troca de mensagens.

Fonte: Mobile Report, Nielsen Ibope

A pesquisa também questionou quanto as pessoas estão dispostas a pagar para ler notícias no aparelho. Do total de leitores de notícias, 4% disseram que já pagam para ler conteúdo jornalístico no tablet ou no smartphone e 10% responderam que estão dispostos a pagar. “As regiões mais ricas e que têm população com maior escolaridade apresentaram maior quantidade de pessoas dispostas a pagar para ler notícias”, informou o analista de mídia da Nielsen IBOPE, José Calazans.

E, ainda, a pesquisa indicou que 34% abrem o smartphone para ler notícias mais de três vezes por dia e que 37% ficam mais de 10 minutos a cada vez lendo notícias. Porém, a maioria prefere textos curtos e resumidos, ou mesmo vídeos, em vez de ler notícias longas pelo smartphone. Outra


informação que chamou a atenção foi que ‘antes de dormir’ apareceu na pesquisa como um dos momentos mais citados pelos usuários para ler notícias no aparelho.

A pesquisa foi realizada pela internet com 908 usuários de smartphones de todo o Brasil entre 26 de abril e 5 de maio de 2015.

A Nielsen Ibope é uma joint-venture entre a Nielsen e o Ibope Media. Líder mundial em mensuração do comportamento dos usuários da internet, a medição de internet da Nielsen está presente em todos os continentes e conta com o maior painel de internautas do mercado, com mais de 400 mil colaboradores (10.885 no Brasil, em janeiro). A Nielsen Ibope, por meio de uma tecnologia proprietária, mede as atividades dos usuários na web, o movimento publicitário online e fornece dados sobre a internet no Brasil e no mundo.

O Ibope —Multinacional brasileira de capital privado, o Ibope é uma das maiores empresas de pesquisa de mercado da América Latina e fornece um amplo conjunto de informações e estudos sobre mídia, internet, opinião pública, intenção de voto, consumo, marca, comportamento e mercado. Seus principais negócios estão concentrados nas empresas Ibope Media e Ibope Inteligência.

Content marketing should be layered

5 June 2015

LONDON: Two thirds of content is shared because the sharer either finds it to have practical value or to somehow reflect well on their own person, according to a new report which advises a 'layered' approach to content marketing.

In Content Marketing and Data Intelligence, published by the Content Marketing Association (CMA), Ben McKay, managing director/MEC Organic Performance, outlined the results of an MEC Citation Audit. This identified the top 50 most shared pages for a range of sectors before analysing these on a range of factors – page type, on-page content format, motivation for sharing – and looking for correlations among the data-set.

The most shared content was found to be editorial (27%) – typically how-to content or guides – CSR/charitable material (20%) and news (17%). All these, McKay noted, "typically serve a larger audience online and a particular need".

Turning to format, once again editorial led the way, featuring in 37% of shared content, followed by images such as memes, photos, infographics (33%), and video (25%).

The shelf-life of editorial is a major contributor towards this statistic, according to McKay who observed that a lot of the most-shared content could be regarded as "evergreen".

"It also raises the question as to whether brands are measuring this sort of ROI around their evergreen content investments," he added.

Motivations for sharing were led by practical value (35%) and there was also a correlation with how long such content had been on the web.

After that "personal branding", or how a person chooses to represent themselves online, was a factor in 31% of sharing. "This feels like a very powerful area for brands to influence," McKay suggested.


Brand 'stories' (5%) featured lowest, although "further analysis tells us that stories act as a sort of glue, giving you purpose to create content," said McKay.

He argued that a Citation Audit could act as a pillar for informing content strategy and "help draw more long-term value from a growing expense to the average business".

And he stressed that brands need to "layer" their approach rather than simply focus on the most-shared area: "Being too literal with just one pool of insight will never help win a marketing or content war."

Data sourced from CMA; additional content by Warc staff

The New Media Buying Formula: Upfront + Programmatic

Jun 4, 2015 Kathy Leake

How marrying the longer term buy and real-time executions can work for a brand.

As the tenor of this year’s Upfronts has made clear, the media marketplace has evolved dramatically and the inventory landscape is shifting. As a result, the way we plan for our clients and our brands is quickly changing too. Even as we transition from Upfront to NewFront season, the brand marketer’s attention continues to be focused on the longer-term planning cycle, direct buys, and/or the premium sponsorships to which they are so accustomed. Yet, amid this activity, agency folk increasingly find themselves simultaneously evaluating the programmatic opportunity for their clients. To those clients rooted in legacy approaches, this can be a tough sell. But it’s well worth it.

In the old days, the marketer equation of choice was Upfront + Scatter.

In most cases, Scatter simply amounted to a heavying up of dollars at a particular time, not a strategic data driven response to changing market behavior. Now, increasingly, marketers are considering an Upfront + Programmatic (the “New Scatter”)” approach, which includes a highly targeted use of real-time data.

In reality, programmatic is the natural complement to the Upfront mindset and planning processes.

Programmatic gives advertisers the option to target audiences across channels, wherever they are, based on data signals. As many of us have already come to appreciate, programmatic buying surfaces real prospects and reduces the waste of those who have never expressed any interest in a given product or brand. But it also gives marketers the opportunity to stay quicker on their feet and respond to trends, seasonal shifts or competitive forces, in a flash. It can be a powerful competitive weapon that allows marketers to unfurl a new campaign to reach their precise target at the drop of a hat—or the sounding of a new competitive bell.

The aggregate power of longer-term planning combined with a dynamic programmatic layer is evident when you consider a couple of categories. As we know, the Upfronts, and the buys they yield, can drive broad awareness at the top of the funnel for a large—sometimes too large—target audience.

Now consider adding a timely, targeted, and dynamic push to customers that complements that first layer of attack. That’s what happens when marketers earmark and deploy programmatic dollars in conjunction with their Upfront planning—the leverage media strategy, imagination and automation all at once.


For mobile carriers, this can mean starting with broad network buys—establishing plenty of awareness to draw a brand into a consideration set. But then, once a competitor moves and triggers a new price war, using programmatic as the weapon of choice to respond in real-time—when customers are actually contemplating a move to a competitor. Generally speaking, we see advertisers in this segment, such as Verizon, favoring data driven approaches to marketing, so that they could reach their target audiences in real time, with the most appealing offers possible, besting the competition. These companies are often also taking into account real-time intent-based data that incorporates those people most likely to considering the category and/or product at that time. Programmatic is gaining favor here.

Another examples are the fast food wars. We all know how intense those can be. Last year we saw Taco Bell take on McDonald’s, over breakfast. With the TV and video spots created by their agency Deutsch, “The Routine Republic,” the spring 2014 campaign went directly at its rival with traditional marketing and media that framed the Golden Arches as passe, and proclaimed Taco Bell as the next generation of fast-food breakfast. We saw TV ads with Ronald fawning over Taco Bell’s morning fare.

Over the coming months and into 2015, Taco Bell upped its investment in programmatic as well as its mobile play too, wisely tapping into the tastes and mobile preferences of their on-the-go consumer, executing much more on the fly, on top of their popular TV spots. With a programmatic layer, they could target frequent breakfast QSR audiences, offering handy mobile order customization options and more, as a wise and immediate tactical move to further support the new marketplace salvo.

Certainly, marketers will continue to plan and commit to the longer-term play but they will also increasingly reserve more funds and more imagination for the programmatic accompaniment. As we continue to navigate the new inventory picture and the planning environment that comes along with it, that’s very much the new equation.

Programmatic TV: Why Agencies Should Start Watching & Investing

May 28, 2015 John Holmes

Programmatic television is the future of advertising. By purchasing TV inventory programmatically, brands can pair the full-screen sight, sound and motion experience of television with the advanced audience segmentation that has for years made online advertising so attractive.

Yet many agencies hesitate to start reaping these rewards. For some, the issue comes down to being unfamiliar with the technology or hesitation to start something new. For others, the problem is that the inventory available for programmatic buying is still fairly limited.

The real question is: How do you get started?

First of all, agencies shouldn’t fear technology. If they aren’t understanding it, they should find someone who does and partner with them until they do.

Second, they should become early adopters. If they are afraid to climb out of their comfort zone, they’ll be in a world of hurt later when they’re being left behind.

Measurable Results

We’re in the business of giving clients results they can see, track and brag about. With programmatic TV, success is actually measurable.


A client that sells Brand X cereal, for example, may want to target women aged 35 to 45 with children. They could potentially take the guesswork out what TV shows these women are watching and when by purchasing a household addressable campaign. That way, the cereal ads are airing on whatever network the household is watching. Then, after the campaign runs, the cereal maker can use shopper loyalty data to see if they’re buying its cereal and make adjustments accordingly.

While premium television content remains extremely popular, more people are accessing it online through streaming and on-demand TV Everywhere apps. By integrating programmatic television into their media plans, marketers can use data to reach the same target audience across all of their various devices. Plus, the money an agency saves its clients by not showing their programmatic TV ads to viewers outside their target demographic can then be reinvested in reaching more of the right people online.

A Boon For Marketers, Networks and Publishers

As smart TVs continue to grow in popularity and an increasing number of consumers become accustomed to watching high-quality video on their mobile devices, the lines between what we consider television and what we consider online video will become blurred to the point where we no longer bother to distinguish between the two. In this environment, marketers will finally grasp the holy grail of being able to make one buy that allows them to reach the right audience across native web series, linear television and TV Everywhere streams.

For networks and web video publishers, the future of programmatic television will mean being able to sell every impression without worrying about running make-goods because their ratings underdelivered. On both sides, programmatic TV promises to bring unprecedented ease and scale to video advertising transactions.

The good news is that the days of widespread programmatic TV buying are coming sooner than you think. Just in the past few months, we have seen Mondelez use TubeMogul’s programmatic platform to purchase a 15-second regional ad during the Super Bowl and the E.W. Scripps Company announce it will soon join Cox Media in making inventory available to programmatic buyers.

And while many cable providers are jumping in and following suit, including Dish and DirecTV, making inventory available for advertisers to buy programmatically, there is still a limited supply of spots available. That’s why it’s important to supplement national campaigns with a healthy blend of traditional media schedules, although there are challenges in weaving programmatic television buys into the overall scheme of campaigns.

As more major players begin to follow suit, marketers will eventually have no choice but to embrace automated TV buying on a major scale. In the near term, they should start by making themselves familiar with new technologies and devoting whatever portions of their budgets they can to leverage the power of programmatic TV.

Can't Marketing and IT Just Get Along?

JUNE 3, 2015

Among departments, IT teams have the weakest relationship with marketing

With technology now an integral part of marketing, it’s critical for marketing and IT teams to be on the same page. However, April 2015 research by Harvey Nash in association with KPMG found that IT’s relationship with marketing was the weakest among departments.Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

When technology executives worldwide were asked to rate the strength of their IT department’s relationship with other groups in the company, marketing ranked No. 1 for “not strong,” with 27% of respondents. The silver lining? While tech executives rated the IT-marketing relationship as the weakest, results had improved slightly, as the 33% of respondents who said the relationship was “very strong” was up 3 percentage points from Harvey Nash’s 2014 study.

Marketing and IT departments will need to turn around their poor relationships, as further results highlighted an increase in collaboration. When asked which department owned the digital or ecommerce strategy at their company, nearly half of tech execs said it was shared by IT and marketing—the No. 1 response and up from 40% last year, when the percentage saying this had actually fallen. Among those who weren’t sharing the responsibility, marketers had lost a great share to IT and “other” departments.

When collaborating on digital business strategy, CMOs were most likely to shape overall goals, while the CIO and IT team built the tools to support these.

A study by The Creative Group in November 2014 found small advances had been taken toward collaboration, according to US chief information officers (CIOs). One-third of CIOs said they were




collaborating much (12%) or somewhat (21%) more closely with creative/marketing leaders in their company.

The study also looked at professionals on the other side of the relationship and here found higher positivity. Fully 55% of US advertising and marketing executives said they were working much (30%) or somewhat (25%) more closely with technology leaders in their company vs. three years ago.

While there’s a slight gap in opinion regarding the strength of the marketing-IT relationship, collaboration is increasing—and the two better be prepared to get along.

The world’s first atm with facial recognition technology is unveiled to the public in china

By Jason Hahn — May 31, 2015

Facial recognition technology for use in ATMs has been tested for a while now, but China seems to have won the race to roll out the first fully functional version to the general public. On Friday, a team of university and technology company researchers in China introduced an ATM with built-in facial recognition technology, which will ideally reduce the risk of illegal withdrawals.

The new ATM, built by a team from Tsinghua University and Tzekwan Technology, is equipped with cameras that capture images of faces and compares them with ID photos for verification, according to Xinhua. The facial recognition measure will be an added layer of identification on top of the traditional password or PIN required to access funds with a card. The ATM will also be linked to banks and local police offices to further bolster security.

Related: Smart ATM uses QR codes instead of cards to dispense cash

Beyond the facial-recognition technology, the new ATM comes with improved counterfeit bill recognition and high-speed bank note handling, according to South China Morning Post. While other ATMs in China rely on imported technology, this version is completely Chinese. It’s also the first independently produced ATM in the country.

The new high-tech ATM purportedly identifies and verifies multiple currencies 20 percent more accurately than the world’s average ATM.

While this is being heralded as the world’s first ATM with facial recognition security technology, prototypes of such cash vending machines have been worked on for a number of years by the likes of Hoyos Labs, Securityplus Federal Credit Union in Baltimore, and Diebold.

Coca-Cola's Javier Sanchez Lamelas: tech can't save average creative campaigns

Marketers that shift their resources from creative to fancy technologies are falling into a trap, says Coca-Cola’s top European marketer

Javier Sanchez Lamelas: ‘I focus on listening for insights or core human truths, rather than data and trends.’

Javier Sanchez Lamelas Monday 1 June 2015 10.10 BST


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Marketing technologies are evolving at a pace where, seemingly daily, new products promise to revolutionise the effectiveness of your creative.

By and large, the premise that smarter technology will advance marketing effectiveness is true. But in a way you might not expect. While big data and digital innovations might be able to deliver your content to people in a more intelligent and targeted way than ever before, one thing remains more important than ever: quality of creativity. Today, if people choose not to engage with your marketing output, your money is wasted.

In the past, marketers could produce a relatively average piece of creative, and with the right level of budget, could make sure it was seen by everybody. Today, however, is the age of brand Darwinism, where people can opt out of advertising if they wish and only the best creative will thrive. It is much harder to hold an audience’s attention but what they do like, they will share. This is tremendously powerful. So, be aware of the trap: it is not about shifting resources from creative to fancy technologies. It won’t work. You will be wasting your money. It is about improving the quality of your creative (first) and then using technology to amplify it (second)

Debranding: why Coca-Cola's decision to drop its name worked

People fall in love with brands in the same way they fall in love with people, attaching feelings and emotions to that brand. If you want people to engage with you as a brand, rather than just as a product, storytelling – engaging at an emotional level – is key. That’s why I focus on listening for insights or core human truths, rather than data and trends.

Campaign insights often just come down to observations about life that may seem startling, beautiful, new and resonant, but which are actually self-evident in retrospect. You won’t always find these through focus groups because people rarely broadcast their real thoughts to a room full of strangers. Our product is always at the heart of Coca-Cola’s marketing: providing refreshing, uplifting moments. Our marketing is also rooted in corresponding human values: happiness, togetherness, friendship.

There is no doubt that technology helps amplify brilliant content. It allows the public to become active brand supporters, to take your brand and play with it and give your content new life by making it their own. We’ve witnessed first-hand the huge potential of campaigns rooted in personalisation to create extraordinary moments with consumers. When someone chooses to use your brand as a vehicle to propose to their girlfriend – as someone did recently using our share-a-Coke bottles – this is what defines real success in my eyes. I also loved the Heinz Get Well campaign, which allowed people to send their friends and relatives personalised cans of soup when they’re not well, through the brand’s Facebook page.

Creating this genuine brand attachment means that consumers will come to the marketers. In the future, I believe we’ll see a shift towards brand-owned media channels. If we work hard and get it right, great marketing content, facilitated by new technologies, will mean that the model of marketers paying for consumers to view their content will keep moving towards consumers seeking that content out on brand-owned platforms. These are genuinely exciting times.

Javier Sanchez Lamelas is the vice-president of marketing for Coca-Cola Europe


Kellogg Has Stopped Buying YouTube Ads Over Viewability Verification Issue

By Tim Peterson. Published on May 26, 2015.

YouTube has a 91% video ad viewability rate but won't let brands check its math.

Earlier this month Google announced that video ads running on YouTube have a chance to be seen 91% of the time. That's great, and a lot better than the 46% of video ads that Google runs outside of YouTube that never have a chance to be seen. But advertisers would like to be able to check Google's and every other publisher's math.

Deep-pocketed brands such as Kellogg are pulling back budgets from major publishers, including Google-owned YouTube and Facebook, that won't let brands bring in third-party viewability companies to verify how many people may have actually seen their ads.

Ad viewability has become a chief concern for many marketers as they realize that many of the ads they're buying online never even had a chance to be seen. In December 2014 Google said that 56% of the web's banner ads are never seen. Evidence like that has led companies like GroupM and Unilever to demand that publishers only charge them for ads that had a 100% chance of being seen.

While there are disagreements over whether 100% viewability is feasible, many marketers believe that they should at least be able to hire independent companies to check the viewability numbers and enable brands to compare viewability rates on an apples-to-apples basis across multiple publishers.

"Third party verification is a critical component to responsively measure ad viewability. The vast majority of publishers agree to it and the few that don't will be adversely impacted with significantly Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

reduced spend or be completely removed from our preferred vendor list," said GroupM's chief investment officer Rino Scanzoni in an emailed statement.

Some publishers, including YouTube and Facebook, have already been impacted.

Kellogg Co. won't buy YouTube because Google doesn't permit third-party viewability measurement, Jim Kiszka, senior manager-paid digital media, North America, said during the question-and-answer portion of a panel on fraud in digital advertising at the Association of National Advertisers Media Leadership Conference in Hollywood, Fla. in March.

"We've always been clear with all partners across the digital ecosystem that as a principle we want to measure our investment and if we can't measure it, it's hard to justify the investment," said Aaron Fetters, director of Kellogg's global insights and analytics solutions center, in a recent interview.

Mr. Fetters declined to discuss instances where Kellogg has pulled budgets from specific publishers over viewability verification issues, but said thatHulu and Yahoo have been actively working with the marketer to make third-party viewability verification possible for ads running on their services.

Kraft Foods Group has also stopped spending with some publishers that won't allow third-party viewability verification, said the company's VP of media, data and CRM Bob Rupczynski. "We will put dollars behind the folks that we know we can measure, we know what the expectations are, and we will consolidate spend where we know we have validation," he said.

Mr. Rupczynski wouldn't say which publishers Kraft has stopped putting dollars behind over the viewability verification issue but did say that no publisher was so big as to be excused. "We hold all publishers accountable equally. We don't have a sliding scale," he said.

One major marketer that is ranked as one of Ad Age's top 100 brands by U.S. ad spend has reduced its spending on Facebook ads, in part, because the social network won't permit independent viewability verification. That marketer has also cut its spending with one publisher that wouldn't allow verification by double-digit millions of dollars and increased its spending with another publisher that did allow third-party viewability verification by double-digit millions of dollars, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

It's not just about third-party verification. More importantly to advertisers, those third-party companies would be able to use the same method for measuring ad viewability across different publishers -- who may have their own disparate methods -- and give advertisers a standardized look to compare how viewable their ads are on which sites and allocate their budgets accordingly.

"I'm sure they're not out there lying about the number, but I don't know the methodology behind the numbers they're giving me. And more importantly they're using one methodology that is totally a black box, I'm using a different one on other publishers, so I can't compare publisher-to-publisher…. Not being able to be transparent and accountable apples-to-apples across publishers is a very difficult thing that we're dealing with right now," Mr. Rupczynski said.

But even independent apples-to-apples comparisons face their own complications because even independent viewability firms may use different methodologies, as The Wall Street Journal has documented. Still, marketers aren't willing to sit on the sidelines until things work themselves out.

"The direction things are going is if the advertisers insists on a viewable measurement service, in the long run they'll get it," said Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser. He added that many


advertisers may be satisfied with the publisher-provided viewability stats because they understand there's seemingly no way for them to prove without a doubt that an ad was seen.

"What we desire is a consistent way to measure the investments we place as marketers. We're not yet today at a place where we have a consistent set of independent metrics," Mr. Fetters said.

Google and Facebook aren't shying away from the viewability discussion. As mentioned earlier, Google has published viewability stats for the ads it serves around the web and on YouTube, and the Media Rating Council has accredited the company's Active View product that brands can use to buy and measure viewable impressions.

