Selling Sales; Agency Gardening

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

Selling Sales

For publishers who are still stuck trying to figure out how to build a programmatic sales system, the IAB has released a document briefly outlining different stages of the process. The paper breaks down the sales building process into three steps. The IAB also stresses the fact that people need not fear losing their jobs to machines, as there is still the need for the human element. Read more (pdf).

Agency Gardening

Publicis says it is weeding out some inefficiencies ahead of its merger with Omnicom by streamlining its US and Canada operations, placing them both under the Publicis North America umbrella. A shifting around of key executives will also occur as Publicis combines its operations, according to Ad Age. Read more. Together, Publicis and Omnicom hope to cut costs by $500 million in five years.

Ad Lag

Publishers may be embracing mobile video as another way to get content in front of users, but ad companies aren’t catching up as quickly, according to Digiday. “The future of creative is smaller stuff,” said Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus. “But culturally, that’s not the way a lot of agencies work.” An example of video ads gone wrong would be placing two 45-second prerolls in front of a two-minute clip. Read more.

Anti-IPO

Despite the trend of video company IPOs, IP-based video firm Ooyala is going to hold out and take in $43 million in funding from Australian telco Telstra instead, according to AllThingsD. “I wanted to be able to go public when it’s the right time to, instead of having to,” said CEO Jay Fulcher. Ooyala’s roster includes ESPN, Bloomberg and Comedy Central. Read more. Convergence lurks.

Acqui-Strategy

Marissa Mayer’s small startup acquisition spree as CEO of Yahoo has gained the company considerable press, which is likely part of the strategy — but there are methods behind the madness, says Wired. The most obvious is a desire to improve its mobile position and cultivate new talent, but there could be underlying motivations like building small teams that compete internally and produce solutions for Yahoo. Larger acquisitions, such as Tumblr, have Mayer publicly saying she will encourage autonomy, too. Read more. It’s another way of potentially shaking remaining Y! cobwebs.

Not Gone ’Soft

The tea leaves at Microsoft might suggest a move away from advertising (Atlas divestiture, IE’s tough cookie stance, aQuantive write-down). Au contraire, writes display ad GM Greg Nelson in a blog post. “Our digital advertising business has never been more important to the company, more integral to our future, than it is today.” The vision now is around creating value in the mobile ecosystem. Read it.

Video Share

According to data that eMarketer has cobbled together, YouTube is expected to rake in $5.6 billion in gross ad revenue this year. The company is expected to net $1.96 billion, which is a 65.5% increase from last year, pushing its global ad market share above Twitter, AOL and Amazon. See the charts.

You’re Hired!