Edelman Hires VivaKi AOD Exec; Shopping Beacon

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

Paid Hire

PR company Edelman has hired VivaKi AOD’s Chris Paul to helm its budding paid media practice, according to Ad Age. “The volume of paid work we’re doing is increasing,” said Kevin King, global chair of Edelman’s digital practice group. “It’s happening organically.” A lot of that paid media is being driven by social, King told Ad Age. Read more.

Shopping Beacon

Shopkick is capitalizing on Bluetooth Low Energy, which Apple included in iOS 7 as iBeacons, to bring shoppers discounts for products they are interested in while they are in stores. The technology isn’t new, but the retail application is. Macy’s is a closed beta partner, but the service will open up to others including Best Buy and Target, according to TechCrunch. The Shopkick API will allow companies to customize which deals, alerts and loyalty points are sent to a customer. Read more.

T-commerce

Australian retailer Glue Store has locked arms with ShopReply to let users buy clothing featured on TV through email, text or Twitter. “We believe that Twitter has the propensity to become a significant ecommerce channel capable of processing enormous transaction volumes by leveraging massive real-time TV audiences who are already tweeting, giving these audiences the ability to transact in real time when they are emotionally engaged in content,” Brad Linderberg, the CEO and founder of ShopReply, told Australian publisher CMO. The company has also worked with magazines to allow users to shop directly from the pages of the publication. Read more.

Viewability Update

Marketers will have to wait a bit longer for the Media Rating Council’s (MRC) blessing on viewability measurements. Instead of lifting its Viewable Impression Advisory at the end of this year as initially expected, the MRC says it will do so in Q1 2014. After spending roughly a year reviewing vendors’ various methods for determining whether consumers saw an online ad, the “key remaining issue is to reconcile the viewability measurements of different vendors,” according to a released statement. “When that is complete, the reconciliation process will make it possible to explain and fully understand differences in viewable impression counts.” Read more.

Social Steals

Snapchat has turned down multiple billion-dollar acquisition offers because it thinks it’s worth more. PandoDaily’s Alex Park agrees, reasoning that Snapchat offers one-to-one marketing opportunities that even companies like Facebook can’t match. Snapchat won’t replace Facebook, but it can certainly take a slice of its market share, and that’s why interest is high. Read more.

You’re Hired!