PubMatic Responds; Vox Media Buying Curbed Network

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

PubMatic Responds

In a blog post on Friday, sell-side platform PubMatic responded to critical comments made by AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley in an AdExchanger interview last week. The blog states, “We respect the business that Brian has built in display, but his comments were troubling. He basically told publishers to drop dead, declaring them irrelevant and not offering them any real capabilities. We take publisher needs seriously…” Read more.

Real-Time Inflation Index

Founding CEO of Metamarkets, David Soloff, has turned his attention to his new company, Premise, and in a New York Times feature article he takes the wraps of his stealthy enterprise. The NYT explains “the premise”, “By analyzing the photos of prices and the placement of everyday items like piles of tomatoes and bottles of shampoo and matching that to other data, Premise is building a real-time inflation index to sell to companies and Wall Street traders, who are hungry for insightful data.” Read more. Big data gets bigger.

Programmatic And The CMO

In an article in the UK’s MarketingWeek, reporter Ronan Shields says recent agreement over brand safety standards for display media in the UK won’t make programmatic media any better for brand marketers. He writes, “I think high-profile scares in recent history will further stall ad budgets from going programmatic. For instance, the technical jargon of content verification tools may be music to the ears of a media agency’s head of digital trading, but how can they sell this in to CMOs when the memories of high-profile brands’ ads appearing against obscene content linger[?]” Read it.

The Prada Private Exchange

From TVN’s Future of Video Upfront in Sydney last week, AdNews’ Brandon Coyne reports panelist observations on programmatic media momentum: “Private exchanges are like a Prada store where only discerning customers are invited and there is no question of anything but a fixed price. Meanwhile private marketplaces are like boutique stores that stock a range of luxury brands.” Private exchanges have picked up speed. Read more on TV-online convergence, too.

Targeting Waste

Advertisers have more than bots to worry about, cautions Chen Wang, IRI’s principal for new media solutions — they should also think about their poor targeting. He told Adweek’s Mike Shields, “Marketers are wasting valuable media dollars on consumer segments unlikely to yield an acceptable return.” Wang found that some online advertisers waste half of their efforts on consumers who are not at all interested in their product. Read more.

Storytelling Roll-Up

According to The New York Times, Vox Media will announce today that it’s buying the local-blog-with-attitude network Curbed for between $20 million and $30 million. Vox CEO Jim Bankoff tells the NYT “that the Curbed brands were a smart addition because they coveted the same kind of reader.” He added, “Both Vox and Curbed value storytelling and as a result have attracted the otherwise hard to reach young, affluent, social consumers. We think this combined expanded platform will clearly attract premium advertisers.” Read more.

Attributing Online Offline

Commenting on new comScore data showing US desktop-based ecommerce has grown 13% in the last year to $47.5 billion, analyst Greg Sterling notes on his blog, “Once again, as people are getting very excited about these numbers, I feel compelled to point out that this remains a fraction of local sales and Internet-influenced offline buying. The overwhelming use of smartphones in stores (60% to 80%) and multiscreen shopping means that the consumer path to purchase this holiday season will be more ‘considered’ and convoluted than ever. However it doesn’t change the fact that most buying will still take place locally, in stores.” Read it.

Getting More Mobile

WPP has made an acquisition of the mobile variety, scooping up brand app builder Bottle Rocket. According to the press release, the company’s unaudited revenue for the past 12 months was $17 million, and they work with clients such as Scripps, National Geographic and NBC Universal. WPP acquired a minority stake in another mobile company in August, Mutual Mobile Inc., as agencies scramble to stay in front of client demand for effective mobile solutions. Read the release.

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