Facebook is also getting on board. Last year the social network introduced a viewability requirement for its ads, though it fell short of the MRC's "50% in view for at least one second" desktop standard. And now it's working with the MRC to get accredited and develop a viewability standard for mobile ads, which account for the majority of Facebook's revenue.

But Google and Facebook remain the biggest hold-outs in terms of publishers blocking advertisers' abilities to verify their online ad viewability rates. Yahoo, AOL, eBay, Hulu, Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS, Turner, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are all said to support third-party viewability verification.

There appear to be a couple reasons for the standstill. For some publishers there are concerns that letting third-party firms monitor ad viewability would slow down page load speeds because those outside companies would need to place pieces of code on the publishers' sites that result in more data that needs to be downloaded for a page to render, which can be particularly problematic on a smartphone using a weaker-than-wifi cell signal. And Google's and Facebook's current hesitation seems to fit with both companies' reputations for being extremely protective of their data and not wanting outside companies accessing it without strict measures in place.

"Viewability has long been a concern for our clients, which is why we've supported industry-wide efforts and developed MRC-accredited technology, Active View, to measure and buy based on viewability across our products. Our partners have been very receptive to our focus on viewability and we're continuing to work with them to make sure their measurement needs are addressed," said a Google spokeswoman in an emailed statement.

"We are committed to providing value for advertisers -- we don't want them to spend a dollar with us if it isn't driving value. That is why we use viewed, not served, impressions to measure ad delivery across desktop and mobile. We are also working with the MRC to get accreditation for this approach because we want marketers to have full confidence in their ads being seen. Especially on feed-based, increasingly mobile-centric platforms, third-party verification view tags often slow down consumer experience and don't always report views consistently," said a Facebook spokeswoman in an emailed statement.

Not all marketers are taking such a hardline stance on viewability verification. For example, Wendy's continues to buy ads from Google even if the company can't fact-check how many people may have had a chance to see them.

"More measurement is good, and third party measurement is best, but beyond that we find the inventory at Google to be valuable, so no concerns here that are making us doubt working with them," said Wendy's VP of digital and social media Brandon Rhoten in an email.

Contributing: Jack NeffBabelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

The meeker report

5/29/15 By Cody Levine, Engagement Planner + James Mullally, Assistant Account Executive

Below is this week’s digital trends newsletter. This week, we’re diving into influential Venture Capitalist Mary Meeker’s 20th annual ‘Internet Trends Report’. Analyzing 20 years of Internet growth & innovation, shifting tech capabilities and how we use them, Meeker’s report reveals a fascinating look at how the landscape of the web has shifted its shape.

Internet Growth and Smartphone Adoption are Slowing Down

Among the most intriguing of the finds, Meeker’s report explains that for the first time ever, Internet user growth and smartphone adoption have begun to slow down. The rapid growth experienced in the past twenty years as these technologies were introduced may have finally met its steady point. For these numbers to increase again, it will depend on countries like China and developing markets and their ability to increase access to these capabilities.

Reimagining, Not Retooling Computing

The report also revealed a compelling look at how innovation in computing has evolved from a process of retooling to one of constant reimagining. Business processes, for example, have been simplified with tools that not only help create more fluid practices, but to actually help manage employees. Innovations have also given us more freedom, with companies like Uber creating a whole new option for those looking to work on their own terms, on a flexible schedule. Messaging on platforms like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Snapchat have evolved from basic communications platforms to multipurpose networks where you can chat, exchange money, view video, and see the news in one place.


Commerce Evolves to New Heights

Commerce has evolved tremendously as well, increasing buying power in consumers and business. The largest categories of consumer spending – housing, transportation, and food, have sparked products that can coordinate consumer needs with a flick of the wrist.

Interconnectivity, User Generated Content Drive Innovation

One final interesting point the report makes how we’ve adapted to promote user-generated content. With increasing ways to promote user generated thoughts, images, audio, video, reviews, and interactions, we are powering the products we use and shaping how our patterns change. As we continue to use these technologies and crave spontaneous new concepts, these trends will continue to expand in great ways.

Connected Cars: Past, Present And Future

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TU-Automotive Connected Car 2015 Pre Conference Review

The connected car industry continues to be in a state of flux and there’s no end in sight. The availability of a standard vehicle data port and built-in connectivity is fueling a wave of technology and business model disruptions, creating new opportunities not only for traditional OEMs and suppliers, but also allowing newcomers to play a major role in an industry that has been virtually impenetrable.


The changes in the status quo threaten the long standing hegemony of major automakers and their suppliers. As much as traditional OEMs want and, to some extent, succeed in controlling the conversation, they are facing significant technology and business risks.

I think it was in Telematics Detroit 2010 Conference where a common phrase among participants (frequently only behind closed doors) was “it’s the Wild West”, referring the onslaught of connected car products and services, many from companies not traditionally associated with the insular car industry. Some were clearly concerned about new competition. Others expressed legitimate concerns about safety and privacy. For others, the future of technology and service model innovation was threatened by the lack of standards and credible business models.

Five years later, the upcoming TU-Automotive Detroit Conference will direct the spotlight on the current state of the connected car industry and will help understand its future direction.

Five Predictions

In my 2015 Connected Cars Predictions article published earlier this year, I argued that the despite the heightened activity in the connected car space, significant and meaningful convergence will take time. Here is an abbreviated version of the five predictions.

Automakers Continue to Control the Conversation

Don’t let the announcements about technology collaboration with Google, Apple and Microsoft mislead you. In the near term, the uncomfortable status quo will persist: OEMs will resist opening up the vehicle platform and let outsiders into the fold, especially when it involves giving them access to critical vehicle data. Whether driven by fear of exposing information to competitors and regulatory bodies, refusal to relinquish value-add services to third parties, or just traditional thinking, OEMs will continue to dictate the topics and cadence of the conversation.

At the same time, automakers realize, perhaps reluctantly, that closed technology ecosystem impedes innovation, and business models that have not changed in decades are no longer meeting customer expectations. OEMs will expand their presence in Silicon Valley and other innovation hubs, be more relaxed about outside innovation, and might even experiment nontraditional businesses model.

Misalignment with the Consumer’s Mobile Digital Identity Slows Adoption

Consumers prefer using their smartphones not only because they offer a wealth of useful apps and information that are always up to date, but because the personal data and personalized services delivered via their smartphone are the proxy for their mobile digital identify. This identity offers consumers an uninterrupted modality-independent digital presence: same experience and services independent of the location and the mode of transportation being used.

However, automakers continue to offer vehicle-centric technologies and services, and in the race to add options and features to out-innovate the competition, the in-vehicle experience is becoming increasingly complex and confusing. As consumers stick to smartphone based services, many in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system fail to provide sufficient competitive differentiation.

Concerned Consumers Take a Wait and See Attitude

Concerns about connected car security and data privacy are top of mind of regulatory agencies, automotive industry insiders and the general public. In addition to concerns about possible hacking


into car electronics and disrupting vehicle to vehicle communication, there are lingering fundamental questions about car data ownership. OEMs, service and content providers and consumers have different points of view about sharing and using information collected and transmitted by connected cars.

Concerned consumers will take a wait and see attitude, expecting further proof that connected car technology is robust and safe, and that their personal information is not being exploited by OEMs or third parties.

Alliances and Partnerships Win

While OEMs were busy trying to sell telematic services through traditional business offerings, the aftermarket has been much more diligent. Third parties, from mainstream insurance companies to app developers to do-it-yourselfers and hackers are exploring new service options that exploit the treasure trove of data flowing from the car’s OBD II port, cutting the OEM out of the loop.

2015 should see the continuation and acceleration of the wave of M&As and partnerships activity in the general Internet of Things (IoT) space and in “connected mobility” in particular.

Wireless Carriers will be the Biggest Losers, Unless…

Recognizing the business risk in being relegated to a commodity supplier, wireless carriers are investing heavily in developing not only next generation global data networks, but also in mobile and IVI technologies such as voice recognition, driver distraction reduction, and car-home integration.

But despite these efforts, wireless carriers will not be able to reach significant traction with automakers beyond the current SIM-based data services. However frustrated by the protective practices of the OEMs, carriers will continue to compete for lucrative but precarious contracts with automakers.

Carriers need to think differently about ways to capitalize on their global connectivity infrastructure and expertise as a platform upon which to provide OEMs and consumers greater business value. This value is more likely to come from partnerships and acquisitions than from attempting to develop technologies to compete directly with OEMs and suppliers.

What to Expect at TU-Automotive Detroit?

One expects TU-Automotive Detroit to focus on connected car technologies and the obvious issues surrounding it, such as cyber security, safety, privacy and government legislation. I suspect that these topics will dominate the agenda this year. At the same time, in reviewing the rich roster of speakers and discussion topics, there will be as many conversations on open innovation, organizational transformation, and new business models and monetization.

IS this a sign of growing industry maturity?


Data, Data Everywhere in the Upfront: An Overview -- Part 1 (Updated)

By charlene weisler media insights q&a may 29, 2015

I have been attending (and contributing to) the Upfronts for many years but this appears to be the first in which so many networks are parlaying their innovative Research/Big Data/Analytics expertise as an integral part of their sales promise. "We are at an inflection point," announced Turner President of Broadcast Sales, Donna Speciale at their recent Upfront. "Data and content are officially hitched."

There has been a great deal of press on each individual network's data innovation and when you gather all of the pronouncements together, it is a fairly impressive tidal wave of research that seems to be upending and guiding the media sales process. All in all, it is all very heady for those of us with years toiling in the back offices of research.

I attended the Turner Upfront where Speciale announced "We are in the Wild West of metrics" as she capped off her presentation with a Big Data video ... preceding all the glossy individual network programming videos and announcements that have always been an Upfront staple. Linda Yaccarino, NBCU Chairman, Advertising Sales and Client Partnerships, announced at her Upfront that "Data matters more now than ever" as part of an initiative where NBCU will use Comcast set top box data.

Turner and NBCU are not alone. There is a lot of noise in the industry as everyone shouts from their own rooftops. I decided that it would be beneficial to get as many of these announcements in one place, asking each company the same set of questions.


My take: These data approaches are creatively varied in their use of datasets and metrics. Some collect their datasets in a DMP or cloud while others partner with research vendors for their metrics and custom data. Surprisingly, only some initiatives specifically include set top box data which, along with Nielsen, may be one of the few datasets that can be used to standardize and compare results across networks. Is standardization in our future? It doesn't seem likely to me at this time.

Question 1: Does your company have a data initiative? If so what is it?

Paul Haddad (SVP and General Manager Advanced Data Analytics, Cablevision Media Sales): Cablevision is leveraging aggregated, de-identified census-level audience tuning data to deliver unmatched audience relevancy, effectiveness and measurement and offering clients impressions-based campaigns that are purchased on a CPM basis vs. GRP. By applying the power of set-top box data to deliver data enriched media campaigns to advertisers and to deliver advanced analytics that provide unique insights we are allowing advertisers to better understand their audiences and power more effective and efficient media campaigns, ensuring the right messages target the right audience.

Katie Larkin (EVP Advertising Sales Research and Strategy, NBCU): One of our data initiatives is our newly launched Audience Targeting Platform (ATP) which matches set top box data with consumer data and applies that combination to our national portfolio inventory on the broad NBCUniversal portfolio for more precise targeting and schedule optimization.

David Poltrack (Chief Research Officer, CBS Corporation and President of CBS VISION): Campaign Performance Audit is a data-driven initiative that helps clients test the effectiveness of their ads, maximize reach and "recency," and offers more precise targeting and favorable context. The use of the analytical tools to implement these various components gives clients with a roadmap to planning and purchasing an effective television media buy while also providing a precise and actionable scorecard showing the measurable return on investment of the campaign.

Bill Rosolie (SVP Advertising Sales, Reelz): Reelz is expanding beyond traditional Nielsen audience metrics with a quantifiable audience engagement measure. In conjunction with Magid's EmotionalDNATM Intentionality Index and Evaluation Scores, we have developed a proprietary engagement measure known as the Z-Score. This score combines the two measurements and can be used across [more than] 1,000 programs.

Jo Ann Ross (President, CBS Network Sales): In addition to the CPA initiative that we launched in March, CBS is in development of a TV layer to its existing DMP (Data Management Platform) for digital. The goal of this will ultimately be to provide data-enabled decision making across screens, especially for TV planning and buying, like we do today on digital. CBS will come to market with products that provide KPIs important to marketers like scale, consistency and proof of ROI.

Howard Shimmel (Chief Research Officer, Turner Broadcasting): Building on what was introduced last year, we will continue to provide advertisers premium environments with targeting capabilities through our innovative ad products Targeting Now and Audience Now. Further, we will continue to align with marketers to better understand how our campaigns move product, utilizing ROI Now. Our ultimate goal is to provide stronger results for partners. And now with Turner Data Cloud, we are allowing our sales teams to open up the conversation to a more thoughtful scale. Research plays a crucial role in all this.

Audrey Steele (SVP Sales Research and Marketing, Fox Broadcasting): Fox Networks has multiple 3rd party data integrations and our own proprietary data set integrated into our DMP (Data Management Platform) and technology platforms to help clients improve performance on their


precision targets for the linear and non-linear audiences. We have data and technology partnerships that can aid our clients in determining the mix of attributes that define the consumer targets that best deliver on their sales and marketing goals.

Geri Wang (President, Ad Sales, ABC): We have various data initiatives aimed at delivering 1) more relevant audience insights for planning purposes and 2) varying levels of actionable targeting across our digital and linear video inventory. ABC Unified Insights, which will launch this fall on ABCAllAccess.com, will provide comprehensive, cross-platform audience and viewing data for ABC programming from aggregated Nielsen, Rentrak and internal digital platforms. From a targeting perspective, we have launched two capabilities -- one for digital, and one for linear TV. For digital media, The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) has deployed a single cross-business DMP to centralize our audience data and offer impression level targeting against client data, third party data, as well as some unique TWDC data. This offering will be available at an aggregated portfolio level across addressable digital media from ABC, ESPN, ABC Family, ABC Owned TV Stations, Disney Channel Media, Makers Studio and Marvel. For linear TV, ABC has built a set-top-box based data solution that matches viewership data with client or third party data sources, allowing us to plan and deliver TV schedules that better deliver against a client’s core objectives.

Tom Ziangas (SVP Research and Insights, AMC Networks): AMC Networks has created a Business Intelligence group to ingest and manage over twenty data sources to best provide research and key business stakeholders data and reporting analytics that provide efficiency, speed and insights in the decision making process. We are also moving into a B2C (business to consumer) model and gaining detailed understanding on how our consumers are interacting with our various media platforms.

Beth Rockwood (Senior Vice President, Market Resources, Discovery Communications): Discovery’s client focused research projects are managed through our Curiosity Lab. We work with clients to provide insights, targeting and accountability on a highly customized basis. Our new data partnerships will add significant capabilities to the Curiosity Lab, including both first and third party data.

Data, Data Everywhere in the Upfront: An Overview -- Part 2

By charlene weisler media insights q&a june 05, 2015

In the second part of my continuing series comparing all of the data initiatives rolling out in our industry, I have again asked a range of media executives the same set of questions.

More companies, spurred by the publication of last week’s article, contacted me to say that they, too, are in the data space. Jeff Lucas, Head of Sales, Viacom, added his voice to the discussion, saying that, “Viacom has listened to clients and has been ahead of the data curve by identifying ways to capture data differently and piloting new ad products several years ago.”

For an independent network like Ovation, the jockeying for data positioning is just so much showmanship. Liz Janneman, Executive Vice President, Ad Sales at Ovation TV, noted that there is “so much data and so much noise and confusion on this entire issue. Everyone is claiming to have the best!”

It makes for a lively ongoing discussion. This week, I asked media executives whether their data efforts are gaining traction and impacting their business.

My take: It may be too early to tell if all of these ambitious data initiatives are making an appreciable impact on revenue. The Upfront is just getting started. Time will tell. But the ability of companies to Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

scale and deliver on these promises will be pivotal components in any long term revenue generator. With smaller, independent networks, the lack of resources -- money as well as data -- could pose a challenge for future growth should the industry embrace these Big Data driven solutions.

Question 2: Is your company's data initiative gaining traction in the industry? How is it impacting your business?

David Poltrack (Chief Research Officer, CBS Corporation and President of CBS VISION): Yes, since we announced the initiative in March our CPA offering has gotten a considerable amount of traction. Our preliminary conversations with clients focus on what we are able to do, the accountability we are able to provide and the tools we will employ to measure the results. While this is not part of our Upfront negotiations, for interested clients it can certainly be a part of the broader conversation.

Jo Ann Ross (President, CBS Network Sales): Our CPA initiative has garnered significant traction. That said, we have not yet formally launched our cross-platform data management solution. We expect to have options available to advertisers over the next few months that will likely be part of the 2015-2016 season. To date, our data initiatives have been complimentary to our business as we expect the vast majority of TV buying and selling to be transacted on demos for the current Upfront.

Mike Rosen (Executive Vice President, Advertising Sales, NBCU): We are bringing ATP into the market for the first time as part of the 2015-16 Upfront marketplace, and the client reaction across broad categories has been tremendous. Advertisers have embraced the fact that we are bringing them the targeting that they are accustomed to in digital and employing that level to linear television for the first time ever at massive scale.

Beth Rockwood (Senior Vice President, Market Resources, Discovery Communications): In the past year we have gained experience in managing behavioral targets in addition to our traditional targets. Recently, we have seen increased interest from advertisers to improve targeting and optimize the impact of their schedules. Advertisers are interested in the data as well as in our insights about the connections between our viewers and their brands and how that connection can be leveraged towards ROI.

Howard Shimmel (Chief Research Officer, Turner Broadcasting): We have been executing and learning from our next generation ad capabilities for a couple of years, introducing some of our ad products during last year’s Upfront. The initial work involved vetting many of the various data providers. The next stage involved working with Ad Sales to co-create the products we’ve taken to market. We also worked closely with our Data Science team to build CAE (Competitive Audience Estimator), a system that allows us to forecast audiences for specific advertiser targets that we’re using to drive our targeting products.

Liz Janneman (Executive Vice President, Ad Sales, Ovation TV): For a deal where we are creating custom content or seamless integration into an original episode, Ovation partners with the advertiser to measure ad recall, purchase intent and likelihood of sharing that positive experience with friends and family. That advertiser can also add a few other metrics to measure or ask questions to better grasp the impact of brand experience or brand integration. We've conducted many of these studies across a wide category of advertisers and now have sufficient benchmarks to measure against other advertisers in the category or other programs on any other channel.

Paul Haddad (Senior Vice President and General Manager, Advanced Data Analytics, Cablevision Media Sales): Since introducing census-level audience tuning data, we have seen a record number of campaigns, specifically with our programmers and automotive clients who are using our insights and


data to deliver targeted promotions and advertising to households. Within the industry we are collaborating with multiple players including ESPN and Time Warner Cable, bringing together two leading first-party data sets and providing advertisers unprecedented granularity and robust intelligence about the unique value of the impression.

Elizabeth Herbst-Brady, Executive Vice President, Ad Sales Strategy, Viacom: Our data initiative, Viacom Vantage, is an innovative predictive ad product that pioneers a new approach to matching advertisers with their custom targets, while offering more choice, more flexibility, and increased accountability. We piloted a beta version of Viacom Vantage more than a year ago with five partners, and the results exceeded expectations. Client feedback has been very positive and we expect to do more Viacom Vantage deals this year because its customization and precise targeting is unique in the marketplace.

Tom Ziangas (Senior Vice President, Research and Insights, AMC Networks): I believe we are exposing our data abilities to agency and advertisers, but as is the case with all industry efforts with data driven sales and buying, everyone has their own “black box”/”secret sauce” so it makes it difficult to impact the overall marketplace. Internally this initiative is creating time efficiencies that are leading our smartest research folks to shift the balance of their time to more insights to drive our business.

Hanna Gryncwajg (Senior Vice President, Sales, RLTV): With all of these data announcements I am concerned about the ability of independent long tail cable networks to compete in the market. It is likely that these smaller networks would have financial limitations as well as limited access to data and are therefore at a disadvantage in showcasing the uniqueness and value of their audiences. The hyperbole behind all of these data-oriented announcements could negatively impact our business.

The opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Media Village management or associated bloggers.

How Automation Will Change Content and Native Ads

MAY 28, 2015

Nearly nine in 10 say tech will improve content marketing and native advertising

Content marketing and native advertising are each set to see strong gains in the near future, as April 2015 research from PulsePoint and Digiday found that the growth rates for both would outpace other formats in the next two years. But first, marketers will have to deal with hurdles involving efficiency, measurement and targeting, which the rise of automation technology could help resolve.


