AdExchanger: News and Views on Data-Driven Digital Advertising

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FTC Probes Google Display Biz

The Federal Trade Commission is prepping a new antitrust probe into Google’s display ad dominance, just four months after ending its last investigation of the company (which found no wrongdoing). Bloomberg sources say, “FTC investigators are examining whether Google is using its position in U.S. display ads...to push companies to use more of its other services.” Read it. It’s been six years since the FTC approved Google’s DoubleClick merger, calling the display space “dynamic.”

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Programmatic Out-Of-Home

Signs on sticks – can you buy them programmatically? Xaxis thinks so. The WPP trading desk is adding out-of-home buys courtesy of sister company Spafax and its geo-based audience segments (with Vistar Media’s help – Digiday). The venues: “taxis, shopping malls, doctor’s offices, stadiums, gas stations, office buildings and hotels.” Press release. Volume is about 1.4 billion monthly impressions across 100,000 screens. At a glance, this appears to be a data enhancement more than an addressability shift. WSJ recently covered Xaxis and Spafax’s moves in radio and OOH (out-of-home). Read that. Meanwhile, in other OOH news, OOH buying platform AdStruc has integrated into agency workflow system Mediaocean.

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Elementary, My Dear Watson

From yesterday’s Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, supercomputer “Watson” is apparently coming to marketing in a much bigger way. An IBM release offers, “Watson will serve as an assistant in helping line of business leaders from CMOs, customer service agents and sales leaders transform the customer experience...” What’s that mean, you ask? A big computer is going to help the marketer figure out the “big data” stew. A keyword to all this is improving “engagement” with consumers at-scale. Read more on GigaOm. Will they become an acquirer in the ad tech world to pull in the paid media channel? Seems possible. In the meantime, download IBM’s new 2013 marketing report.

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Open Sourcing RTB

Google is offering its RTB technology in a roll-your-own format. Developers can access the company’s customizable toolkit for real-time bidding applications using tech from DoubleClick and Google Cloud Platform. A Google developer blog post says, “With Open Bidder buyers can significantly lower the latency of their bidders by leveraging Google Compute Engine’s scale, speed, and proximity to DoubleClick Ad Exchange.” Read more.

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Yahoo Youth Movement?

Perhaps a chance to capture a younger audience, Yahoo is buying blogging platform Tumblr. The WSJ says the $1.1 billion deal is done (subscription) and so does the NY Times.  All Things D broke the story late last week and referenced a quote by CFO Ken Goldman at [JP Morgan’s Global Technology conference] as a driver of the acquisition: “One of our challenges is we have had an aging demographic. Part of it is going to be just visibility again in making ourselves cool, which we got away from for a couple of years.” Read more. A growing revenue model (advertising, presumably) and management structure need to be worked out at Tumblr. Nevertheless, it’s seeing consistent traffic growth. More from Forbes. A special “product” announcement is scheduled for today by Yahoo. Last but not least, Businessweek explores Tumblr’s porn “challenges.”

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New AdMob

Google unveiled a rebuild of AdMob at its I/O conference today. The changes, which incorporate tech from AdSense, are all about optimizing conversion for advertisers and boosting yield for app developers. There are some bells and whistles here too, such as better filters for developers that want to slam the door on low-rent ads for dating sites, mortgage re-fi offers, etc. A million or so AdWords advertisers now have access to AdMob inventory. Blog post.

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The Trading Desk Evolution

Companies like Interpublic’s Campbell-Mithun are cutting out what they see as middlemen – agency trading desks – and building their own digital trading operations, reports Ad Age’s Alexandra Bruell. Bringing the trading desks in-house is “about an evolution from a lot of third-party data to really deep integration with first-party data,” Chris Wexler, director of media strategy and interactive for Compass Point Media (Campbell-Mithun's media buying and planning group), tells Bruell. “This is the way media buying and selling is going. Offloading this capability long-term isn't the right strategy." Read the rest.

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Extending GRPs To Mobile

In their TV “Upfront” presentation yesterday, Nielsen announced that it is extending its Online Campaign Ratings product to mobile apps. "What’s that mean?" you ask: “ABC will be able to measure audience demographics and understand the reach and frequency of online campaigns across ABC content on the Web and in mobile apps.” Read the release. Marketers are looking for better ways to extend and understand their media buys across traditional and digital channels.

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