When the study asked agency and brand professionals in the UK and US about barriers that were preventing them from doing more with content marketing and native advertising, lack of resources and budget to deliver high-quality content efficiently was the biggest issue, cited by 55%. Difficulty measuring and proving return on investment (ROI) was second, at half of respondents. Coming in third was the inability to target and distribute at scale.

Technology will help industry professionals overcome these boundaries and change the future of content and native. Six in 10 agency and brand professionals and publishers said automation tools would allow for more precise data-driven targeting, and a close 58% would be able to resolve the ROI issue with better measurement and optimization techniques. Distributing content at scale and creating quality content more quickly were also expected to be results of marketing automation. In all, just 11% of respondents said such tech wouldn’t improve content and native.

Adoption of programmatic and automation tools for native advertising remains low, at just 23% of US client-side marketers, according to Q4 2014 data from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA).




And in a November 2014 study by Undertone, fewer than a quarter of US publishers, agencies and marketers each bought or sold native ads programmatically.

However, January 2015 polling by Curata found that changes were on the horizon, as nearly six in 10 US marketers intended to increase content marketing tech investment in 2015. Of course, content marketing and native advertising cannot be used interchangeably, with Digiday and PulsePoint explaining: “Content marketing is the overarching strategy. Native is one tactic of execution.” But the two certainly intersect, as the study went on to say: “Content marketing is the message. Native can be the envelope it is delivered in.” While marketers must indeed treat each as its own, content marketing and native advertising’s strong relationship means tech will reshape both simultaneously.

Retailers focus on bridging digital-physical divide

MAY 26, 2015

UK retail ecommerce sales are expected to top £60 billion ($99 billion) in 2015, helped by a strengthening economy and impressive growth in smartphone-based buying. From a global perspective, the UK will remain the world leaderwhen it comes to retail ecommerce’s share of total retail sales, according to a new eMarketer report, “UK Retail Ecommerce 2015: Smartphone Shoppers Driving Sales Growth.”

Most retail purchases are still made in physical stores in the UK—85.6% of total retail sales will be conducted this way in 2015, eMarketer estimates—but the fact remains that retail ecommerce is seeing good traction. And even when digital channels aren’t used to make purchases, they very often play at least some role in the purchase decision.

A Deloitte report published in January 2015 suggested that digital devices influenced one-third of in-store retail sales in the UK last year, equating to a retail value of almost £100 billion ($165 billion).



Linking the worlds of physical and digital commerce is thus becoming increasingly important. One shopping trend that helps validate this view is the rising popularity in the UK of click-and-collect services that allow for digital purchases to be picked up by the customer at a physical collection point, usually in-store. According to January 2015 polling by the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) and eDigitalResearch, 73% of UK digital buyers had used click-and-collect services. Of that number, 75% said they were very satisfied with the experience.

January 2015 polling by eDigitalResearch indicated that UK consumers were keen to advance their digital purchase and fulfillment behaviors even further. The study found that a third of UK digital buyers would be willing to opt for delivery by aerial drones, particularly for small items like books and DVDs, albeit with an underlying perception that these types of services won’t “get off the ground.”

UK shoppers are often at the forefront of digital retail behaviors—for many, shopping in-store is just one possible destination on their purchase path. For example, December 2014 research for the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA)found that many UK mobile users weren’t especially likely to complete their path to purchase in-store—only 25% of those queried said a physical store was their primary completion site, vs. 37% who said their laptop typically was.

While in-store remains important, a conjoined experience across physical and digital looks to be as crucial. “I no longer think about what I can buy online and what I can buy physically: It’s all about the same experience,” said Mark Brennan, head of mobile at Manning Gottlieb OMD. “This explains why you’ve got the likes of Amazon, having gone from being a pure play digital commerce platform to




opening their own store. They recognize that there are certain things that just aren’t as strong as the high street.”

Do Marketers Need Agencies to Get 'Ahead of the Curve'?

MAY 27, 2015

Marketers are 'behind the times' in most areas

The agency-client relationship is in good standing, but recent research finds that the number of those relationships is falling. For agencies to continue to attract clients, they’ll need to prove their ability to drive improvement so customers can get ahead of the competition.

A January 2015 study by Econsultancy for SoDA found that client-side marketers worldwide were cutting back on the number of digital agencies they used. More than one-quarter of respondents had taken digital efforts entirely in-house—over double the percentage last year—while the number using just one agency rose from 23% to 32% between 2014 and 2015. Meanwhile, about four in 10 were using two or more digital agencies, down drastically from 64% the prior year.

Clients were most likely to value agencies for their experience in emerging trends, and further results suggested that despite marketers’ attempts to bring digital efforts in-house, pain points existed that could benefit from outside help.




More marketers reported being “ahead of the curve or state of the art” than “behind the times or hopeless” in just two areas: data usage to drive digital marketing effectiveness and user experience. Meanwhile, respondents lagged in emergent digital interaction (augmented or virtual reality, for example), return on investment analysis, place-based digital experiences (such as interactive installations and place-based mobile tech) and innovative engagement models—that is, engaging with agency partners in innovative and highly collaborative ways. So while marketers are pulling back from outsourcing, SoDA noted that plenty of opportunities exist for agencies to help marketers innovate and outpace the competition.

However, if agencies are unable to help marketers get ahead of the curve, they risk getting canned. Client-side marketers were most likely to have terminated an agency partnership because their needs had outgrown the agency’s abilities.

VP to agencies: understand consumers' digital behaviour and deliver KPIs

Managing digital: reckitt benckiser’s vp marketing stephan argent may 22, 2015

In this series on managing the digital revolution, Ari Aronson and Stephan Argent collect insights from both the agency and the brand sides of the street.

This week, Marketing contributor Stephan Argent chats with Shailesh Shukla, vice-president marketing & trade marketing at Reckitt Benckiser, to get an idea how the company is navigating its way through the digital marketing revolution.

What’s your vision for the future of digital in your organization?

It’s defined by what we do. We are in the business of providing solutions for consumers that lead to healthier lives and happier homes and how the consumer is moving into the digital world will dictate the role of digital. Right now, digital is becoming the lead in terms of consumer communications, media and content.

Overtime I see development of etailing and direct selling to the consumer becoming a larger portion of digital, though that will take time.

The third thing coming to the fore is market research because it’s a tool that leads to input into R+D into what consumers are looking for and asking for.

But above all, our vision will be driven by consumer’s digital behaviour because we are here to service the consumer.

What areas of digital do you do in-house vs. outsource, and why?

Brand strategy, digital strategy and how our digital footprint is interacting with the consumer is all done internally. The media strategy and deployment, content strategy and content deployment is outsourced. The one exception, our online video buying is done in house because we have a huge volume of online video across the world, and we have a central team that buys that for us.

Do you use a one-stop agency or split out digital separately, and why?

At the moment it’s split out separately for two reasons:


First because we could not find one agency that was expert in all aspects of digital. Knowing consumer behaviour with a particular category in digital was important in planning. We needed expertise in managing search and optimization in specific categories. We needed expertise in social, CRM as well as programmatic buying and so on. And we just didn’t find all that expertise in one place.

Second, as we started walking in this [digital] space, all these new technologies and ways of connecting with the consumer started coming up and we were approached by companies like Facebook, which demonstrated its expertise in specific areas. So the fact the new technologies were emerging and our agencies weren’t comprehending all of them, we had to form specialist partnerships where necessary.

How has digital impacted your marketing org chart?

The only way it has impacted us is that we have a digital manager in-house now. What it’s really impacted is the thinking of our marketing organization and being digital at heart and digital first because the comfort levels used to take them back to traditional. But, the thinking now is rapidly evolving to digital first and digital at heart because that’s the most important and complex thing to grasp and deploy. I’m pushing the team to think digital first and digital at heart.

What are the biggest challenges you’re facing from a digital perspective?

I need our digital agencies and partners to have the expertise to understand the consumer digital behaviour in relation to the category.

For example, how the consumer interacts with removing a stain from their clothes digitally is completely different from the same consumer’s behaviour when it comes to preventing cold and flu infection in their home digitally. One requires an immediate solution to get rid of the stain and search might be the most obvious interaction digitally, and we have to be number one there. If someone is concerned about germs in cold and flu season, then they may be looking for content and going into sites and information areas that may not be driven by search.

That’s where we sometimes apply digital as a tool without really thinking about the real objective or the KPI. At times I’ve seen the same strategy come to me for Resolve stain remover and the same strategy for Lysol. But it’s different. We have to ask have we thought through how the consumer is using digital in relation to the category. We are marketing in a digital world, we’re not doing digital marketing for the sake of digital.

What are the key expectations from your brand team and digital partner?

Three things:

• Understand my brand and my consumer

• Understand the digital consumer behaviour in relation to the category

• Deliver the media and content strategy accordingly

Everything should align and all the dots should connect.

What key lessons have you learned as an organization when it comes to digital?


What we are learning now is that digital is very shiny and very exciting. There seems to be a new tool and a new app everyday and we can sometimes get carried away. So there are two things that we need to do. First we have to ask, does it make sense with what we want to achieve with the consumer, is this the right bridge connecting us with the consumer, or is it a nice shiny toy and I’m running after it?

Second, what’s the ROI? We sometimes get very excited and we run it, but we realize it’s not the right bridge that connects us to the consumer and we’ve wasted time and money and we don’t see an appropriate ROI.

Do you decide how to allocate budget between traditional and digital?

It’s driven by our objectives. There’s no directive as to what the percentages should be. It’s driven by what the brand objectives, media objectives, consumer digital behaviour and what our consumers are looking for. I expect it to grow, but what I don’t want to do is make it a fixed percentage of say 60% because then we’ll make it 60% without thinking about what really makes sense.

How can agencies be more effective to you and other marketers in their digital solutions?

Understand what the brand’s strategy and objectives are. Clearly understand what the consumer digital behaviour is and deliver the brand KPIs in that manner with the right tools. I want my agencies to keep on bringing the new shiny apps and solutions to us, after thinking through whether it makes sense, while educating us on what’s changing consumer behaviour in the digital world.

Stephan Argent is president at The Argedia Group, an agency management consultancy.

Disruption and woulda, coulda, shoulda

With the latest pivot for Blackberry much has been said about disruption and what it can do to companies. The story, Inside the fall of BlackBerry: How the smartphone inventor failed to adapt, by Sean Silcoff, Jacquie Mcnish and Steve Ladurantaye in The Globe and Mail is a wonderful account.

Disruption has a couple of characteristics that make it fun to talk about. While it is happening even with a chorus of people claiming it is happening, it is actually very difficult to see. After it has happened the chorus of “told you so” grows even louder and more matter of fact. After the fact, everyone has a view of what could have been done to “prevent” disruption. Finally, the description of disruption tends to lose all of the details leading up to the failure as things get characterized at the broad company level or a simple characteristic (keyboard v. touch) when the situation is far more complex. Those nuances are what product folks deal with day to day and where all the learning can be found.

Like many challenges in business, there’s no easy solution and no pattern to follow. The decision moments, technology changes, and business realities are all happening to people that have the same skills and backgrounds as the chorus, but the real-world constraints of actually doing something about them.

The case of Blackberry is interesting because the breadth of disruptive forces is so great. It is not likely that a case like this will be seen again for a while—a case where a company has such an incredible position of strength in technology and business gained over a relatively short time and then essentially erased in a short time.


I loved my Blackberry. The first time I used one was before they were released (because there was integration with Outlook I was lucky enough to be using one some time in 1998—I even read the entire DOJ filing against Microsoft on one while stopped on the tarmac at JFK). Using the original 850 was a moment when you immediately felt propelled into the future. Using one felt like the first time I saw a graphical interface (Alto) or a GPS. Upon using one you just knew our technology lives would be different.

What went wrong is almost exactly the opposite of what went right and that’s what makes this such an interesting story and unbelievably difficult challenge for those involved. Even today I look at what went on and think of how galactic the challenges were for that amazing group of people that transported us all to the future with one product.

Assumptions

When you build a product you make a lot of assumptions about the state of the art of technology, the best business practices, and potential customer usage/behavior. Any new product that is even little bit revolutionary makes these choices at an instinctual level—no matter what news stories you read about research or surveys or whatever, I think we all know that there’s a certain gut feeling that comes into play.

This is especially the case for products that change our collective world view.

Whether made deliberately or not these assumptions play a crucial role in how a product evolves over time. I’ve never seen a new product developed where the folks wrote down a long list of assumptions. I wouldn’t even know where to start—so many of them are not even thought through and represent just an engineer or product manager “state of the art”, “best practice”, or “this is what I know”.

It turns out these assumptions, implicit or explicit, become your competitive advantage and allow you to take the market by storm.

But then along come technology advances, business model changes, or new customer behaviors and seemingly overnight your assumptions are invalidated.

In a relatively simple product (note, no product is simple to the folks making it) these assumptions might all be within the domain. Christensen famously studied the early days of the disk drive industry. To many of us these assumptions are all contained within one system or component and it is hard to see how disruption could take hold. Fast forward and we just assume solid-state storage, yet even this transition as obvious as it is to us, requires a whole new world view for people who engineer spinning disks.

In a complex product like the entirety of the Blackberry experience there are assumptions that cross hardware, software, communications networks, channel relationships, business models and more. When you bring all these together into a single picture one realizes the enormity of what was accomplished.

It is instructive to consider the many assumptions or ingredients of Blackberry success that go beyond the popular “keyboard v. touch”. In thinking about my own experience with the product, the following list just a few things that were essentially revisited by the iPhone from the perspective of the Blackberry device/team:


• Keyboard to touch. The most visible difference and most easily debated is this change. From crackberry thumbs to contests over who could type faster, your keyboard was clearly a major innovation. The move to touch would challenge you in technology, behavior, and more.

• Small (b&w) screens to large color. Closely connected with the shift to touch was a change in perspective that consuming information on a bigger screen would trump the use of the real estate for (arguably) more efficient input. Your whole notion of industrial design, supply chain, OS, and more would be challenged. As an aside, the power consumption of large screens immediately seemed like a non-starter to a team insanely focused on battery life.

• GPRS to 3G then LTE. Your heritage in radios, starting with the pager network, placed a premium on using the lowest power/bandwidth radio and focusing on efficiency therein. The iPhone, while 2G early, quickly turned around a game changing 3G device. You had been almost dragged into using the newer higher powered radios because your focus had been to treat radio usage as a premium resource.

• Minimize bandwidth to assume bandwidth is free. Your focus on reducing bytes over the wire was met with a device that just assumed bytes would be “free” or at least easily purchased. Many of the early comments on the iPhone focused on this but few assumed the way the communications companies would respond to an appetite for bandwidth. Imagine thinking how sloppy the iPhone was with bandwidth usage and how fast the battery would drain. Assuming a specific resource is high cost is often a path to disruption when someone makes a different assumption.

• No general web support v. general web support. Despite demand, the Blackberry avoided offered generalized web browsing support. The partnership with carriers also precluded this given their concern about network responsiveness and capacity. Again, few would have assumed a network buildout that would support mobile browsing the way it does today. The disruptor had the advantage of growing slowly (relatively) compared to flipping a switch on a giant installed base.

• WiFi as “present” to nearly ubiquitous. The physics of WiFi coverage (along with power consumption, chip surface area and more) assumed WiFi would be expensive and hard to find. Even with whole city WiFi projects in early 2000’s people didn’t see WiFi as a big part of the solution. Few thought about the presence of WiFi at home and new usage scenarios or that every urban setting, hotel, airport, and more would have WiFi. Even the carriers built out WiFi to offload traffic and include it for free in their plans. The elegant and seamless integration of WiFi on the iPhone became a quick advantage.

• Device update/mgmt by tethering to off air. Blackberry required tethering for some routine operations and for many the only way to integrate corporate mail was to keep a PC running all the time. The PC was an integral part of the Blackberry experience for many. While the iPhone was tethered for music and videos, the presence of WiFi and march towards PC-free experiences was an early assumption in the architecture that just took time to play out.

• Business to consumer. Your Blackberry was clearly a business device. Through much of the period of high success consumers flocked to devices like the SideKick. While there was some consumer success, you anchored in business scenarios from Exchange and Notes integration to network security. The iPhone comes along and out of the gate is aimed at consumers with a camera, MMS, and more. This disruption hits at the hardware, the software, the service integration, and even how the device is sold at carriers.


• Data center based service to broad set of cloud based services. Your connection to the enterprise was anchored in a server that business operated. This was a significant business upside as well as a key part of the value proposition for business. This server became a source for valuable business information propagated to the Blackberry (rather than use the web). The absence of an iPhone server seemed like a huge opportunity yet in fact it turned into an asset in terms of spreading the device. Instead the iPhone relied on the web (and subsequently apps) to deliver services rather than programmed and curated services.

• Deep channel partnership/revenue sharing to somewhat tense relationship. By most accounts, your Blackberry business was an incredible win-win with telcos around the world. Story after story talked of the amazing partnerships between carriers and Blackberry. At the same time, stories (and blame game) between Apple and AT&T in the US became somewhat legendary. Yet even with this tension, the iPhone was bringing very valuable customers to AT&T and unseating Blackberry customers.

• Ubiquitous channel presence to exclusives. Your global partnership strength was unmatched and yet disrupted. The iPhone launched with single carriers in limited markets, on purpose. Many viewed that as a liability, including Blackberry. Yet in hindsight this only increased the value to the selected partners and created demand from other potential partners (even with the tension).

• Revenue sharing to data plan. One of the main assets that was mostly invisible to consumers was the revenue to Blackberry for each device on the network. This was because Blackberry was running a secure email service as a major anchor of the offering. Most thought no one was going to give up this revenue, including the carrier ability to up-charge for your Blackberry. Few saw a transition to a heavily subsidized business model with high priced data plans purchased by consumers.

These are just a few and any one of these is probably debatable. The point is really the breadth of changes the iPhone introduced to the Blackberry offering and roadmap. Some of these are assumptions about the technology, some about the business model, some about the ecosystem, some about physics even!

Imagine you’ve just changed the world and everything you did to change the world—your entire world view—has been changed by a new product. Now imagine that the new product is not universally applauded and many folks not only say your product is better and more useful, but that the new product is simply inferior.

Put yourself in those shoes…

Disruption

Disruption happens when a new product comes along and changes the underlying assumptions of the incumbent, as we all know.

Incumbent products and businesses respond by often downplaying the impact of a particular feature or offering. And more often than folks might notice, disruption doesn’t happen so easily. In practice, established businesses and products can withstand a few perturbations to their offering. Products can be rearchitected. Prices can be changed. Features can be added.

What happens though when nearly every assumption is challenged? What you see is a complete redefinition of your entire company. And seeing this happen in real time is both hard to see and even harder to acknowledge. Even in the case of Blackberry there was a time window of perhaps 2 years Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

to respond—is that really enough time to re-engineer everything about your product, company, and business?

One way to look at this case is that disruption rarely happens from a single vector or attribute, even though the chorus might claim X disrupts Y because of price or a single feature, for example. We can see this in the case of something like desktop Linux—being lower priced/open source are interesting attributes but it is fair to say that disruption never really happened to the degree that might have been claimed early on.

However, if you look at Linux in the data center the combination of using Linux for proprietary data center architectures and services combined with the benefit of open source/low price brought with it a much more powerful disruptive capability.

One might take away from this case and other examples, that the disruption to watch out for the most would be the one that combined multiple elements of the traditional marketing mix of product, price, place, promotion. When considering these dimensions it is also worth understanding the full breadth of assumptions, both implicit and explicit, in your product and business when defending against disruption. Likewise, if you’re intending to disrupt you want to consider the multiple dimensions of your approach in order to bypass the intrinsic defenses of incumbents.

It is not difficult to talk about disruption in our industry. As product and business leaders it is instructive to dive into a case of disruption and consider not just all the factors that contributed but how would you respond personally. Could you really lead a team through the process of creating a product that literally inverted almost every business and technology assumption that created $80B or so in market cap over a 10 year period?

In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway wrote:

How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.

That is how disruption happens.

—Steven Sinofsky

For Video Ad Viewability, Size Matters

MAY 20, 2015

Larger player sizes drive higher viewability rates

Marketers remain concerned about paying for video ads that aren’t seen. According to April 2015 research by Google, shelling out for larger ad sizes could help boost viewability.


The study looked at video ads served by DoubleClick and Google Display Network worldwide and found that among the most common ad sizes across the web, larger players were the most viewable. For example, 848x477 units ranked second for volume behind 300x250 placements, but the former hammered the latter when it came to viewability, with respective rates of 88.6% and 19.8%—the highest and lowest out of all sizes studied. Placements sizes 640x390, 1280x720 and 854x510 each hovered above 85%, while 300x225 and 610x290 units made up the rest of the bottom three.

Data released in March 2015 by Innovid found similar results. Among interactive online pre-roll video ads served worldwide in 2014, broadcast publishers such as ABC, CBS and NBC crushed portals and publishers (AOL, Condé Nast, Mashable, Yahoo and so forth) as well as platforms and aggregators (any demand-side platform’s network exchanges and trading desks) for viewability rate, at 77% vs. 49% and 38%.

Broken down by size, online pre-roll video viewability for broadcast publishers was 80% on large players, compared with 19% for medium and 0% for small units. Results were slightly different for the other two publisher types, which each saw highest viewability for medium players; still, the lowest rates were for small ones.

Beyond size, Google looked at another factor of video viewability—location—and found that ads with the highest rates were located on the top and in the center of the page.

eMarketer estimates that digital video ad spending will reach $7.77 billion this year, up 33.8% from 2014. For video advertisers to get the most for their money, they should keep in mind that bigger is better and focus on front-and-center placements that grab eyeballs before users scroll away.

Assembly's Jeff Brooks Talks Data-Planning Engines and the Infrastructure Age

Plus, a miracle on ice for the Rangers

By James Cooper May 18, 2015, 7:41 PM EDT

Thoughts about the current video marketplace for brands?



Enthralling and utterly confusing. There's never been greater video content for brands to leverage or co-create, distribution platforms to build reach, or targeting capabilities to isolate high-value audiences. But with all opportunities come challenges, a persistent one in this case being lack of measurement standards, and limited access to data across video channels and devices.

Do you spend more time thinking about mobile or data?

Data, for sure. Mobile is already scaled—to the point where singling it out almost feels dated. I just read an interesting article about the "Information Age" nearing its end as the "Infrastructure Age" emerges. So yeah, we as marketers have to come to terms with this. People love the bought/owned/earned media paradigm. I'd propose there's an emerging addition to that family: built media. Using tech to create time and space that didn't previously exist. That's cool.

Pick one thing to fix with a snap of the finger.

The aging process. Slow that shit down please so I can enjoy my kids a little longer before they leave for college. And deliver a Stanley Cup to the New York Rangers. Not necessarily in that order.

How do you, and MDC, define a modern media agency?

It's been over a decade since the last media agency of any scale launched. Facebook, iPhones and Uber didn't exist. If you were to purpose build something for today, it would naturally look different. For starters, it would have a true tech and data core. This is not to be confused with capabilities, often which live as silos or separate profit centers. I'm referring to an engine on top of which the agency plans, buys, measures and iterates daily. Another differentiator is talent, namely people who think of everything around them as a possible media opportunity for their clients, and who are comfortable working with that kind of ambiguity. That's a new and potentially scary mindset for some media folks.

What has you intrigued?

At the moment, it's the ongoing debate about whether automation means the death of creativity. I don't buy it. There's waste in every business. To the extent technology can remove labor-intensive, mundane tasks through automation, it means that our best product—our people—can spend more time adding strategic value for our clients. Algorithms will never generate insights or big ideas, but to the extent they can make those ideas work harder, all the better.

What is your creative vision for MDC's Assembly?

We want to make ideas bigger through media. Many other agencies don't share that vision, despite the seismic changes afoot. The clichéd take would be that it's now more about amplification than distribution. But it's bigger than that. When Assembly was formed, [MDC Partners CEO] Miles [Nadal] wanted it to be held in as high regard as MDC's other creative agencies.

New Media Agency Reviews Highlight Sector Risk


BOTTOM LINE: New media agency reviews of significance announced today include Fox and BMW, which follow on formal confirmation yesterday of the widely expected P&G review. These and many other reviews currently underway highlight once again that 2015 has become a significant year for media agencies in particular, with a backdrop of ongoing efforts by marketers’ procurement teams to


reduce costs and new concerns around rebates or other forms of undisclosed compensation within the industry.

There appears to have been a significant uptick in agency reviews this year, especially with US-focused media agency reviews. These are particularly important because media agencies have in recent years been high margin (low-20s) and fast-growing (typically low teens) businesses. On the margins, some of these reviews are undoubtedly due to concerns about rebates which have grown in prominence over the past couple of months. To this point a survey released yesterday by consulting firm Ebiquity (which has a speciality in auditing agencies for fees and cost benchmarking) indicated that 62% of the 100 marketer-side procurement executives who attended last month’s ANA’s financial management conference agreed rebates are either a “very hot topic” or “somewhat hot topic” within their organizations. However, efforts to drive down like-for-like costs are undoubtedly a factor as well; the same survey showed 63% of those respondents feel they are “extremely” or “moderately” pressured to reduce agency compensation annually (although our guess is that responses to this question would not have been materially different in other recent years).

So it shouldn’t be surprising that two new reviews of some significance were announced this morning. First we have 21st Century Fox, which spends in excess of $1bn annually globally, now reviewing its global media agency business which is currently with Publicis’ (PUB.PA, Sell) Zenith in the United States and with Dentsu’s (4324.T, N/R) Vizeum internationally. Second, BMW announced it is putting its US media agency business up for review. It presently spends around $100mm on media, with Interpublic’s (IPG, Hold) UM as its media agency. This follows formal news yesterday (widely expected in recent weeks as we have written previously) that P&G’s North America media business is up for review, with Publicis’ Starcom the primary incumbent, but also including some activity at Dentsu’s Carat (Canadian media and some North American planning) and WPP’s (WPP.L, Sell) Catalyst (for paid search buying). Notably, reports yesterday indicate the review likely involves not $2.6 or $2.8bn, but more like $6bn in total activity which likely means low hundreds of millions of dollars in total fees in what will probably be the biggest media agency review in US history. Other media reviews launched in the last few months include Citibank’s global business (incumbents including WPP’s MEC and Publicis’ Citibank), Coca-Cola’s US business (Publicis’ Mediavest is the incumbent), L’Oreal (split between Interpublic’s UM and Publicis’ Zenith primarily), Darden (Olive Garden and Longhorn Grill) (at Publicis’ Starcom), CVS (at WPP’s Mindshare), Visa (at Omnicom’s (OMC, Sell) OMD), and Coty (also at OMD). And all of this comes on top of pre-existing reviews for Unilever (a statutory review, to be sure, but one worth ~$5bn globally, with incumbents at WPP, Omnicom and Interpublic) and Sears (at Havas, reportedly worth $600mm). Across all of these reviews, it appears Publicis is most exposed as the primary incumbent on nearly half of this total business.

Combined, these amount to more than $16bn in active media agency pitches. This doesn’t include competitive reviews which have gone un-announced or the non-competitive internal reviews that also occur regularly. We recognize that individual agencies will have the opportunity to gain when consolidations occur or by selling through incremental services at the time of a review. In some instances agencies will be able to avoid fee reductions and convince marketers that more spending leverage can be realized by focusing on “smarter” media planning and buying. However, at an industry-wide level, we expect the fall-out from many of these reviews and others that will inevitably follow this year to contribute to efforts by marketers to limit growth in spending on their agencies and concurrently impact agencies’ abilities to generate revenues from practices that marketers either do not explicitly authorize or do not completely understand.


Agencies and Barter - Great Businesses, But Perception Problems Remain


BOTTOM LINE: One of the issues associated with the current advertising agency holding company rebate “debate” (put in black-and-white terms, the notion that marketers believe undisclosed-and-unauthorized forms of agency compensation are accruing to their US agencies, while holding companies deny the presence of these activities) relates to barter, or corporate asset trades. Barter is very much a part of the conversation because of the limited degree to which marketers understand these practices in context of their agencies’ overall operations. We think that barter operations produce significant value for marketers, and ultimately are valuable businesses to the holding companies with scaled operations in this field including Omnicom (OMC, Sell) and Interpublic (IPG, Hold). However, investors need to be aware of barter both for the business model that it is in context of the rebate issue as well as in context of modern media agency operations. The durability of non-transparent trading activity – even when that non-transparency is fully disclosed – is also important to note. Further, we think investors should generally be aware of the ways in which barter activity may impact reported revenues and margins for agency holding companies.

What is Barter, And How Big Is It For The Agencies?

In its idealized form, barter, or corporate trade allows a marketer to take an asset and trade that asset for media “credits” from a barter agency. The marketer’s assets will typically have been written-down, unlikely to generate full value for the marketer. The marketer then pairs its credits along with cash to buy advertising inventory through the barter agency. In doing so, the marketer uses less cash than it otherwise would have needed to accomplish its goals. Meanwhile, the barter agency then trades the asset either to an intermediary who will liquidate that asset for cash (or for an asset that a media owner wants) or trades a mix of the asset and cash directly to a media owner for ad inventory. Conceptually, the media agency overseeing planning works closely with the barter agency to ensure that inventory chosen is consistent with the marketer’s preferences. At the same time, a barter agency may previously have committed to spending with a given media owner before it has an asset to trade.

While clients who work with barter agencies will generally understand that they are buying into a “black box” involving undisclosed margins, those clients who desire complete transparency from their agencies along with a minimization of conflicting interests may have some concerns about the presence of barter operations in the holding companies they work with. These concerns are rooted in the perception that a barter agency’s sibling media agencies may directly or indirectly use their negotiating clout to steer benefits (or even inventory) to the barter agency, making barter more appealing from a pricing and inventory access perspective than it otherwise would be.

The biggest entity which specializes in barter is privately held Active International. Active has stated that it placed more than $1.7bn in media around the world last year, although the majority of this activity is in the United States. The second biggest is Omnicom’s ICON International, which claims to place more than $1bn annually, and operates solely within the United States. This size compares with RECMA estimates of total US-based media billings of around $20bn for Omnicom’s media agencies. Interpublic’s Orion Trading is likely the next largest, at around half of ICON’s size on our estimation. As another useful point of reference for scale, according to a 2012 article in Ad Age, independent media agency Horizon’s affiliated barter division Eden Road traded $200mm, equivalent to around 5% of the agency’s then-$4bn in total billings. Most other holding companies either have much smaller barter operations or exclusively partner with independents such as Active. All agency holding companies will have clients who will work with Active, and in many instances marketers will


work with the barter shop within one holding company while maintaining a core media account with another. This may be because of relationships, perceived quality of the offering or because the media credits a marketer received in exchange for its asset trade outlived the relationship the marketer had with its core agency.

How Widespread Is Barter As A Source of Media Owner Revenue?

Meanwhile, from the media owner’s perspective, barter can be a double-edged sword. Any vendor of any given good would always prefer cash to an asset. However, barter capitalizes on the fact that most media owners have unsold inventory or are in need of incremental volume of spending at different points in time. Liquidating inventory for a mix of cash and assets or for discounted rates can be preferable to the alternative of not doing so, although not always: media owners might fear that trading with barter may serve to encourage discounting, especially as they will tend to believe that barter shops owned by holding companies will trade information with their sibling agencies, improving a conventional media agency’s negotiating position. Further, we believe media owners generally have to sell their inventory at a discount to barter shops, allowing them to take a higher margin than would be the case when selling to a conventional media agency. From the media owner’s perspective, this creates some risks to overall pricing integrity if they become dependent upon barter as a revenue stream.

Corporate trade is reasonably widespread among media owners. While not all public companies disclose how much activity they realize from barter, those who do convey that it accounts for 2% or less of GAAP revenue (and a typically equivalent amount of expense). A list of media companies we are aware of who provide explicit include Cumulus (CMLS, N/R), Emmis (EMMS, N/R), Entercom (ETM, N/R), Gray (GTN, N/R), Lamar (LAMR, N/R), NCM (NCMI, N/R), News Corp (NWS, N/R), NexStar (NXST, N/R), Radio One (ROIAK, N/R), Saga (SGA, N/R), Salem (SALM, N/R), Spanish Broadcasting (SBSA, N/R), Time Inc. (TIME, N/R) and Townsquare (TSQ, N/R). In addition to this list, Dex (DXM,N/R) has disclosed that it generates revenues from barter.

See attached for our summary of the revenues these companies generate from barter in context of their total revenues.

More notably, Crown Media (CRWN, N/R) (owner of The Hallmark Channel cable network) indicated this past year that barter revenues doubled year-over-year and now accounts for more than 1% of their revenue. We believe that national TV owners and digital media owners have become increasingly important suppliers to the barter agencies. For example, a scan of ad sales executives working with barter agencies on LinkedIn indicates sales relationships between (at minimum) Comcast’s (CMCSA, Buy, covered by Pivotal Research’s Jeffrey Wlodarczak) NBC Universal, Disney’s (DIS, N/R) ABC, Time Warner’s (TWX, N/R) Turner Networks, Viacom (VIAB, Buy), Discovery (DISCA, Buy) and AMC Networks (AMCX, N/R), too. Although the figures on the attached spreadsheet indicate a declining share of revenue is coming from barter, we think this is more likely because more and more barter is going to more nationally-oriented media properties rather than to the more locally-oriented ones who have historically disclosed data on barter. The sheer breadth of the kinds of companies generating revenue from barter should convey how widespread barter has become.

Problems Lie In Perceptions, But Interest in Barter Will Still Grow, Meaning More Focus Needed On Accounting Implications

There can be an interesting array of overlapping interests and non-cash-based activity when an agency has a media owner as a client. For example, Omnicom’s ICON has a case study on its


website which says ICON has structured over thirty transactions for Discovery Communications, ranging from issuing Trade Credit for inventory to funding agency fees.” ICON illustrates that it traded $5mm of unsold product from Discovery’s retail operations for ad inventory Discovery used to promote its networks’ programming. At competing cable network Lifetime, ICON exchanged business travel it procured for ad inventory that Lifetime provided to ICON.

The presence of proprietary trading activity within the industry which is un-associated with barter probably adds to the concerns that some marketers have in this area. While WPP’s (WPP.L, Sell) Xaxis is certainly the best known example of an agency-based entity that buys ad inventory and re-sells it to marketers, we think this business is increasingly understood as being a media owner akin to Rocket Fuel (FUEL, N/R) or other ad networks. Omnicom’s more conventional agency trading desk Accuen is also taking principal positions in its digital media buys as part of an evolution of that unit’s business model. However, there are other entities inside of Omnicom that are clearly buying and reselling ad inventory, such as OmNet, which launched in late 2013 in the wake of the then-pending merger with Publicis (PUB.PA, N/R). Although the premise of OmNet is that an advertiser can buy comparable inventory to what is on the rest of a media plan – including national TV properties – for a lower price than would otherwise be possible, marketers we have spoken to have concerns about the degree to which there is an appearance of conflicting interests. We note that in the case of Xaxis and OmNet (and likely with other proprietary trading-focused entities as well) the undisclosed nature of these trades is disclosed to clients. The problem lies in the perception, at minimum. We think that the undisclosed nature of trades may be disclosed, but not fully understood by all of a marketer’s decision-makers.

For investors, this perception problem is an important one. Unfortunately for the holding companies, they are in a tough spot, as demonstrating that nothing inappropriate is happening can be a near-impossible task. However, we think that interest in barter should continue to grow much as it has in the past, not least as these activities produce significant financial value for marketers, made more notable in a media world which is increasingly procurement-driven. However, the more that agency activities become “black boxes” the more that marketers will behave as if undisclosed activities are more pervasive than they probably are, and so expanded disclosure – whether for clients alone or for clients as well as investors – may be part of the solution that will eventually emerge. Conceivably, even marketers who have conveyed that they are comfortable with the non-transparent nature of barter may begin to insist on more transparency – and thus reduced margins – on underlying media inventory pricing unless the barter businesses are more fully separated from their sibling media agencies.

More practically, as barter grows, it becomes increasingly important for investors to understand the impact of related activities on reported financial results. Barter can be accounted for in many different ways, with revenue that might be associated solely with a fee or which might be associated with the value of the media traded, depending on how specific contracts have been structured. Booking a significant amount of barter activity for the media trading underpinning it will produce relatively low operating margins than would otherwise be the case; booking barter for fees alone to the exclusion of media trading will be a higher margin activity. Thus, as barter expands, it becomes another factor that limits the direct comparability of line items such as organic revenue growth and operating income margins between the holding companies (especially for Omnicom, which is already booking its proprietary trading activity as revenue on a gross basis).

The Next Frontier in Customization: Lay's Potato Chip Bags

The Potato Chip Brand Is the Latest Marketer Turning to Custom Packaging


By E.J. Schultz. Published on May 12, 2015.

If you run a massive food brand, how do you offer a personal touch? For the marketers at Lay's it means giving buyers the chance to design their own bags.

The potato chip brand is launching a program in which people can create custom bags by uploading a personal picture and phrase depicting their "favorite summer moment." Lay's will then use the digital design to create real bags and ship them directly to the consumer, set to arrive near the Fourth of July.

But Lay's fans will have to act fast. PepsiCo-owned Frito-Lay is capping the program at 10,000 bags. Still, that is a significant customization effort for a brand used to pumping out countless monolithic designs.

"The packaging and [research and development] teams have invested a lot of effort to figure out how do we do these small customized packaging runs within the complexity of the millions of bags we produce," said Frito-Lay North America CMO Ram Krishnan.

In a separate program, Lay's is creating special bags with designs made from ultraviolet ink that change when they are exposed to sunlight. "It is the first time I think anyone has ever done UV-activated packaging for the consumer," Mr. Krishnan said.

Lays Before Sun Lays After Sun


Custom and unique packaging programs have emerged as a critical tool for big consumer-packaged good brands that can no longer rely on traditional advertising to break through. Consider Coke, which brought back its "Share a Coke" program in the U.S. this summer after a successful run last year in which people scooped up bottles in search of their own or a friend's name on the label.

While Coke's effort randomly populates store shelves with packages using hundreds of popular first names, Lay's is putting the consumer in charge of creating their own unique bags.

Lay's execs are counting on social media to increase the program's reach well beyond the owners of the 10,000 custom bags. For instance, Lay's will send a digital image to the consumer as soon as the bag is designed, hoping the user will share it broadly. When the bag is delivered, chances are people will boast about them again on their social networks -- at least that is the goal.

"I would say we are going to reach millions and millions of people very easily," Mr. Krishnan said. "Consumers want this two-way conversation," he added.

Of course, there is some risk that people could hijack the program with inappropriate images. To reduce that risk, Lay's will review every entry. "It has to be appropriate. It has to live up to building the brand equity," Mr. Krishnan said. The rigor required is "why it's very difficult to do these things in scale all year long," he said.

YouTube “How To” Video Searches Up 70%, With Over 100 Million Hours Watched In 2015

Google says most popular "how-to" searches include home-improvement, beauty and cooking related videos.

Amy Gesenhues on May 13, 2015


People trying to figure out how to accomplish a home improvement project, fix their hair or prepare a recipe have helped grow YouTube’s “how-to” searches by 70 percent year-over-year.

According to new data released by Google today, not only are searches for how-to videos up, but the amount of how-to content viewed has grown as well, with more than 100 million hours of how-to videos viewed by North American users since January.

Searches related to “how-to” on YouTube are growing 70% year over year, with more than 100M hours of how-to content watched in North America so far this year.

YouTube found its most popular “how-to” searches are related to home-improvement, beauty and cooking videos.

The top how-to home improvement video searches include “how to unclog a toilet,” “how to remove wallpaper” and “how to decorate your bedroom.” For beauty, users are most often searching for how-to videos related to “prom hair,” “balayage” (a hair coloring technique) and “man bun.”

YouTube accounts much of its search growth to mobile, noting 91 percent of smartphone owners turn to their phones to complete a given task.

“Being constantly connected has trained us to expect immediacy and relevance in moments of intent – the I-want-to-know, I-want-to-go, I-want-to-do and I-want-to-buy moments,” reports Google, “These micro-moments are the new battlegrounds for people’s hearts, minds, and dollars.”

Google says Millennials have also played an integral role in driving YouTube’s search numbers. Citing its consumer study from last month, Google reports 67 percent of Millennials agreed they can find a YouTube video on anything they want to learn.


Red Bull redefines role of data in videos to enrich viewing experience

5 may 2015 - 8:54am | posted by seb joseph

Red Bull is redefining the role of data in its content, overlaying it onto videos to fashion a more dynamic and exciting experience for viewers.

Data in media is a “breakthrough for a thrilling consumer experience”, according to the chief technology officer of Red Bull’s Media House Andi Gall. Armed with this belief, he hopes to pave the way for the next chapter in the company’s commitment to publishing branded content.

While rivals are focused on how data sits behind content, Red Bull wants it at the fore where readings like GPS and biometrics are used to add another, more exciting dimension to posts. From eagle flights visualising altitude to free falls depicting heart rates, the business is testing the method now in the hope of being able to overlay the data on all its videos next year.

“Imagine watching a video of a skier and truly getting an insight into what they were thinking during those moments,” explained Gall. He cited a test whereby skier and Red Bull athlete Axel Naglich was strapped with sensors and then filmed as he hurtled down a mountain. The resulting video used his mental and adrenaline readings to visualise his concentration through data, showing how it wavered as he fell over a rock before quickly steadying the moment he realised the slip had triggered an avalanche that needed to be outrun.

“This is extreme [sports], Gall told The Drum. “Without the visualisations it looks more one-dimensional. We want to produce frame-accurate-data to videos during live events and in post production. The idea is to show that this data is so emotional.”

To achieve this dynamism, Red Bull is running tests to try and synchronise all the meta data generated during a production with its broadcast and video-on-demand clips. It is not just meta data for one clip, it’s for each frame and so Adobe has been brought in to provide the technical expertise.


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The wider issue, as it is for all marketers chasing bigger data, is how to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Consequently, part of the Media House’s “data in media” endeavours focus on erecting a worldwide private platform it hopes will connect people through data. Dubbed eAURA, the concept is a hub offering a truly safe and secure platform for personal insights that people can collect, connect, analyse, synchronise, visualise and share but only if they want to.

Lofty aspirations aside, Red Bull wants the portal to function as a service for fans and a way to uncover new media opportunities. “We’re building something that isn’t proprietary and functions as an independent [platform],” said Gall.

“It’s not just focused on sport. It could also connect to musicians or to scientists. Everyone could use this sensor network to collect different information and use it for different ways. For example, an athlete might want to share meta data with their doctor or coach or someone who’s good at skiing could connect with someone on either side of the world sharing similar data. If we do this right then it could be used to influence our programming in the future.”

Crowd-controlled media is how Gall envisages the portal’s business use, creating new channels that are shaped around peoples’ meta data.


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The other proponent behind Red Bull’s rush for more ferocious data is its “Be Part of It” initiative. What started out as a project to connect robotic pianos the world over has quickly escalated into a push to link MIDI-instruments with the intention of bringing fans closer to the music. A project currently underway sees the business looking at how it can use the “Be Part of It” platform to synchronise bars to playlists.

Beyond data, Red Bull also has an eye on emerging technology in its bid to stay ahead in the branded content game. Working with Spherical, developers of 360 camera app Sphere, the media house is developing a platform that will let people experience events like a concert or an extreme sport as if they were really there. A working version is scheduled for June ahead of further research into how it can make it mainstream as well as bring elements of its “data in media” plan.

“We’re in the process of finalising the production chain,” said Gall. “The next step is how we can bring this spherical stream - with [streaming experts] Akamai - directly to your home and then you decide whether you want to use your mobile device or something like the Oculus Rift. We will have spread out our update on the Red Bull TV platform so people can also consume TV content this way.”

The investments come as Red Bull looks to bolster its online TV channel transition to pay TV platforms with a wider content pool. Red Bull admitted last month that it needed to move beyond action sports into areas such as arts programming, documentaries and gaming-related shows to develop a firmer commercial offering around its content. By leaning harder on data the business wants to take its content to a broader audience while also selling its programming to third party distributors.

Through its mastery of content, Red Bull has gone from drinks maker to a publishing empire that happens to sell drinks. For this to continue to be fruitful, Gall said it must not forget “linear broadcasts”.

“Digital will win and is the [priority] but in the end you also need these extensions on traditional channels like TV,” he added.


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IPG’s Cadreon Developing TV Buying Software With Video Ad Tech Firm TubeMogul

By mike shields Patrick T. Fallon for The Wall Street Journal

Cadreon, a digital ad-buying specialty division of IPG Mediabrands, has partnered with the ad technology firm TubeMogul TUBE -1.49% to build tools and software for buying targeted TV ads.

According to Cadreon’s global president, Arun Kumar, the new set of proprietary tools will be aimed at helping IPG’s clients blend data from numerous sources to reach more specific and valuable audiences with TV ads across multiple TV networks.

TubeMogul allows ad buyers to use Web-based software to purchase inventory on various Web sites, local TV stations and, increasingly, national cable networks viapartnerships with companies such as Cox Media Partners.

While the amount of national, prime-time network TV inventory available to advertisers “programmatically,” or on an automated basis, may be fairly limited at the moment, Cadreon wants to get out of ahead of the growing interest among advertisers to buy TV in a similar fashion to online advertising, where precision targeting is common. The agency division says it will be able to meld data from its own proprietary Audience Measurement Platform, as well as data from set top boxes as well as some data from various consumer shopping sources.

Various broadcast networks like NBC are talking about offering more data-driven ad options this year as they look to match the Web’s capabilities in this area. Yet Mr. Kumar said a major part of the appeal of this deal is that it doesn’t limit Cadreon’s programmatic TV efforts to any single network or vendor.

“This enables us to take our data, sync it with other data sources, and do it far more efficiently than we have to date,” he said.

Mr. Kumar was adamant that Cadreon was not building the equivalent of a TV trading desk–a model that has received much scrutiny in the digital ad world. Critics contend that some agencies buy ad inventory at bulk programmatically and sell it to their clients at a markup. “We take no positions on inventory,” he said. “We don’t do arbitrage.”


TubeMogul Chief Executive Brett Wilson said the Cadreon deal didn’t limit the company from inking similar deals with other agencies. But he emphasized that this partnership wouldn’t be easily replicated.

“We’ve never done a deal like this before,” he said. “We are building out software together, and putting a dedicated team on this project.”

Reddit Builds Out Video Capability

Reddit, the social news source and ‘front page of the Internet’ has grown to enormous size– with over 170 million monthly viewers and over 6.7 billion page views in the month of January alone.


But as Reddit links out articles, images and videos from around the web, hosting virtually no content of its own, it’s focus has been to become a newsmaker itself with original content. In the last year the company has released its own newsletter and podcast, and now has announced its own video division. The first assignment will be taking the heralded AMA (Ask Me Anything) format bringing the real and authentic interview to life in video. With a video play in original content, the company opens the doors to bringing in new audiences and capitalizing on new video ad formats for the platform. You can learn more here.

“Why Play A Game, When You Can Live It?”

'The Void’ is the virtual reality theme park that people have only dreamt about. And yet another look at the future of entertainment. It’s an out-of-home experience that delivers both physical and mental immersion by allowing you to roam freely around a virtual environment using a physical space/arena. Fusing physical and virtual spaces allows you to actually live the game you’re playing. The Void’s “Virtual Entertainment Centers” will house these experiences and are coming to major cities around the world. For a mind-blowing look at The Void, watch this.


Introducing Facebook’s Instant Articles

Later on this month you may start to see full articles from major news sites like New York Times, Buzzfeed, and National Geographic show up in your Facebook newsfeed. With the launch of a new product, Instant Articles, Facebook will look to keep readers in the newsfeed. Rather than clicking out and loading a new page on the New York Times, Facebook would host the entire article, while giving nearly all of the article’s ad revenue back to the publisher.

Allowing Facebook to host articles directly on the platform would mean giving up control over the user experience and back end reader data that the publisher would capture on its own site. But with a potential reach of 1.4 billion users worldwide, its hard to pass up. You can read more here.

Programmatic Creative: Look to Existing Processes for Guidance

MAY 5, 2015

Marketers, agencies look to evolve creative process to meet demands of programmatic era

Programmatic techniques have brought speed and efficiency to media buying. Now it’s time for the creative side of the ad business to follow suit and become more efficient, nimble and innovative, according to an eMarketer report, “Creating Ads on the Fly: Fostering Creativity in the Programmatic Era.”


The creative process of the past isn’t sufficient to keep up with the needs of the programmatic era. But a significant amount of infrastructure change and mindset change will need to happen before the new rules of creative development emerge.

Looking to existing processes for guidance can help marketers and their agencies navigate the coming changes:

Consider it an evolution rather than a wholesale change: Digital marketers have long wanted the ability to target consumers with more personalized creative. Techniques such as dynamic creative optimization help pave the way toward future audience-driven creative processes.

“The truth is, our CRM business has been running daily optimizations for CRM for a long time,” said Christian Purser, chief digital officer at M&C Saatchi, during a panel discussion sponsored by Google in February 2015. “We’ve seen dynamic banner templates and dynamic banner ad serving. ... It hasn’t just arrived from outer space. We’ve been building up in different ways to this moment.”

Compare the needs to that of social media: In some respects, this creative evolution has its roots in social media, where marketers and agencies have had to adapt their workflow to meet the demands of always-on marketing.

“When social burst on the scene seven or eight years ago, [we said], ‘How on earth would we produce seven bits of creativity a week?’ There’s no doubt we have to produce more and more, and make that more and more cost effective over time,” said Purser.

The key difference is the access to data that programmatic provides, said Luke Kintigh, global media and content strategist at Intel. “We’re used to it on the social side. But programmatic takes it to a whole other level with personalization, because of the proliferation of DMPs [data management platforms] and all of this data.”

Borrow from your content strategy: Thanks to social media, most marketers have a lot of content available. That content can easily be sliced and diced into various ads. OneSpot is one such company that takes a client’s content and turns it into multiple ad units.

“For each piece of content we’ll create several different sizes of display ads, mobile ads, social ads and soon, native ads,” said Matt Cohen, OneSpot’s president and founder. “We have a crawler that automatically looks at the client’s content, pulls out the headlines, the video, thumbnail, the full video, the photo. It also does an analysis of the content to figure out what it’s about, what are the keywords



in it and so forth. Then it goes into an ad studio where the client can review it, and alternate variations can be created.”

With so much content available, “the chance that you’re going to have something for anybody in your target audience is extremely high, and you’re likely to have something that’s actually really good for that specific person,” Cohen said.

Look to direct marketing: “In the direct mail world, audience segments and matrices are created to inform the creative messaging that is distributed to different audiences. In programmatic, despite technology enabling the opportunity for as many audience segments as possible and the same variation in creative messages, this doesn’t happen,” said Paul Frampton, CEO of Havas Media.

O Brasileirão 2015 já começou no Twitter

08 de maio de 2015

Começa neste sábado (9) o Campeonato Brasileiro de Futebol e os tocedores terão mais uma opção para acompanhar os jogos de seus times na internet.

Através da hashtag #Brasileirao, os usuários do Twitter poderão ter acesso aos melhores momentos dos jogos em tempo real, antes ou depois da partida. A rede social disponibilizará uma linha do tempo especial para o campeonato.

As informações podem ser compartilhadas pela equipe da plataforma ou pelos próprios torcedores, técnicos, jogadores e comentaristas do esporte.

Os usuários do aplicativo do Twitter para dispositivos móveis já podem buscar pela hashtag e conferir listas com as datas das partidas.

Para saber informações específicas de cada partida, os usuários devem usar as hashtags oficiais com as três primeiras letras dos clubes que estão jogando. Para ter informações sobre a partida entre Palmeiras e Atlético Mineiro, por exemplo, deve ser buscada a hashtag #PALxCAM.


Através da página destinada ao campeonato, os usuários podem conferir os principais tweets sobre o Brasileirão 2015.

Com 'empurrão' da classe C, smartphones dominam mais de 90% do mercado no Brasil

Rafael Barifouse Da BBC Brasil em São Paulo 09/05/201511h24

Vendas de celulares comuns caíram vertiginosamente em apenas três anos

Maria da Graça Tostes sentiu-se excluída das novidades da vida de suas amigas. A comerciante fluminense, de 67 anos, tinha um celular simples, que só mandava mensagem e fazia ligações. Sem computador em casa, nunca podia ver as fotos de viagem de sua professora de hidroginástica em uma rede social. Ou as do casamento da filha de uma conhecida, compartilhadas em um grupo de mensagens instantâneas.

"A maioria das pessoas tinha um smartphone e eu, não. Ficava mal com isso", diz a comerciante.

Ela trocou de aparelho há três meses.


"Meu genro diz que minha vida mudou depois de comprar um smartphone. Uso para saber que caminho pegar ao dirigir, reencontrei amigos de infância no Facebook e falo com muita gente o dia todo pelo 'zapzap'. É muito bom, porque moro sozinha. O celular ajuda a distrair."

o último ano, muitos brasileiros fizeram o mesmo que Maria da Graça. E este movimento, apesar de esperado, foi sem precedentes. Em fevereiro passado, as vendas de celulares comuns caíram 78% em relação ao mesmo mês de 2014, diminuindo de 2,2 milhões para 495 mil aparelhos.

'Faz-tudo'

Em março, a queda foi ainda maior: 79%, o maior índice já registrado pela consultoria IDC, que acompanha o mercado de tecnologia.

Esta mudança no mercado começou há dois anos. Em 2012, os celulares comuns representavam 73% das vendas. No ano seguinte, porém, os smartphones começaram a se popularizar e suas vendas mais do que dobraram, ao aumentarem 120%.

Hoje, os celulares comuns respondem por meros 9% do mercado, e deverão cair para 7% no próximo ano, segundo a IDC.

Com isso, os dois tipos de aparelhos inverteram de papéis. O celular comum deixou de ser o padrão para se tornar um nicho, e o smartphone saiu do nicho para virar praticamente o mercado inteiro.

"O smartphone é cada vez mais sinônimo de celular", diz Carlos Affonso Souza, diretor do Instituto de Tecnologia e Sociedade do Rio de Janeiro (ITS-Rio).

"Ter um deixou de ser um privilégio. Passou a ser um item de comunicação de primeira necessidade."

Um smartphone tem muitas vantagens sobre um celular comum. É mais potente, tem uma tela maior e de melhor resolução, conecta-se à internet e funciona como um computador de mão ao permitir a instalação de aplicativos - programas que cumprem uma imensa variedade de tarefas.

"Ganhei um da minha namorada há cinco meses, e uso para tudo", disse o leitor Anderson Abrantes, na página da BBC Brasil no Facebook.

"Estudo, leio a Bíblia e livros, escuto música, assisto a séries e vídeos no YouTube, digitalizo documentos e até uso como lanterna para andar em casa à noite."

Mas, apesar de tantos atrativos, possuir um destes aparelhos ainda era algo restrito a poucos há até pouco tempo, porque custava muito caro.

Uma queda vertiginosa nos preços, em parte impulsionada pela isenção de impostos concedida pelo governo federal a smartphones fabricados no Brasil, bem como a aposta das grandes redes de varejo, mudaram este cenário.

Mais texto, menos voz

Antes, o modelo mais barato custava cerca de R$700 e só podia ser comprado por meio das operadoras de telefonia. Hoje, sai por R$350, e pode ser encontrado em qualquer loja com um departamento de eletrônicos. E com preço parcelado em até 30 vezes sem juros.


"Com a facilidade de pagamento, a diferença entre a parcela de um smartphone e um celular comum quase desaparece, e os consumidores optam por um aparelho mais sofisticado", diz o analista Leonardo Munin, da IDC.

"Além disso, fabricantes criaram modelos que atendem algumas especificidades do mercado brasileiro, como ter entrada para dois chips, algo que tem muita demanda por aqui, porque é comum as pessoas terem linhas de diferentes operadoras para economizar na ligação. Tudo isso fez com que a Classe C comprasse smartphones em peso."

De acordo com uma pesquisa do Google feita pelo instituto Data Popular, 47% dos brasileiros que integram esta faixa de renda já possuem um smartphone, sua principal forma de acesso à internet.

Nas classes A e B, este índice é de 77% e 60% respectivamente.

Extinção?

Isso vem mudando a vida dos brasileiros. Usa-se cada vez menos o celular para falar, algo substituído pelo envio de mensagens de texto ou voz por meio de aplicativos, como WhatsApp, Line, Viber e Messenger. Alguns programas deste tipo já começam a oferecer ligações gratuitas.

"Minha mãe comprou seu primeiro smartphone neste ano. Usa mais WhatsApp em um dia do que eu em um mês", afirma o leitor da BBC Oscar Scheepstra.

Em muitas partes do país onde os cabos de internet não chegam, o smartphone também representa a única chance de se navegar na rede, por meio das antenas instaladas por operadoras. Isto é particularmente forte na região Norte, onde 75,4% das residências se conectam pelo celular, segundo a Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (Pnad), do IBGE.

"Estamos vendo acontecer com o celular o mesmo que ocorreu com o computador há dez anos, quando passamos a considerar que faltava algo essencial em um PC sem conexão à internet", afirma Souza, do ITS-Rio. "Hoje, um celular mais simples parece ficar muito aquém das possibilidades oferecidas por um smartphone."

No entanto, o celular tradicional dificilmente desaparecerá completamente do mercado, segundo especialistas ouvidos pela BBC Brasil.

"Não vai deixar de existir, mas será um mercado ainda mais de nicho do que é hoje, dominado por empresas, que precisam de celulares mais simples para dar a funcionários de baixo escalão", afirma Munin, do IDC.

"Também pode substituir o telefone fixo, principalmente nas regiões rurais."

Souza concorda que as vendas deste tipo de aparelho nos próximos anos serão quase insignificantes: "O casamento entre telefonia e internet veio para ficar".

26.mai.2015 - A Samsung divulgou nesta terça-feira (26) que vai lançar uma versão do smartphone Galaxy S6 Edge temática do personagem Iron Man (Homem de Ferro), da Marvel. O aparelho tem o mesmo hardware da versão anunciada em março pela empresa. No entanto, conta com as cores e um carregador sem fio estilizado com as características do personagem, que está no filme "Os Vingadores 2 - Era de Ultron". Essa versão especial estará disponível a partir de 27 de maio na Coreia do Sul. China e Hong Kong começarão a vendê-lo em junho Leia mais Divulgação


UK lags when it comes to video ad completion rates

I've Started, but I Might Not Finish: UK Video Ad Completion Rates Dip

MAY 18, 2015

eMarketer estimates that digital video ad spending in the UK will reach £823 million ($1.36 billion) in 2015, representing an increase of 63.0% over 2014—the fastest growth of all digital ad formats tracked.

However, while the money’s headed there, visibility is an issue—full visibility, at least. April 2015 research from Google’s DoubleClick found that video ad completion rates in the UK performed comparatively poorly. Between March 2014 and March 2015, the rate fell from 64.6% to 56.3%. Compared with the other 14 countries tracked by DoubleClick, only Spain and Japan fared worse in March this year.

UK consumers seem happy to start viewing video ads, but they’re very often unlikely to finish. According to February 2015 research from ad management platform provider Sizmek, consumers in the UK are far more likely to abandon video ads than their counterparts in either Canada or the US.



It found that the start rates for both in-stream and interactive ads were just as high in the UK as in the North American countries. However, the 50% and fully played rates dropped off significantly. For in-stream video ads, for example, the start rate was actually highest in the UK, at 98.4%. However, while the fully played rates in the US (81.4%) and Canada (73.6%) were admirable, the UK lagged by this measure, at 66.6%. UK consumers, it seems, aren’t too good at finishing what they started.

Long Road Ahead for Programmatic in Latin America

MAY 7, 2015

In 2014, 0.0% viewability rate for programmatically purchased mobile display ads

Though estimates from platform to platform may vary, figures from Sizmek, one of the premium advertising platforms worldwide, show just how far behindprogrammatic advertising is in Latin America today, especially via mobile. According to Sizmek records, viewability rates for mobile and desktop display ads purchased directly with publishers in Latin America reached 60.0% and 53.0% in 2014, respectively. Those levels seemed to mirror the different stage of development the region exhibits, with desktop display ad viewability more or less at par with the worldwide average (54.4%).



But that was about the only category where Latin America shone. The viewability of display ads served by Sizmek to mobile devices in the region was well below the 74.1% average globally. By that metric, Asia-Pacific topped the list, with a 79.7% rate, followed by North America, at 74.0%.

Worse news for Latin America came from the more advanced programmatic display ad purchases category. Once again, desktop display ads were significantly more likely to be viewed in the region last year, at 31.8%, and were relatively close to the worldwide average of 39.7%. But the figure that really put things in perspective in Latin America was the 0.0% viewability rate on mobile display ads purchased programmatically. Worldwide, the average was an astounding 81.4%; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) led the category with 88.4% viewability.

It is a sobering figure that puts the state of programmatic in Latin America in perspective. In all likelihood, the scarcity of programmatic inventory and audience data are two of the main factors limiting the success of this new technology, but the option would be to stick with old and less efficient digital advertising media buying models already being replaced everywhere else.

The important things that came out of the NewFronts

Eric Blattberg @EricBlattberg May 7, 2015

Presenters at this year’s digital content NewFronts talked up hundreds of new Web series, dozens of media partnerships and bold technical innovations. But a few announcements stood above the rest. Here are the four top headlines to emerge from the cluster:

Hulu lands “Seinfeld.”

Hulu landing exclusive streaming rights to all nine seasons of “Seinfeld” is a big deal, as evidenced by the hefty pricetag: reportedly $157.5 million for all 180 episodes, or $875,000 an episode. The license term is believed to be at least five years, according to Variety.



Jerry Seinfeld capped off Hulu’s presentation with the announcement: “You could have put the DVD in, but I guess nobody really wanted to do that. They want to do this!”

While Sony-owned Crackle already offered select “Seinfeld” episodes on its streaming service, Hulu is the first company to bring the whole catalog online. “Seinfeld” reruns have proven enormously popular on television, generating more than $3.1 billionsince entering syndication in 1995.

The deal is a marketing move as well as a revenue play, said Adam Shlachter, chief investment officer at digital agency DigitasLBi. “They bring one of the most iconic shows of the modern era to the masses, on-demand, beyond TV syndication and DVDs, which gives them some bragging rights. And for the new audience they can attract, there’s likely some upside.”

AOL inks a deal with NBCUniversal.

To close out its NewFront presentation, AOL announced a major licensing and production agreement it had reached with NBCUniversal. The television giant will bring video from its broadcast and cable TV networks, such as clips from crime drama “The Blacklist,” to AOL platforms. Some of that content will be exclusive, though neither NBCU nor AOL referenced specific video exclusives.

The distribution pact will include material from NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, E!, Esquire, Oxygen, Syfy, Telemundo and USA Network. AOL and NBCU will also co-develop original digital series for distribution across both companies’ platforms, they said.

Despite all the talk of buying audiences, not content, NBC has a recognizable brand and that still matters for buyers. “It’s a lot easier to sell ‘The Blacklist’ than [daily morning show] ‘AOL Rise,’” said a media industry journalist who attended AOL’s Newfront presentation.

The New York Times embraced virtual reality.

The Times is bringing its video into the virtual realm. At the publisher’s NewFronts presentation, it debuted a VR film it produced in partnership with Chris Milk’s VRSE, a production company focused on the VR space. Attendees could explore the film, “Walking New York,” which spotlighted French artist JR and the 150-foot-tall portrait he made for Manhattan’s Flatiron Plaza — and also happened to appear on the cover of the New York Times Magazine. The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jake Silverstein, said he plans to work with VRSE on more VR projects soon.

Alan Smith, chief digital officer at media agency Assembly, said the Times’ VR offering was impressive and representative of the company’s recent uptick in innovative projects.

Maker Studios flexed its Disney muscles.

A year after Disney acquired Maker Studios, the leading multichannel network, Maker finally showed off what it’s doing with all those Disney brands. Through a partnership with ESPN-operated X Games, Maker will pair top extreme sports athletes with its creators beginning this summer. Maker will also begin to offer its talent access to Marvel intellectual property, such as Spider-Man and The Avengers. And the media company revealed “I Am Maker,” a docu-series about its emerging YouTube stars that will air on Disney-owned ABC Family.

“The biggest takeaway for me was that Maker has firmly established itself as being more than a multichannel network,” said Magda Alvarez, associate media director at Razorfish.


Expedia Adds Emoji To Its Title Tags To Increase Click Through Rates In Google

In an effort to increase SEO sales, Expedia tests adding Emoji characters to some of their page title tags.

Barry Schwartz on April 30, 2015 at 10:02 am

A week ago, we reported that Google began displaying Emoji in the desktop search results. We anticipated that search marketers would begin to leverage this change by adding Emoji to their title tags, hoping the additional imagery in the search results would lead to more visibility and a higher click through rate.

It seems that Expedia, the massive travel search service, has done that.

Here is a picture of their snippet for a search on [cape canaveral hotels] and yes, the third organic listing I see has the hotel Emoji:


Expedia seems to be testing the Emoji on select pages, as I can’t get them to show up for all queries and clicking through to the site, only select pages have Emoji added to their title tags.

Here is another example I spotted for [cheap flights to Portland]:

This one uses the airline seat Emoji, while the hotel listing uses a hotel Emoji.

This tip was sent to us by Jonathan Alonso, SEO Analyst at GoPortCanaveral.com.

Be a part of the world’s largest search marketing conference, Search Engine Land's SMX East. The robust agenda covers the latest tactics in paid search, SEO, mobile, analytics and more. Register today and save $300, or come as a team and save 10%-20%.

Marketers Share Data Externally, Whether or Not They Want To

MAY 6, 2015

Marketers view privacy, security as leading data co-op challenges

Data is critical for any marketer looking to effectively reach an audience, and data cooperatives are one option for those aiming to expand data-gathering efforts and improve targeting. However, recent research finds that privacy and security concerns are holding back many industry professionals from leveraging data co-ops—despite the fact that they’re already sharing data with other groups, whether they know it or not.


When a January 2015 study by Forrester Consulting, commissioned by Adroit Digital, asked US digital marketers and customer insights professionals about the challenges of using a data co-op—“an online pool of shared shopper data as well as shared first-party digital data from other brands/publishers”—privacy concerns and security controls were the top two worries.

However, more than one-third of respondents already shared or sold customer data. Nearly four in 10 said they made some data or analytics results available to their business partners, and more than a third provided the same to customers. One in 10 were even considering selling data or data services to customers and business partners, and 9% already did so.

The majority of digital marketers and customer insights professionals were also mixing their data with that of outside sources. Nearly six in 10 respondents relied on third-party data moderately or extensively to inform their digital media strategy. This can be even worse than working in a data co-op—a second-party source; Forrester noted that “using ill-gotten or badly aggregated data can be riskier than sharing data carefully and securely with select trusted business partners.”




Responses also emphasized the idea that first-party data wasn’t enough for optimal targeting. Nearly seven in 10 respondents said data about customers provided by business partners was important to their marketing strategy, and 55% said the same about third-party data. Even more, about two-thirds agreed that second-party data from partners, customers, competitors and the environment was a critical data source for marketing, and 52% said so about third-party data provided by brokers, aggregators and government agencies.

Other industry sources highlight how poor data can hinder targeting efforts. In December 2014 research by Experian Marketing Services, poor data quality was the No. 1 challenge related to creating a complete customer view, cited by 43% of marketers worldwide. And this lack of a single customer view was holding back respondents from targeting consumers across channels: Around one-third said the inability to link data was the leading barrier related to cross-channel marketing. Similarly, in March 2015 polling by Signal, more than six in 10 marketers worldwide said fragmented data or customer profiles meant they couldn’t personalize customer experiences the way they wanted to.

Context is about more than ad placement

6 May 2015

LONDON/SAN FRANCISCO: Context lies at the juncture of strategy, creative and media, and an iterative process that fosters collaboration between strategists, creatives and the media team is much more likely to create relevancy for customers, a leading industry figure has argued.

Writing in the current issue of Admap, the focus of which is context in advertising, Jim Bosiljevac, group creative director at DDB California in San Francisco, warns against mistaking context for media placement – at its best it is a lot more than that.

But optimising context requires a shift in thinking, away from the linear activities of old where creatives created and media planners bought media.

"An insightful understanding of the audience, a smart creative idea and relevant media placements should feed off each other," according to Bosiljevac.

Context can define the audience more closely and spark ideas for both creative and media placement. A broad demographic description – female, age 35-50, median income – may not help greatly in the search for a connection, "but tell me she's a woman with five kids on a plane to Las Vegas – now I feel like I have something to say to her".

He noted that the creative process is naturally iterative, and suggested planners need to check in regularly and be prepared to change the media plan as the creative idea evolves. At the same time, creatives have to be prepared to share ideas early on.

Creatives also need to consider the broader implications of context. "They need to think about where and when someone might be open to their message and be willing to work towards real-world, tactical solutions."

The media team, meanwhile, should understand that the creative process can be erratic and should forbear from giving helpful advice as to why an idea won't work.

"The process needs to be generative," said Bosiljevac, "so rather than killing the crazy ideas, build on them or offer tweaks so that they do work."


Part of his role, he added, was to "help foster a process that allows for collaboration" between all parties – his own agency, partner agencies, client and media – to leverage context as much as possible.

TrueView coming to DoubleClick: User choice meets programmatic

Posted: Thursday, April 16, 2015

Today at Programmatic I/O in San Francisco, we are announcing our latest investment to help brands make the most of digital: the TrueView ad format will be available for programmatic buying within DoubleClick Bid Manager.

This launch brings together two important trends we’re seeing: the importance of user choice in advertising and the ability to reach the right person at the right time with programmatic buying.

We introduced TrueView, an innovative cost-per-view (CPV) ad format, five years ago as a way to put user choice at the heart of brand advertising. With TrueView, viewers choose to engage, and brands only pay when they do. Today, the format is a brand mainstay, representing 85% of all in-stream ads on YouTube. And based on a recent study, we’ve seen that two-thirds of TrueView campaigns deliver significant lift in brand interest.

In parallel, programmatic buying has evolved from just a real-time bidding tool for direct response campaigns to an important technology and data-driven solution for brand building. Across our own platforms, we’ve seen the volume of programmatic transactions double year-over-year. With the consumer journey now fractured into many "micro-moments" across screens, programmatic can help brands understand and reach their audiences across devices and formats.

In the coming months, marketers and agencies will be able to buy the TrueView choice-based video ad format on a cost-per-view (CPV) basis through DoubleClick Bid Manager. This is the first time TrueView has been available outside of AdWords, allowing DoubleClick clients to take advantage of features like cross-campaign frequency capping, unified audience insights, measurement and billing across campaigns.

Some of our partners are already seeing success:


"At Netflix, we have always embraced consumer choice. In the advertising world, TrueView is the epitome of that choice. The fact that we can now scale it further via DoubleClick Bid Manager represents a powerful new channel for marketing our content across the world."

Mike Zeman, Director of Digital Marketing, Netflix

“TrueView has empowered us to give our consumers greater choice while delivering a better engaging viewer experience. As an early adopter of the TrueView beta in DoubleClick Bid Manager in the UK we have seen great success in achieving our CPV goals.”

Nestlé UK

“We’re really excited to bring TrueView on DoubleClick Bid Manager into our video campaign arsenal. This deepens our ability to achieve client success metrics on highly relevant and viewable video inventory combined with universal controls around targeting, frequency management and reporting.”

Ian Johnson, EVP and MD, Global Product at Cadreon

“TrueView in DoubleClick Bid Manager (DBM) allows us to strengthen our branding offering while benefiting from significant efficiency gains. Once we can leverage DBM’s capabilities such as 3rd party audience targeting and universal frequency capping, we will have a very powerful value proposition for advertisers.”


Ali Nehme, Managing Director Digital, Vivaki Middle East and North Africa

This adds to our ongoing investments to help brands get the most out of the programmatic landscape like Google Partner Select, Active View, Verification and brand safety protections. We're committed to providing the most complete programmatic platform to our brand partners to help them connect with their audiences in all the moments that matter. Stay tuned for even more in the months to come.

Neal Mohan, Vice President of Display and Video Advertising Products

Spotify’s Announces Impressive New Features, Including Video Integration & Ultra-Personalized Playlists

This week, Spotify held a live-streamed press conference via Periscope, announcing a whopping list of heavily personalized new features for the music-streaming platform. For one, the home screen will now feature playlist recommendations based both on your location and what music you typically listen to at that time. Even more interesting, Spotify will now be able to detect your heart rate and pace while you’re running and will play music that perfectly suits your stride.


Spotify also plans to integrate podcasts and video into their platform, packed with original content from Vice, Comedy Central, and an inside look into their in-office ‘Spotify Sessions’, to name a few. These new features are exciting, yet beg the question, does every tech company need to be a one-stop-shop to thrive?

Pinterest Advertising Strategy Blossoms with Unveiling of ‘Cinematic Pins’

Pinterest unwrapped an innovative new way to advertise on their platform this week, introducing ‘cinematic pins’. These ads play a short, animated image as users scroll up or down the page, going only as fast as the user scrolls one way or another. Hard to picture? Think of an ad promoting running shoes; as the user scrolls down the page, the runner’s speed picks up. The user can then click the ad, revealing a longer clip of the video. This is but one aspect of Pinterest’s ad offerings, which they’ve continued to beef up since introducing the option for brands in January of 2015.

This new ad strategy comes just on the heels of a study which found that nearly 90% of users made a purchase after finding a pin they saw on the site. As the company continues to introduce more and more ways for advertisers to promote their products on the site, that number could grow even hire. Stay tuned.


Google-Twitter Partnership Develops, Tweets Will Now Appear in Google Search

The Google-Twitter partnership has gone full steam ahead, with tweets now showing up in Google’s mobile search results for US users. Clicking on tweets will drive users to the Twitter page, where they’ll be able to retweet or reply to the tweets that grabbed their attention. As Adweek mentions, this partnership holds major benefits for both companies. Twitter now has access to an unprecedented audience with which to share its content, and Google gains a powerful way to integrate into social media. The fast pace nature of Twitter’s trending topics will also make Google a more relevant, on the pulse source for the latest and greatest. Read more here.

How PepsiCo sweetens up consumer insights

Shareen Pathak @shareenpathak June 8, 2015

PepsiCo is a not just a soft drinks giant, it’s awash in data. The information flows in from everywhere: grocery store cash registers, e-commerce portals, focus groups, ad surveys. But while collecting this data has become a matter of course, the challenge lies in making sense of it internally.

So PepsiCo’s North American Beverages insights team has devised a system of apps, experiential activations and quizzes to make the reams and reams of data the company produces internally more digestible for its increasingly millennial teams.

PepsiCo has many insights teams — at least 20 across North American beverages, corporate, the Frito-Lay group and so on. Each team, comprising about 18 people, boasts a sophisticated market research function that uses focus groups, sales data and research to figure out who its customers are and what they want. This data is then sent to other groups within the company — marketing or product, for example — so they can use it to make better decisions.

This was not always the way. For years, PepsiCo’s insights team had only one platform for translating consumer data for its marketing and product teams: PowerPoint decks. “It was very transactional,” said Stefania Gvillo, vp consumer strategy and insights at PepsiCo’s North American Beverages group, which handles Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Sierra Mist and scores of other drink brands. “We used to be seen as data providers.”


But Gvillo says it’s about more than that: “We drive decisions that ultimately lead to sustainable growth, and everything we do impacts the bottom line.”

So, for example, focus groups led by the insights team will decide whether the company pulls the trigger on specific commercials. Consistent customer surveys indicate which products are popular and which aren’t. And, especially important for the PepsiCo brand in an increasingly health-conscious market, figuring out how consumer sentiment is trending will influence actual product R&D, such as the removal of aspartame from Diet Pepsi products, for example.

That’s the kind of data that was usually communicated via “60-page decks, binders and spreadsheets,” said Gvillo. “That’s not very inspiring.” Adding to the need to change how insights were delivered was another, more familiar addition to the workplace: millennials.

“Millennials are here; Gen Z is about to enter the workforce. They communicate and experience content in very different ways,” said Gvillo. “They want digestible, quick and immersive.”

The brand worked with design agency StickyDocs to create a new app, which would let the teams create and distribute custom-designed content and data to marketing, strategy and product teams. The app also lets other teams download content that the Insights team creates.

There are eight brand-specific “publications” that are customized for each brand across PepsiCo. Each brand publication is different, but each includes data on the current surveys, which reflect what consumer attitudes are about specific beverages, how brands are performing in the market and how ads might be performing, for example.

There are also games and quizzes that ask employees to answer questions on data and the products, what Gvillo said is an attempt to make the learning process more fun. Employees don’t get into trouble if they don’t know answers; it’s just a way to keep them engaged with the data, she said. Gvillo added that she is also experimenting with data “experiences” and offline events “to engage people, and make it fun.”

“The only way organizations have ever distributed insight is through email and a powerpoint deck,” said Marcus Jimenez, founder and CEO at StickyDocs. “The practice of data visualization and insights socialization for the workforce is a new concept for many brands, and change at the organizational level doesn’t happen quickly.”Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

Making data “fun” is weighing heavily on the minds of CMOs these days. Spotify, Pornhub and OkCupid have all gathered insights on how customers use their services and created viral content based on it.

Also, workers and employees are now demanding that data become more exciting, said Jimenez. “It’s not just an imperative for brands to find ways to inform and inspire their teams; it’s inevitable as workers are demanding it.”

25 maneiras de como perguntar aos seus filhos 'Como foi a escola hoje?' sem perguntar 'como foi a escola hoje'

liZ Evans 01/11/14 13:32 BRST

Esse ano, Simon está na quarta série e Grace na primeira, e me pego fazendo a mesma pergunta todo dia quando chegam da escola: "Então, como foi a escola hoje?"

E todo dia eu recebo uma resposta tipo "legal" ou "tudo bem", que não me diz muita coisa.

E EU QUERO SABER BASTANTE COISA!!!

Ou pelo menos ouvir uma frase completa. Então a outra noite, eu sentei e fiz uma lista de perguntas mais estimulantes para fazer aos meus filhos sobre a escola. As perguntas não são perfeitas, mas pelo menos meus filhos respondem com frases completas e algumas até renderam boas conversas... e respostas hilárias... e me fizeram entender melhor como os meus filhos pensam e sentem sobre a escola.

1. Qual foi a melhor coisa que aconteceu na escola hoje? (Qual foi a pior coisa que aconteceu na escola hoje?)

2. Me conte sobre alguma coisa que te fez rir hoje.

3. Se pudesse escolher, do lado de quem gostaria de sentar na classe? (Ao lado de quem NÃO gostaria de sentar? Por quê?

4. Qual é o lugar mais legal na escola?

5. Me diga uma palavra esquisita que você ouviu hoje. (Ou uma coisa estranha que alguém disse hoje.)

6. Se eu ligasse para a sua professora hoje a noite, o que ela me diria sobre você?

7. Como você ajudou alguém hoje?

8. Como alguém lhe ajudou hoje?

9. Me diga uma coisa que você aprendeu hoje.

10. Em que momento você se sentiu mais feliz hoje?

11. Quando ficou com tédio hoje?


12. Se uma espaçonave alienígena chegasse para abduzir alguém da sua sala, quem você gostaria que eles levassem?

13. Com quem você gostaria de brincar no recreio e nunca brincou antes?

14. Conte uma coisa boa que aconteceu hoje.

15. Que palavra a professora mais falou hoje?

16. O que você acha que deveria fazer/aprender mais na escola?

17. O que você acha que deveria fazer/aprender menos na escola?

18. Com quem você poderia ser mais legal na sua classe?

19. Onde você mais gosta de brincar no recreio?

20. Quem é a pessoa mais engraçada na sua classe? E porque ele/ela é tão engraçado(a)?

21. Do que você mais gostou na hora do almoço (ou lanche)?

22. Se você fosse o professor/professora amanhã, o que você faria?

23. Tem alguém na sua classe que precisa ficar de castigo?

24. Se você pudesse trocar de lugar com alguém na classe, com quem trocaria? Por quê?

25. Me conte sobre três vezes diferentes em que você usou o seu lápis hoje na escola.

Até agora, as minhas respostas favoritas foram as das perguntas 12, 15 e 21. Perguntas como a do "alienígena" deixa a criança expressar de forma não-ameaçadora quem eles preferiam não ter na classe e abre o caminho para um diálogo sobre o por quê desse sentimento, possivelmente revelando questões das quais você não fazia ideia antes.

E as respostas que ouvimos são realmente surpreendentes, as vezes. Quando eu fiz a pergunta 3, eu descobri que um dos meus filhos não queria mais sentar do lado de um melhor amigo na classe - não por um desejo de ser maldoso ou chato, mas pela vontade de ter a chance de interagir com outras pessoas. À medida que os meus filhos ficarem mais velhos, eu sei que vou ter que me esforçar cada vez mais para manter a conexão com eles - mas sei que o meu empenho vai valer a pena.

Did Google just nail the Age of Context at I/O?

In a recent post I outlined the upcoming Age of Context, an era in which the combination of the prevalence of smartphones and sensors combined with the low-cost access to AI algorithms would enable seamless services and experiences.

In the post I outlined a number of components needed for the age of context. These included

1. The accelerated proliferation of wearable computers in the form of smartphones and smart watches.

2. The integration of on-device data with the massive amounts of sensors around us.


3. The lowering-cost and advances in machine learning and deep learning algorithms to turn the data produced by the above into actions.

4. A meta-language that ties in the millions of apps to share context and content.

5. A transaction enablement platform to help us take data and insight into action and eventually transaction.

In yesterday’s Google I/O keynote, Google announced a number of new products and features that seem to address each of the points above and potentially gives Google a leadership position for the Age of Context.

1. In terms of proliferation, Android continues to lead the charge in the democratization of smartphones with over 80% of shipments. Android Wear continues to scale with 720k shipped last year and over 4,000 apps available today. In terms of access points for the Age of Context, Google is far ahead.

2. With an estimated 16 billion IoT devices around us today, and an expected 40 billion by 2020, sensors are clearly all around us. Today each of those sensors works on a different embedded system. These devices, therefore, can’t talk to each other, or to other platforms. At I/O Google announced two products that adress this: Brillo and Weave, a new OS for IoT and an inter-device communications layer. With Brillo not only can an Android sub-kernel run across billions of devices but with Weave, a Google-supported API could become the lingua franca of Machine to Machine communications.

3. Critical to the Age of Context is the ability to make sense of the reams of data being generated. This ability has been accelerated recently by advances in machine learning combined with the near-negligible cost of data storage and computing. In my original post I pointed to Google Now as a basic example of what will become possible, but I also criticized Now for being Google-biased and Google-


centric. One of the most exciting announcements at I/O was Now On Tap which takes the AI engine of Google Now and rather than open Now to other apps, it brings Now into Apps. It allows the context of the app to be passed into Google’s AI engine and for Google’s vast repository to add value within the app. So a conversation about dinner might tap into a restaurant database and enable a seamless booking via Open Table all within the context of a chat.

4. In my original post I argued that who would own the interconnections (deep-links) between the app economy would own the new age of context and that he battle lines were being drawn now with Facebook, Google, Yahoo and a number of startups all seeking to defined a standard to control the modern equivalent of hyperlinks. At I/O Google pimped up it’s short links to expand deep links across both Android and Google. But Google went one step beyond just deep links and focused on integration, collaboration and action across apps through Google Now/Now on Tap, Weave and Android Pay. Google drew a line in the sand to evolve its business from the blue links of the web to the deep links between apps, machine-to-machine and enable action across them all.

5. To truly enable the Age of Context we need to go from data -> insights -> action. Many of the services available today have been focused on the transition into insight as the transition into action is sometimes impeded by “action” requiring a financial transaction. At I/O Google announced it’s 3rd (?) attempt at payments with the launch of Android Pay which is seeks to add the critical identity-enabled transaction layer across the digital and real world.


The words “context” and “actions” were mentioned dozens of times during the Google I/O keynote. The product launches seemed to build upon each other to bring together the building blocks of the Age of Context. Google already has a strategic advantage with Android and its “knowledge graph” and the announcements yesterday seem to weave those together to connect mobile apps, sensors, data and turn data into insight and insight into action.

Well played Google, well played.

'Mobile is Increasingly THE First Screen for Video in Brazil'

by Ronan Shields on 3rd Jun 2015

TubeMogul’s recent quarterly report was one of the first to chronicle the growth of the programmatic advertising market at length in the region’s standout market Brazil, demonstrating an ‘explosion of growth’ in the programmatic advertising space between Q4 2014, and Q1 2015. In a Q&A, translated by Gabriela Stripoli, ExchangeWire, editor, LatAm, Adriano Hayashi, TubeMogul, country manager, Brazil, offers further insight.

The TubeMogul report also demonstrated a huge growth in demand for mobile ad formats, with impressive viewability rates of 66% throughout the period, but brands are thus far failing to take advantage. ExchangeWire probes further below.

EW: In the report, TubeMogul emphasises the growth of the Brazilian market and that the company started in the best time. How this reflects in the volume of TubeMogul’s operations in the country?


AH: We are working with major agencies and trading desks in the region, and have global relationships with several brands that we are gradually activating in Brazil. The opportunity to simplify the process for reaching viewers across screens is a big one that we are well positioned to lead.

EW: Why would you say that the quality of inventory in Brazil is high? Do you see it keeping steadily in the near future?

AH: We have a dedicated team, that screens and eliminates fraudulent traffic from within our systems. Still, it’s clear that viewers are watching video everywhere. Both premium inventory (i.e. from top broadcasters) and longer-tail inventory that caters to more specific interests (i.e. gamers) are on the rise.

Ultimately, what matters to the advertiser is how engaged a viewer is with their message— so are they watching the ad, interacting with it, remembering it…

EW: The fact that the VCPM is the lowest ever can encourage more investments in programmatic video?

AH: The relative affordability for viewable impressions in Brazil is not escaping notice. It represents a great opportunity to connect with audiences, taking advantage of the uncluttered environment, lean-forward experience, and may lead to a shift of budgets from TV and other mediums.

EW: I have heard interesting comments about pre-roll, specially the skippable ones, in the Brazilian market – sort of balancing the interest of the audience with this format, which takes 100% of the attention of the audience but as soon as they can, they skip it. Does TubeMogul have an “advisory” service to agencies and marketers? And what is the general recommendation to it? Specially if you consider a decrease in the cost per minute of such format.

AH: We arm marketers with a plethora of data both in our software and through research reports like these so that they can allocate budgets effectively and make informed decisions across screens. TubeMogul’s self-serve software puts marketers in total control of not only the exact sites where an ad runs, but also cost and inventory available by format based on each marketer’s specific goals.

EW: Is mobile the big trend about programmatic video? How are campaigns being developed to it?

AH: In video, what was once called the “second screen” is increasingly becoming the first screen, especially for specific audiences in Brazil. Many viewers watch videos on their phones first, and TV and computers second. Globally, one in four video ads (25.7%) on iPad and Android tablets are seen during traditional television prime time hours (8 p.m. to midnight).

We are seeing an increasing number of advertisers add interactivity to mobile video ads, offering viewers games or other ways to engage deeper than simply watching an ad passively.

Though agencies and brands are interested in mobile, the volume of inventory and users available is far greater than what is effectively invested on mobile branding in the region.

EW: Overall, now that it has been almost one year that you are leading TubeMogul in Brazil, how do you see the evolving of the understanding of the market so far – from marketers to agencies? Would you give us some comments on that?

AH: It has been an interesting transition from Cadreon in Australia to heading up Brazil for TubeMogul. Though Programmatic is not in its early days here anymore, there’s a clear knowledge


gap between stakeholders. However, marketers are eager to learn more and I think the transition is happening faster than in other markets, since the possibility to capitalise on many of the early insights is very attractive for brands

Follow @adrohax on TwitterDeath of a salesman? A look at how automation is changing the industry

Conferences, online videos and webinars are popping up everywhere promising to demystify programmatic advertising and give marketers insights on how to use it effectively. Damien Venuto looks into the hype behind the industry’s latest buzzword.

Throughout the 20th century, the stock market floor was typified by a mob of suited traders shouting, screaming, gesticulating wildly and waving papers as they vied to complete trades for their clients. And while this chaos still exists to some degree, the comparatively ordered hum of network servers is starting to take its place as more and more trading is facilitated through electronic means, which require traders to stare at the glow of digital screens for most of the day.

Sam Smith, the managing director of TubeMogul’s New Zealand and Australian operations, sees parallels between this example and the growing prevalence of automated ad buying in the Kiwi market.

“The trader in a programmatic world has moved away from being an ad operations person, who is kind of mowing lawns, to actually sculpting and doing incredibly sophisticated things,” Smith says. “What’s happened is that the technology has taken over this shouting, screaming and negotiation.”

This shift has largely been driven by the changing habits of online consumers, who now have easier access to local and international media and entertainment sources.

“The New Zealand population isn’t only on YouTube, Facebook and TVNZ,” says Smith. “They’re on tonnes of other websites. And the increase in inventory now available is phenomenal.”

To put the scale of this into perspective, Acquire Online, “a pioneer of online display advertising in New Zealand”, recently ran a report for the 30-day period ended 15 April and found that the quantity of ad inventory available in the Kiwi programmatic market was nearing the nine billion potential impressions mark.

“A year ago, the total volume available was seven billion, five months ago it was eight billion and now it stands at 8.9 billion,” says the company’s programmatic director Zane Furtado.


Starting next Monday, ExchangeWire will publish the Latin American Weekly RoundUp, with the main stories of the data-driven advertising market in the region collected by the Gabriela Stripoli, ExchangeWire, editor, LatAm.

IAB Takes Over Open Video View Initiative, The ‘Standard Before The MRC Standard’

by Kelly Liyakasa // Monday, June 8th, 2015

A year before the Media Rating Council (MRC) released its baseline definition of video ad viewability (at least 50% in-view for two consecutive seconds), a group of video vendors and agencies had formed their own initiative dubbed Open Video View (OpenVV).

Founding consortium member TubeMogul, along with Innovid, BrightRoll, SpotXchange and LiveRail developed standards in 2013 to create consistency in the video container and source code.

On Monday, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) said it would take over the OpenVV group, with the IAB’s Tech Lab shepherding future developments.

It's all about bringing standards building process under one roof, said Scott Cunningham, head of technology and ad operations for the IAB and GM of its Tech Lab.

“We’re not interested in recreating the verification signals that the MRC is accrediting vendors, but we do want to create consistent containers as they’re deployed so we’re putting the appropriate controls in place to help mitigate these discrepancies,” Cunningham said. “It comes back to consistent deployment, so we’re eliminating, frankly, too many variables.”


OpenVV was designed as a baseline to get to a point where any two measurement firms deliver approximately the same numbers for a given set of impressions, and establish a common currency.

Although the MRC’s definition of video viewability was technically the very first iteration of a video viewability standard, Cunningham and others say there is still a ton of work to do, considering most video buys still fall in the 30% to 40% viewability range, not an idyllic 70% to 100%.

And the surge of mobile video supply brings new challenges, according to Vijay Balan, head of client services for LiveRail.

“As mobile usage continues to grow, so do different environment types such as mobile website [and] feed (which a lot of content sites are moving toward by inserting ads between content), as well as in-app,” he noted.

A priority for the IAB Tech Lab is ushering along standards in a faster and more efficient way than deploying clunky PDF files of requirements to disparate engineers and ad operations managers, which yields a patchwork of interpretations.

“Historically we probably haven’t done a really good job putting resources against these standards to evolve them as quickly as the market needs them,” said Cunningham. Hence, the development of the Tech Lab, which will oversee how technology is deployed beyond simple definitions for OpenRTB, VPAID, MRAID and other standards.

Next stop: bringing in a director of certification as the IAB erects later this year what Cunningham describes as a “third-party auditing pillar,” so companies can stack up their own deployment progress and compatibility with the IAB’s definition of MRAID, for example.

Businesses no longer have to choose between mass market reach and niche market richness.

They can have both, argues Andrew Curry.

By Andrew Curry, Director, The Futures Company

In the past, organisations that followed people's passions were considered "niche". Some weren't organisations at all, really, but groups of fans and hobbyists doing some trading on the side. The Internet has changed this entire dynamic. Instead of having to choose between "mass" and "niche", passion now has mass market potential.


That's what Philip Evans and Thomas Wurster argue, anyway.

Passion is about experience, knowledge, and connoiseurship, and there are strong consumer trends which suggest these are all on the rise. One thinks of the professionalisation of the consumer world. It is no longer enough to be an expert cook; one needs to have the same knives a professional chef expects to find in the restaurant kitchen. Or consider the average cyclist, now following a professional training programme, recording training sessions via a heart monitor and uploading the data for analysis when he gets home.

In many previously high-investment areas (think of music editing, video production), the cost of the technology needed for a professional-looking job has plummeted. The knowledge and tailoring that true expertise required used to limit reach. No more.

The knowledgeable fan or enthusiast is the curator of a far larger museum today, with a far larger and more engaged audience. Similarly, the Internet enables businesses to reach passionate consumers far more easily: such brands are "pulled" into the conversation by consumers in communities of interest, rather than having to "push" themselves using conventional marketing.

So how do we understand this in terms of proposition?

One tool is a simple model that explores levels of engagement by provider and by customer. Originally created by The Futures Company for a report published by Coca-Cola, the model indicates low engagement on the part of both supplier and customer in the bottom left. This is a passion-free zone, occupied by retailers such as Poundland in the UK and other budget stores focused on piling high and selling cheap.

The bottom right sees low engagement by the customer, but not by the provider. This is a zone of necessary but low- interest goods, provided by relatively high-engagement providers. One thinks of a supermarket such as Carrefour, for example, whose proposition is underpinned by hugely complex logistics upon which the shopper must rely.

The passion in this quadrant usually lives behind the scenes, though it sometimes surfaces in positioning statements (e.g., "passionate about the freshest cauliflower") that seem like a good idea but largely pass consumers by.

The top two zones are more interesting. The top right is the expected area for the passion-filled "rich" proposition, in which high-engagement providers and high-engagement customers meet in a passionate embrace. The Body Shop, L'Occitane and Innocent fruit smoothies live in this category. Operating successfully in this space is expensive, but offers premium returns.

In the top left hand zone we see a passion sleight of hand. Customers are engaged, but suppliers are not. This is the space in which online providers leverage enthusiastic communities to break the dilemma of reach and richness, offering depth and scale. An example in this category is Amazon, which first selected books not out of passion, but because they were the simplest products to source, store and ship. What Amazon has done brilliantly, however, is to build a space that has been colonised by enthusiasts, and it has encouraged this colonisation in the same way a gardener might design an area knowing that it will attract bees or butterflies.

Likewise, eBay created a market where none existed before: the online equivalent of the yard sale and the flea market.


In categories that have not been so easily leveraged, there is an opportunity for retailers beached by the Internet. Fans love access. And while every music shop can't have the enthusiasm of London's iconic Rough Trade, the high street or main street retailer can break out of the mindset of logistics and stock management by moving online. Curators can thrive here, linking the knowledge and commitment that exist in both the physical and digital worlds.

Source: Philip Evans and Thomas Wurster (1999), Blown to Bits. Harvard Business School Press.

Preparation, Preparation: Be prepared for any kind of interview

In person, online, by Skype and even in the dreaded group

By Ed Frankel, Director of Talent Acquisition, MediaCom USA

Well, 2013, it was a good run. As we reflect back on the past year and look ahead to the new one, remember that our resolutions don't have to just be about eating better and hitting the gym more. In fact, with many of you just returning from a holiday break, now is the perfect time to create a plan that will help you reach your career goals in 2014.

First, let's get you ready for the interview experience. There are so many things to keep in mind, so it's easy to miss something. That's why I've enlisted the help of some of my friends in the industry to share their own two cents. Through all of our conversations, there was one common theme: come prepared.

"Spending time researching the company prior to an interview, attending career fair or even networking with a current employee over coffee can be invaluable," said Liz Soucise, a recruiting manager here at MediaCom. "I'm not talking about spending hours digging through every article from the past several years, but you need to devote some time to investigating the company, its clients and the people who will be interviewing you. Checking out the company website, reading profiles on LinkedIn and doing some online searches will generally get you what you need to be prepared."

Of course, it's not just about being able to react.

"Part of your preparation should include coming up with relevant questions to ask. It's okay to ask about generic things, like company culture, but be sure to mix in some more thoughtful ones - show the interviewer that you care enough to know something about the company for whom you say you want to work," said Soucise. "For example, you could inquire about a particular client campaign you've seen, or ask something like, 'I noticed you spent much of your career at a competitor; what made you move to this company?'"

Remember, though, that being prepared isn't just about dressing the part or saying the right thing. Technology has introduced a new wave of recruiting techniques, so today's candidates need to be ready for a number of different interview settings. Let's take a look at the main ones.

The in-person, face-to-face interview

The one-on-one interview is standard fare, but you may find yourself being interviewed by a panel, and things can get tricky once a third or even fourth person joins the discussion. If there is more than one interviewer, be prepared to share your attention with each person. One person might be driving the conversation, but don't focus exclusively on him or her. Assume that every person in the room has a say in your fate, so equal attention is critical.


The phone or Skype interview

My advice for phone and Skype interviews is generally the same, and it's about eliminating any possible distractions. For example, if you have roommates, be sure to let them know you are interviewing. The last thing you want is to have a roommate or family member (or even a pet!) interrupt your meeting.

For Skype interviews, Regina Angeles, director of talent acquisition for Mindshare, encourages candidates to set the right tone at the start.

"Make sure you have a blank wall or neutral background behind you that won't put off the interviewer. Once, I interviewed a candidate who had his laptop set up in his bedroom, and I had a direct view of his unmade bed in the middle of the afternoon. It was very distracting!"

And of course, always test your connection in advance of the call.

The online interview

Employers are experimenting with new forms of online interviewing. Most are generally like Skype, but some are one-way interviews that the recruiting team can review at a later time.

According to Ty Abernethy, co-founder of Take the Interview, digital interviewing is the most rapidly growing screening method for organizations hiring campus and junior-level talent.

"Chances are you have or will soon be asked into a digital interview, whether it's a live two-way video chat or a one-way pre-recorded session," said Abernethy. "The best way to prepare is to embrace the technology and get comfortable being on a webcam before the event. Queue up your webcam and practice answering interview questions the same way you might practice in front of the mirror. Focus on looking at the camera, and play with lighting and background to provide the most optimal environment. When it's time to interview, just smile, relax and have fun."

The coffee shop

Even if an interview is conducted at a coffee shop or a diner - or even a bar - the general rules of interviewing still apply. No booze, no messy foods and put your best table manners to work. Even though the environment may be causal, don't forget that you are being assessed for skills and fit at every moment. While conversation may flow more easily, don't drop your guard too far.

Finally, regardless of the interview setting, the bottom line boils down to this: be professional and be prepared. An average candidate can be elevated by appearing informed and engaged, while someone with a stronger background and resume may be damaged by coming in without having done the right amount of homework.

So do your research and be flexible. Even if you don't get the job, look at every interview as an opportunity to practice and get better: if you do that, you'll be sitting in the catbird seat when you find the exact opportunity that's right for you.

First published in Ad Age On Campus on January 16, 2014.


The media plan of the future

By combining online and TV we can reach larger audiences, more effectively. High demand means pre-roll and mid-roll ads are a seller's market so we must consider all formats in order to achieve the best return on investment (ROI).

by Oliver Gertz, Managing Director EMEA, MediaCom Interaction

TV is still a very effective advertising tool. The power of video to tell stories and evoke emotions is unparalleled by any other push-media channel. Television sells and advertisers see the effect. So it was no surprise that the TV-advertising market was less affected by the recession and recovered faster than many other channels, notably print.

However, TV is also suffering. The effectiveness is declining as spots get lost in the clutter and consumers are increasingly multitasking, using the TV just as background noise in a similar way they used to consume radio. And younger audiences are moving online, consuming more video content online than ever before.

The question that advertisers ask media agencies is no longer "TV or online?" The question of the day is "How to best combine TV with online?"

To find the answer to that question, we must consider three things: Firstly, how do you plan TV and online reach? Secondly, how do you buy video-reach effectively? And thirdly, how do you measure effectiveness?

Planning for more reach or more engagement?

TV campaigns build reach quickly. But with increasing reach, more and more spots simply reach the same heavy viewers because TV has diminishing returns on investment.

Therefore many advertisers look for online video to increase reach while maintaining the same budget. By shifting the budget for the last TV reach-points into online video, the overall reach can be increased without spending more money. Other advertisers look for the multiplying effect of cross-media contacts. Many research studies have shown that delivering the same message through two channels is more effective than delivering it twice in the same channel. And the opportunity to interact and click onto the video to get more involved with the offer is an additional benefit. So ideally, the consumer sees the spot first on TV and then can click on the video ad if the product or offer is interesting.

Delivering reach in online video

The obvious solution is to buy video ads with the same content as on TV. Pre-roll or mid-roll ads that are shown before or during long-format TV content that is streamed on-demand on the internet. Many TV Stations are offering catch-up TV, allowing viewers to watch the shows they missed whenever and wherever they want. More production companies are also producing high-quality video content just for the web.

Pre-and mid-rolls are usually single-spots, seen in an active lean-forward mode by active viewers, generating a much higher impact than the normal TV spot within an ad break.

Advertisers do also face some challenges in this space, however. First of all, the reach of video-content is limited. Despite the enormous growth rates of video usage, most surfers still consume


more traditional text-based web than video. The demand for video advertising is strong, leading to high CPMs, much higher than for traditional TV in most markets. So alternative web options should be considered.

One alternative is to use standard online ad-formats and stream the spot into them. The advantage is nearly unlimited reach as those ads are available on all websites. Advertisers also benefit from much lower CPMs as standard ads are traded in a buyer's market where demand still is growing slower than the available ad impressions. Even though effectiveness research has shown that streaming-ads are not as impactful as pre-rolls or TV spots, they are much less expensive and therefore generate a higher ROI.

An even more powerful alternative is a new ad format, the targ.ad TV Video-Interstitial, which GroupM is rolling out exclusively for our clients. A full-screen single spot that runs on multiple websites, combining the impact of a pre-roll with the reach and cost effectiveness of a regular online ad. The targ.ad TV format also offers social engagement functions, allowing consumers to comment, rate, send to a friend and share on social networks as well.

No one could argue that a full-screen video ad is not what consumers want. However, targ.ad TV allows state-of-the art targeting on demographics, interests and limits the exposure. That leads to high acceptance rates and rather low skip-rates by the consumer.

Targeting in high-reach media

Today we buy media placements that have high reach and affinity in the defend target groups, thereby trying to minimise wastage of delivering the message to people we do not really plan to reach. While we want to reach people with our media placements we do media planning rather than audience planning. This is the same, whether we buy a TV spot, a print ad or place a banner on a website.

In digital media, however, ads are delivered in real-time to each individual user. So far, the promise of one-to-one-marketing has not really been fulfilled, but new targeting technologies are changing that. While people surf through the web, anonymous user profiles are built with their interests and combined with aggregated registration data to get demographic information.

Then, when a profile is recognised by the decision engine of the adserver, it is then decided which campaign and which message to show to the consumer. This is a fundamental change: it is not the placement of the user visits that defines which ad they see; instead it is the knowledge about the user's profile and interests. Now, we can target very specific target segments with very specific messages and offers.

We do no longer have to use generic ads, that have to appeal to a wide audience, but can give specific users specific messages.

Advertisers no longer pay for advertising contacts with people they do not want to reach, they do not have to overexpose users that are heavy media users to build reach with the infrequent users: frequency capping across publishers allows us to control the number of contact a user has with the campaign as well as the sequence of messages they see.

That is the secret sauce behind the success of rather intrusive ad formats like targ.ad TV. If the ad is well targeted, relevant and shown only once, it will not be seen as disturbance by most users.

Many publishers offer targeting but their offers are limited


Today, targeting is a standard offer from many publishers and sales-houses. However, many of those offers have limitations. In the first place, they are media-owner specific, making it harder to iron out the weaknesses of each media owner's portfolio. MSN, for example, delivers a lot of Hotmail impressions but offers more casual content around general-interest topics. So a potential car-buyer may go to special interest sites for their research - an activity that takes place outside MSN.

The second weakness is that because media owners need to know advertisers' targeting criteria to implement the campaign, the process involves handing over some very sensitive commercial insight and consumer profile information to each media partner.

The third weakness is that because different media owners define audiences in different ways, targeting across a single campaign is not as precise as it could be. As each publisher has their own targeting system, such campaigns can't take into account total reach across the digital landscape. Publisher-specific frequency capping has limited effectiveness where over-exposure can be an issue.

Predictive targeting goes beyond reaching the same user again

Behavioural targeting also restricts reach. While you are waiting for evidence of a specific behaviour, the potential audience is restricted. As a result media agencies and publishers have devised solutions to these targeting challenges.

To extend the reach of behavioural and other forms of targeting, smart use of data is applied through predictive targeting. Predictive targeting allows advertisers to match the anonymous profiles of consumers who exhibit the requisite behaviour with those who are like them in every other key respect.

This includes offline data such as psychographic profile sand purchase behaviour captured by research organisations or loyalty card companies, as well as anonymous profile information such as the search ads they have clicked on. The benefit of predictive targeting is that it extends the target audience, even for actions such as display retargeting.

Although it's possible to retarget based purely on those who have visited your e-commerce site or filled out a contact form, for example, predictive targeting adds users with similar profiles to widen the message. Likewise, search-based targeting strategies can be extended beyond those who have clicked on a Google keyword by creating a group of those who have a similar profile.

How do we measure effectiveness?

Online video, especially when delivered through sophisticated cross-publisher targeting tools, can generate enormous efficiencies for advertisers. We can increase the overall reach of the TV campaign, generate multiplying effects that drive direct response, or fill reach or frequency gaps in those segments that are harder to reach by TV, like younger segments or working women.

But the question is does it really drive effectiveness? Do we get higher awareness, ad-recall and most importantly, purchase intent or measured sales?

To answer that question, sophisticated analytics tools like econometric modelling can be applied, but such tools need continuous tracking of all relevant data points for a long time.

Quick results can be generated with campaign specific tracking. MediaCom Germany, for example, developed a powerful and rather inexpensive approach with TNS Infratest, which answers questions about the necessary advertising pressure for different objectives. What messages are mediated the


best? Is the campaign linked to the brand (brand linkage)? And of course the key question from the TV-Online combined planning perspective: How do TV and online work within the media mix?

Combined TV and online video planning is the future and it is available today

TV is moving to digital channels and will eventually become accurately targetable, a service Sky is already offering in the UK. And the internet and TV are converging, giving consumers access to content on all screens, the TV in the living room, the laptop, tablets, mobile at home and on the go.

This is the future. And it is here today. In many markets, we can reach more than 70% of the population with online video and we can increase the effectiveness of our combined TV-online campaigns. First planning tools exist, we can buy and optimise online video very well and can target specific consumer profiles with an accuracy that is unheard of in the broadcast world, and we can measure the effectiveness. Generating the specific learnings for each brand is a top priority for most of the TV and online advertisers that MediaCom works with and we are ready to deliver.

‘Ghost Malls’ Haunt Brazil

A number of malls that opened in the past few years are riddled with high vacancy rates, low traffic and anemic sales

By MARLA DICKERSON And ROGERIO JELMAYER Updated May 5, 2015 6:28 a.m. ET

SOROCABA, Brazil—Real-estate developers in Brazil nearly doubled the country’s shopping-center


space over the past decade in hopes of collecting high rents from retailers catering to the nation’s fast-expanding middle class.

Instead, many got clobbered by the country’s economic downturn.

Today, some parts of Brazil, like this city of 600,000 residents located about 60 miles west of São Paulo, are pockmarked by “ghost malls” with high vacancy rates, low traffic and anemic sales.

For developers and investors, these malls are a reminder of the dangers of getting caught up in the exuberance of growth in emerging markets. The pain is particularly severe in the nation’s second- and third-tier cities, where investors had anticipated a consumer boom that never materialized.

“Too many malls have opened, and they’re killing each other,” said Aquila Wagner, who works at a children’s clothing store in a particularly empty stretch of Villàggio Shopping, a “fashion mall” opened in Sorocaba in 2010.

More than 130 malls have opened in Brazil since early 2010, about half of them outside major metropolitan areas, according to the Brazilian unit of Cushman & Wakefield. This net addition of more than 40 million square feet of retail space has pushed up vacancy rates and weighed on rents, as the economy has weakened, particularly in outlying areas, saidAndré Germanos, the company’s director of capital markets.

Rent growth is slowing at many properties. In some cases, rents are falling. “Smaller players are having a hard time,” Mr. Germanos said. There was “some overshooting with the hope that the economy would grow forever.” Gross domestic product expanded just 0.1% last year, compared with 2.7% in 2013, according to the country’s statistical bureau, IBGE.

Brazilian shopping-center ownership is fragmented, with investors ranging from entrepreneurs and wealthy families that own a few properties to big public companies and foreign investors.

Big players include BR Malls Participações SA, Latin America’s largest shopping-center operator by number of malls. The publicly traded company owns stakes in 48 Brazilian malls, and its investors include U.S.-based investment funds from Dodge & Cox and T. Rowe Price Group Inc.

Canadian investors also are among the big players. Brazil’s Aliansce Shopping CentersSA, another publicly traded firm, is part-owned by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Since 2006, Ivanhoe Cambridge, the real-estate arm of Quebec’s pension fund, Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, has been buying and developing Brazilian shopping centers with the country’s Carvalho family. The venture owns 17 properties and has a few others in development.

The sector’s pain isn’t being distributed equally. Brazil’s eight publicly traded shopping-center operators all posted occupancies in the mid- to high-90% range in the fourth quarter of 2014.

By contrast, Plaza Itavuvu, which opened in mid-2012, is among the struggling newcomers in Sorocaba. Vacancy is about 30%, according to a management spokeswoman, who declined to provide additional information. On a recent weekday afternoon, mall workers outnumbered visitors strolling some of the quiet hallways. The food court was a sea of empty tables and closed storefronts; the only functioning restaurant was a Burger King.

Some observers predict Brazil will eventually fill its shopping-center space as the economy recovers. More than 60% of Brazil’s 200 million citizens are now considered middle class, with household


incomes ranging from about 2,000 reais to 8,640 reais a month, or roughly $650 to $2,800, according to government figures.

Also, the retail sector in Brazil is still in its infancy. The country has just 524 shopping centers, which the Brazilian Association of Shopping Centers defines as properties with at least 53,820 square feet of space.

But the recovery is expected to take longer outside of the major cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

“Vacancy is concentrated in shopping malls in Brazil’s interior, in projects by firms that lack large-scale operations and therefore have no bargaining power with retailers,” saidMarcelo Motta, a real-estate analyst with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in São Paulo.

Underutilized children’s rides at the Plaza Itavuvu mall. PHOTO: RODRIGO MARCONDES FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Development has run amok in Sorocaba. The city has eight large shopping centers, half of them built since 2010, according to a consultant.

Older Sorocaba properties are suffering, too.Elias Antonio Jose, owner of Shopping Panoramico, said 10,000 shoppers a day visited his center in the 1980s. Today, he said he is lucky to average 2,000 customers daily; more than half of his mall’s 130 stores are vacant.


To adjust, he has converted part of the mall to a hotel. Mr. Jose, 83 years old, said he is luckier than most because he has no debt. His advice to would-be developers: “Invest in big cities where you have a lot of people and foot traffic.”

Brazil’s shopping-center development accelerated after Brazil posted 7.6% GDP growth in 2010, juiced by government antipoverty programs and other stimulus measures aimed at boosting consumer spending. Brazilian developers raced to construct new retail centers in places long ignored by big operators.

But development has slowed. The Brazilian Association of Shopping Centers predicts 25 new malls will open this year, about one-third fewer than the record 38 launched in 2013.

Even that figure might be optimistic, said Carlos Medeiros, president of Rio de Janeiro-based BR Malls. “There is a clear deceleration.”

Meanwhile, for some, the slowdown is a buying opportunity, but with a focus on Brazil’s big markets. Since September, Israeli shopping-center operator Gazit-Globe Ltd., which owns properties in more than 20 countries, has purchased two São Paulo malls for a total of 350 million reais ($113.5 million) bringing its total in Brazil to six.

The company is building another shopping center in São Paulo and is on the hunt for more acquisitions in South America’s largest city.

Chaim Katzman, founder and chairman of Gazit-Globe, said São Paulo’s population of more than 11 million people, coupled with its relative scarcity of buildable space, have created “Manhattan-type density at a fraction of the price you’d pay in Manhattan.”

While Brazil’s economy is in the doldrums, “we have a rare opportunity to assemble a very, very valuable collection of irreplaceable properties in São Paulo,” Mr. Katzman said. “I have no doubt that in 20 years it is going to be just as good, or even better than it is today.”

Write to Rogerio Jelmayer at [email protected]

HOW BIG DATA AFFECTS MARKETING

7 de jun de 2015

There are many buzz terms floating around at this moment in time; The Internet of Things, virtual reality, wearable tech and last but not least big data, or should I say,BIG DATA.

So what is big data? Is it just another buzzword or is it something that is going to change our lives?

WHAT IS BIG DATA

There are a few building blocks that are the basis for opportunity in a vast range of fields. The lowest base form of opportunity is the accelerated power of the electronic chip. The exponential growth in the power of the chip branches off in all directions and opens up the ability to do incredible things. Move up one level, and we arrive at the incredible amounts of data that is used, stored and can potentially be manipulated in ways that can benefit us all. Big data may often be used as a buzz term, but the reality is, is that many businesses are using it to do incredible things. It's goal isn't as mystical as it may at first appear. It provides the ability to not only store vast amount of information, but to be able to use that information in exciting and innovative ways.


WHEN DID BIG DATA START

Technically, big data has been around for quite some time. New technology, innovative techniques and the power of the chip has given us the ability to do massively complicated data actions in relatively short periods of time. Every time an individual makes a transaction with their bank, views their details or interacts with banking staff, a record is potentially placed in a database to record the transaction. Multiply that by millions of customers and it doesn't take long for billions and even trillions of records to be stored. Getting that information out again can be quite a task if the data hasn't been stored in an intelligent manner. Summarizing the trillions of records and getting intelligent information from within it is an example of how big data has become necessary. It can turn trillions of records of relatively boring rows of data into a rich source of customer experience and analytical insights.

HOW WILL BIG DATA AFFECT EVERYBODY

The ability to extract intelligent information from massive databases will affect us all. Next time you type something in Google and get an instant result set, have a think about the complexity of what has just happened. Massive amounts of data have been analyzed and the most relevant information has almost been instantly extracted and delivered to your page. The continuing exponential power of the chip will mean that more and more can be achieved in shorter and shorter periods of time. Bigger and bigger data sets can be analyzed and information extracted in tiny periods of time. This is all thanks to big data. The art of big data is more than having massive amounts of data at your disposal, but also the design, storage and interaction with the data itself.

HOW WILL THIS CHANGE MARKETING


The way marketers are using data is changing and will change even more in the coming years. The amount of data is increasing rapidly and it is predicted that by 2020 we will have 50 times as much data as we have now.

Big data will change marketing in different ways. Marketers can get details about their customers habits, location, behavior, needs etc. They can understand the customer more than ever.

By using new technology and techniques it is now possible to target a campaign to the precise customers straight away. There is automated technology available and if you start to analyze which customers were interested in a certain post at social media, you can go even further. It is possible to not only record deep insights into customer behavior, but also analyze it and form patterns and preferences that are specifically targeted on an individual level.

The distant vision from the film Minority Report, is no longer a futuristic vision. Technology is almost in place whereby individual adverts that relate to your patterns can be projected to an individual as they carry out their daily business.

Why did the actual post work so good, and why didn't it work? By always asking yourself the question: ”What do I want to know about my customer?” you can achieve deeper and detailed insights into behavior.

An example could be at a supermarket. By analyzing customers habits about customers, they now know exactly where to place the goods and where they want the customers to buy them, by using movement analytics. Supermarkets can gain this information by collecting data about their customers habits and using it intelligently. Today's technology gives the ability to take it further down the line. The latest technology allows shops to monitor their customers behavior from the very second they enter the shop.

WHERE WILL IT END

It won't. The power of the chip will continue to increase, and the size of data stored will continue to grow. These two things will open up new opportunities and make more and more things possible. They will allow the ability to create more and more customer insight that is more complicated and Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

more accurate. We can't all create big data and we can't all design systems to manipulate it, but we will all be using it more and more, whether we realize that we are doing it or not.

Mette Keller is in charge of brand, identity and marketing at UKDK, and can be reached at [email protected]

#InnovatingCreativity

Tim lança serviço de set-top-box

12 de junho de 2015 · Atualizado às 16h48

Há um ano atrás, foi divulgado o projeto da TIM para a criação de um set-top-box, o Live Tim Blue Box. O aparelho permite acesso a serviços como Nextflix e Youtube e pode ser instalado pelo próprio usuário.


Na próxima terça-feira (16), a empresa vai apresentar a estratégia para entrar na área de entretenimento com o lançamento do serviço, que vai acontecer em parceria com provedores de conteúdo (TV Digital aberta, Netflix, YouTube e Self TV).

Rogério Takayanagi, CMO da TIM, apresentará a visão da operadora sobre novas mídias, tecnologias, aplicativos e a evolução do mercado de entretenimento. O evento, que acontecerá em São Paulo, contará também com a presença do Flávio Lang, CEO da TIM Fiber.

TV Remains Most Effective Ad Medium

by Wayne Friedman, June 9, 2015, 12:18 PM

Just in time for the TV upfront market comes a new study that shows TV continues to be “most effective advertising medium.”

A new study by marketing-analytics company MarketShare, backed by Turner Broadcasting and media agency Horizon Media TV, says TV has maintained its effectiveness at driving advertiser key performance indicators (KPIs) over the last five years.

While other media effectiveness has dropped by 10.3% for online media on average, and 22.5% for offline media (excluding TV), TV has only slipped 1.5%. This research was compiled looking at 2012-2014 versus that of 2009-2011.

All media witnessed an overall 11.5% decline during this period, which the study attributed to fractionalization of media, due to new channels/platforms in the new digital world.

In looking at similar spending levels, MarketShare says performance lift from television is seven times of paid search and three times of online for various industries, such as automotive, consumer products companies, retail, telecommunication, and financial services.

The study points to one telecommunications media plan noting if the advertiser had reduced its television budget by 20% and re-allocated those funds into online display, the advertiser would have experienced a 7% decrease in sales.

“We funded this analysis due to advertiser concern that TV effectiveness in driving ROI had decreased,” states Howard Shimmel, chief research officer, Turner Broadcasting.

Adds Eric Blankfein, chief of WHERE at Horizon Media: “Horizon’s proprietary suite of planning tools and analytics has uncovered many of these hypotheses, and we are glad to see them drawn out through this detailed analysis served to confirm our perspectives. It answers many of the questions our clients bring to us every day.”

Tags: advertising, revenue, tv Recommend (6) Print RSS All content published by MediaPost is determined by our editors 100% in the interest of our readers ... independent of advertising, sponsorships or other considerations.

Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc , June 10, 2015 at 9:39 a.m.

It's good to see that major TV interests are beginning a counterattack against the barrage of "TV is dead" proclamations we have been innundated with recently. The problem with all of these ad


effectiveness studies---whether they are funded by magazines or digital interests---and, hence show their medium in the best light----or the other way around---by TV players, hence showing that TV "wins" hands down-----is coming to grips with the various datasets utilized, the assumptions made, and the yardsticks used to judge "effectiveness".

Having reviewed many of these ROI-type studies, I have found that they tend to lack credibility when it comes to isolating the "impact" relative to cost and reach for each media component. The reason is simple. Most consumers are exposed to ad campaigns across numnerous platforms---various TV dayparts and program genres, broadcast TV and cable, magazines, digital media, etc. ---and campaigns develop their outcomes---sales -----due to other variables such as spending levels, brand image, changing consumer sentiments, competition from other products as well as rival brands, etc. All of these are intertwined in complex ways. Also in question is whether the product is a new one or and established brand with a core of loyal users, product category "elasticity"---brand loyal or not brand loyal----whether we are talking about the beginning of an ad campaign or a point where it is about to run its course and "wear out", etc.

I think that it would do the sponsors of this study some real benefit if a better explanation could be provided than I saw in the actual release, indicating how it goes about "determining" the effectiveness of advertising in one medium versus another or, within a medium like TV, how it distinguishes between the effects of exposures in late night, prime time or daytime TV and between cable and broadcast TV. Believe me, I know how difficult this request will be to fulfill, but without it, a lot of people will simply dismiss this study---as they have with others like it---as too confusing or as blatent propaganda. The latter may be an unfair verdict. Let's see.

Is there really a “more effective medium”?

Marcelo Salup Principal at MS Group LLC Thursday, June 11, 2015

In light of the article published in Mediapost yesterday: "TV Remains Most Effective Ad Medium" by Wayne Friedman, I've got to ask myself: does that Unicorn really exist?

Though I switched from creative to media decades ago –after winning 2 Addy Awards—I really never abandoned “creative” but, rather, added “media” to my mindset. Nevertheless, 30 years of media –and untold episodes of cop and lawyer shows—have made me really suspicious about studies like these.

I absolutely agree with Ed Papazian in his assessment that there are many other variables that are just not accounted for. I would just like to add three thoughts to both, the study, and Ed’s comments:

1. The size (either in area, length or dimensions) of the creative product is just not factored in. Television fills up the space with its :30 of image, sound and movement. Online is basically tiny messages. I know that there is online video and other rich media messages. However, given the viewability standards –and the ease by which we can open several windows in our browser and just wait for the ads to finish on the other windows—the delivery of the message has got to affect results. After all, every effective direct response message has something in common: enough space to tell a story and its selling points.

2. The quality of the creative is not factored in. To me, first, this speaks of the lack of spine of many creatives and creative shops. If I ran a large creative shop, I would be all over these studies pointing out the individual achievements and results of better creative vs. mediocre or plain bad messages. Babelfish Articles Jan 2015-June 2015 7-6-15

The same commercial pod (or website, or mobile web page) that carries one of those awful local pizza spots will carry a fantastic Jaguar spot or something. The quality of the creative has got to affect results.

3. With so many unknown variables and unmeasured factors, it seems counter-productive (some of my friends in the industry call it “shooting themselves in the foot” –or higher) for advertisers to surgically segment all the many different ad silos rather than join them into a single, coherent, effective unit. After all, if every factor has an effect on ad effectiveness, it would make much more sense to control them all from a single source.

So… to the original question… Is there a more effective medium? I sincerely doubt it. There is probably more effective and less effective messaging. In another century perhaps the medium was the message. I think that, today, the message is the message.

Comments: Barry Cohen

Media Pro Driving Traffic and Sales

The most effective medium is the one for the job at hand. Decide whether you need to: 1. Defend a territory 2. Introduce a new product 3. Expand your geography 4. Attract a new user group. Then you can select the appropriate medium for the job. And yes, the effectiveness of ANY medium is only as good as the message.


Babelfish Articles #12 Jan-June 2015

Marketing

Transcript of Babelfish Articles #12 Jan-June 2015